Tangled Web (The Cortell Brothers #6) - Giulia Lagomarsino Page 0,2
said, like he could hardly believe it, but I knew he was fucking with me. “And Joe kidnapped a woman and held her at his apartment.”
“Right, like Joe could ever do anything like that,” I snorted. “You know he’s the most womanthetic of all of us.”
“Womanthetic?”
“Yeah, you know, he sympathizes with them the most out of any of us.”
Jack grunted before taking a sip of his coffee. “I would have assumed that was Eric.”
“Nah, Joe’s a big puppy dog. He fell hard for Sofia the minute he had her locked away in his apartment.”
“So he did kidnap her.”
My eyes went wide and I shook my head. “Uh…”
“And then there’s a story circulating that all of you went to her house in the city and kidnapped her for a second time.” He tsked as he shook his head. “Two kidnapping charges would not look good.”
“Alright, I get it. You’re pissed at all of us and you want to ruin our lives. Look, I’ll do you a solid and make sure to beat them up the next time I see them.”
“Now you’re threatening others,” Jack sighed. “Well, I think I’m going to have to take you downtown.”
My jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.”
“You just admitted to a police officer that you were going to go out and assault not one, but six other men. Now, I just can’t let that happen.”
He stood and pulled out his cuffs, tapping them from one hand to the next.
“Are you gonna do something about this?” I asked the kid, like he could actually do something.
He shrugged and pulled out his own little set of handcuffs. “Can I do it, Daddy?”
“You want to cuff him?” he asked his son.
Brody nodded excitedly. Jack waved him over with a grin. “Well, let me show you how it’s done.”
He looked at me and I just knew he was waiting for me to resist. The fucker wasn’t actually arresting me, but he wanted to have some fun with his kid, and he would no doubt walk me the four blocks to the police station, letting everyone see me handcuffed.
But I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. I grinned and stood, folding the paper before setting it on the table. “Sure, kid. You want to do the cuffs yourself?”
“Can I?” he asked excitedly.
“Of course!” I grinned, much to Jack’s dismay. If he thought he was going to anger me, he was wrong. I could do this all day. Well, if I didn’t have to work. But I didn’t have another meeting until tomorrow, so I was good for an overnight stay, if that’s the way Jack wanted to play this.
I turned toward the diner window and nodded to the people around me as Jack explained to his kid how to put the handcuffs on. I winced when he closed them just a tad too tight.
“Yeah, you want to make sure they’re extra tight so the perp doesn’t get away,” Jack said, pulling on my shoulder to back me up. “What do you say we walk him back to the station?”
Brody nodded excitedly.
“Hey, Brody.” He turned and looked at me. “Now, when we get out there, you have to start telling the whole town how you took me down. Make it a good story, huh?”
He nodded excitedly, but then frowned. “What should I say?”
I shrugged. “Maybe I was robbing a bank when you caught me. Ooh, or I was stealing all the pies of the day out of the bakery cabinet!”
Jack shoved me forward, growling in my ear. “Don’t make friends with my kid.”
“Then don’t put me in the position to do it,” I retorted.
“You know, I think I liked it a lot better when I couldn’t understand what the fuck you said.”
“Ah, well, you’ll have to thank Eric. Yeah, he got me this great book—“
“A dictionary?”
I frowned. “No. Why does everyone always think that?”
“Because it doesn’t seem like you’ve ever seen one.”
“Hey, now. Let’s keep the low blows for the ring.”
He shoved me through the door and Brody immediately started spinning a tale of how I showed up at the diner to steal a pie, and when he approached, my fangs came out and he had to drive a stake through my chest to stop me from stealing the pies. Then his dad came and arrested me.
I nodded to the people as we passed, glad they were all getting some joy out of this. Yeah, it was a little humiliating, but if I kept thinking about how much fun Brody was