Page 93 of City Of Thieves

“Renzo, stop.” He places a hand on my shoulder, his stony expression softening. “Guilt is a useless emotion.”

“Says the man who’s never felt it.”

He lets out a wistful laugh. “I lived a very different life before you were born, Renzo. Yourmother may be my greatest love, but she wasn’t my first.” He drops his hand and sweeps it across his jaw in a gesture that mirrors my own. “Your grandfather demanded every captain bring an individual ‘skill’ to the organization, and mine happened to be arson. If someone neglected to play by his rules, they met an unfortunate and unidentifiable end.”

The confession lands on me like a lead weight. “You burned them alive?”

“Sometimes. Other times it was just a statement.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“One restaurant owner refused to pay, so I torched the place… I didn’t know she was inside.” His jaw is working hard to contain his pain. “I carried that guilt for a long time until I met your mother. She helped me see that I can’t change the past, Renzo. The best anyone can hope for is to take control of the present and make it right.”

I hold his stare. “And the future?”

“I guess that’s up to you.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Renzo

I leaveAtlantic City and head Northeast, approaching the Hudson at around four p.m. and reaching Manhattan by five.

I park up a couple of blocks from 57thStreet and check my weapon before exiting the vehicle. I’m leaving nothing to chance. Not with whom I’m about to meet. Men who sell respectability with a pledge and a pin are just Underground Kings with less interesting social lives and sharper suits.

I don’t buy his illusion for a second. He smiles pretty for the camera, and he says all the right things, but it’s only to divert attention away from his Colombian cartel kingpin buddy who’s busy importing half a billion dollars’ worth of coke into the country each month.

Senator Rick Sanders has made himself an empire out of smoke and mirrors, but everything shatters if you aim a bullet at it.

The doorman eyes me warily as I approach the building. I’m not wearing a ten-thousand-dollar suit today, and therefore, I don’t belong.

“I’m here to see Senator Sanders.”

“Is he expecting you, sir?”

“No, but I’m betting in about sixty seconds, you’ll be calling an elevator down for me. Tell him it’s Renzo Marchesi.”

“If you don’t mind waiting here, Mr. Marchesi,” he says frostily.

I watch him pick up the phone and call through to the penthouse. The conversation is predictably brief before he’s replacing the receiving and ushering me toward the elevators. I make a point of checking my watch as he presses the call button.

“I stand corrected... That only took ten.”

I travel up to the penthouse alone, bracing myself for violence as the doors slide open. What I get is an empty lobby with more marble than a Greek temple, and the painting I’ve spent the last week chasing halfway across the world resting innocently against the wall in front of me.

I step out of the carriage to take a closer look, and a shadow catches in my peripheral vision.

Fuck.

A beat later, there’s a quick draw, and I find myself crossing guns with the very man I came to see.

“You’re a long way from New Jersey, Mr. Marchesi,” Sander says, flexing his hand around the grip of his Colt 1911, looking more like a black-haired devil than the average bloated politician.

Clearly, sin is the new Botox for the ages.

“And you’re a long way from morality, Mr. Washington D.C.,” I counter, my Glock 17. sitting pretty in my hand as I stare down the barrel of his gun. “But who gives a fuck about the distance when there’s this much fun.”

“Do you kiss my daughter with that mouth?”