Page 143 of La’Belle Mafia

“You good?” Marco asked when I got in the car.

I looked out the rear window but saw no trace of the man from the store.

“Call Dez,” I said as I buckled my seatbelt.

“Belle—”

“Just call him.” I opened the bag of chips while he called Dez.

“What’s up?” Dez picked up on the third ring.

“What kinda shit you got going on, Cardez?” I asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“Why is some old nigga approaching me in the deli about you?” I popped a chip into my mouth and bit into the pickle at the same time.

“Who approached you?” he asked tersely.

“He didn’t tell me his name, but he told me to tell you that he could touch anything of yours, including your bitch,” I said, leaving out the part about how he made my skin crawl.

“Marco, why weren’t you in there with her?”

“She was just running in for a snack⁠—”

“It’s not his fault,” I interjected. “And it doesn’t matter, who was that Dez? What’s going on?”

“Bring her to the office,” Dez instructed Marco, ignoring my question.

“On the way.”

Marco pulled into the underground lot of a building on the Upper East Side. We took the elevator to the tenth floor. The doors opened to a sleek, brightly lit lobby with “Montague Holdings” in bold letters above the front desk.

The receptionist looked up when we stepped out of the elevator and straightened immediately.

“Hey, Marco,” she said with a bright smile.

“‘Sup, Angie.” He nodded toward the doors down the hall. “His office is the second door on the right. I’ll wait out here.”