“So what did you mean, you don’t want to talk about it?” Tony Moretti repeated, glancing down at Anthony’s plate and scowling to see the bacon supply completely depleted.
Anthony scooped a mouthful of Swiss cheese omelet into his mouth before sitting back and reaching for his coffee. “It means that Ma doesn’t like cop talk at the table.”
“Riiiiight,” Elena Moretti said from Anthony’s left side. “Because you guys always respect Mom’s no-cop-talk rule.”
Anth took another sip of coffee and exchanged a look and a shrug with Luc across the table.
Their sister made a good point.
In a family where four out of five siblings were living in New York, and three out of those four were with the NYPD, cop talk was likely.
And when the family patriarch was the recently retired police commissioner?
Cop talk wasn’t just probable, it was inevitable.
Still, it was worth a shot to throw up his mother’s token rule of “no cop talk.” Especially when he didn’t want to talk.
About any of it.
It had been a long time since he’d been the one in the hot seat, and he wasn’t at all sure that he cared for it.
Scratch that. He was sure.
He hated it.
But his father could be like a dog with a bone when it came to his sons’ careers. And today, like it or not, it was Anthony under the microscope.
He surrendered to the inevitable.
“Dad, I told you. It’ll get handled.” He went for another sip of coffee, only to find his cup was empty. Diner fail.
He scanned the dining room for the waitress, partially because he wanted more coffee, partially because he wanted a distraction. Partially because—
“You’ve been saying it’ll get handled for weeks,” Tony said, refusing to let the matter drop.
“Yeah, Captain. You’ve been saying that for weeks.” This from Anthony’s other brother, Vincent. Two years younger than Anth, Vin was a homicide detective and the most irritable and irreverent member of the family. And the one least likely to kiss Anth’s ass.
If Anthony was totally honest, he was pretty sure that most of his younger siblings respected him, not only because he was the highest ranking active family member, but simply because he was the oldest. He was the one they’d come to when they needed to hide that broken vase from Mom, or when they were scared to death to tell Dad about that D in chemistry, or in the case of his brothers, when it was time to learn their way around the female anatomy.
But Vincent didn’t respect anyone. Not even big brother. Vin was always the first to jump at the chance to gently mock Anthony’s status as captain.
A title that had been hard-earned, and still felt new. As though it could be ripped away at any time.
Which was exactly the reason his father was on his ass right now. Anthony had passed his captain’s test three months ago and had every intention of climbing the ladder all the way to the top. The very top.
It was a path Anth had never questioned. A path that up until recently, had been remarkably smooth.
And then…
And then Smiley had happened.
“Well surely you’ve got a couple leads to go on,” Tony said, leaning forward and fixing Anthony with a steady look.
Anthony looked right back, hoping the bold gaze would counteract the hard truth. That Anth didn’t have a damn clue who or where Smiley was.
For the past two months—the majority of Anthony’s tenure as captain of the twentieth precinct—the Upper West Side had been plagued by a smug and relentless burglar.
Nickname? Smiley. Courtesy of the idiotic yellow smiley-face sticker he left at each of his hits.
The plus side, if there was one, was that Smiley hadn’t proven dangerous. If it had been a violent criminal on the loose, Anth’s ass would have been on the line weeks ago.
But still. It had been eight weeks since Smiley first hit, and the man was getting bolder, hitting three brownstones last week alone.
And Anth wasn’t even close to catching him. Neither was anyone else in the department. Hence why number two on his life priorities—the NYPD—was making him crazy recently.