Free The Heart of A Killer by Jaci Burton

murderer?”
    Gabe leaned to his left, punched a few buttons and knocked out Dante’s player on the game. “No, I prefer guns. You don’t have to get as close to the victim that way.”
    Dante laughed. “Funny. But these condos are upscale, so you must be doing something.”
    “Yeah, I’m doing something. Mostly freelance.”
    Gabe killed Dante’s last player. Dante cursed. “Freelance sounds like illegal. What are you into?”
    “You sound like Anna, always asking questions.”
    “I’m not a cop, though. And you’re working for the Bertuccis now?”
    Gabe started the next game. “Yeah. Paolo Bertucci. He runs the mob here in the city.”
    “Your boss?”
    “Yeah.”
    Not the line of work Dante expected Gabe to get into. “For how long?”
    “About two years.”
    “Good work I guess.”
    “It pays the bills.”
    Working with the mob could be lucrative business. It could also get someone killed. “What do you do for Paolo Bertucci?”
    Gabe was focused on the game, his fingers flying on the controller. Dante was trying to keep up, but Gabe was kicking his ass.
    “Jack-of-all-trades. Anything from running errands to enforcer duty.”
    “You like the job?”
    “Like I said…it pays the bills.”
    Working for the mob also meant you kept your mouth shut, and Gabe wasn’t stupid. Still…
    “You think Bertucci’s connections in drugs had anything to do with George’s death?”
    Gabe paused the game, shifted his gaze to Dante. “I don’t know. He moves drugs in this city. Doesn’t mean he’s directly involved. He leaves that to the peons.”
    “Like you?”
    Gabe laughed. “I’m not a drug dealer, man.”
    Which meant Gabe was higher up on the Bertucci food chain than just a peon.
    They used to be as tight as brothers. Real brothers, not the foster brothers they had been. There had been no secrets between them. They’d known everything about each other, had spent many nights up in their room in the Clemons house where they’d been fostered sharing all the shit they’d been through as kids. It had bonded them because their hells of abuse and shitty childhoods had been so similar.
    And now they were strangers circling each other, neither of them willing to divulge their secrets.
    Dante leaned back on the sofa and dragged his fingers through his hair. “Not much like the old days, is it?”
    “Guess not.”
    “You into something big?” Dante knew he had no right to ask, especially since he hadn’t told Gabe shit about himself.
    “Just stuff I don’t want to talk about. With you, particularly, since I don’t know where the hell you’ve been the past twelve years.”
    “You’ve been here the whole time?”
    “No. Left right after…right after the thing went down with Anna. I had to get the hell out. That whole scene freaked me out.”
    Damn. Gabe had skipped town the same time he had. “I didn’t know you’d left, too.”
    Gabe slanted him a look. “I didn’t know about you, either, until after I came back. Where’d you go?”
    “Dallas first. Big city, easy to get lost in. Figured I should get out of here, give Anna some space. I thought if I wasn’t around that whole mess would just disappear. Guess you must have had the same thought. How long did you stay gone?”
    “I’ve been back here two years. I guess we all need to come home eventually, huh?”
    Dante smiled at that. “Ellen asked me to come back for her and George’s anniversary.”
    “Man, that shit sucks for her.”
    “It does.” He didn’t even want to think about it. “Anyway, I agreed to come back because I figured it was time anyway.”
    Gabe nodded. “So we both left right after the attack.”
    “Looks like it. Roman and Jeff never left, though?”
    “No, they both stayed.”
    “Nothing is like I expected it to be,” he said.
    “Why? Because you didn’t get a big welcome-home party?”
    He shot Gabe a look. “No. I don’t know what I expected. Sure as hell didn’t expect to find out Anna was a