Page 20

Chapter 20

SALVATORE

My eyes are on the dancer spinning around the pole, but I’m not really watching him. Being at Wild without Dante up on the stage feels all kinds of wrong. It’s only been a week of the month-long strict rest Biaggio ordered, and my angel is already climbing the walls. I don’t like to see him bored and frustrated, but I’m more than happy to know he’s safe at home with Luca keeping a close eye on him when I can’t until the Don issue is resolved.

Alessio tosses a newspaper onto the table and drags his chair out, flipping it around so he can straddle it.

“That your work, Sparrow?” He taps the headline on the front page.

Third Body Found in Apparent Motorcycle Club Killing Spree

The accompanying photo is of an unfortunate looking man on a Harley with a scowl on his grizzled face. Sparrow leans over the table to get a closer look while Xaviaro silently takes his seat, his face the usual impassive mask I’ve come to expect from Lorenzo’s trigger man and best friend.

Sparrow rakes his fingers through his hair and then shakes his head.

“You think I’d be sloppy enough to leave my kills just laying around like that?”

Xaviaro snorts, but his expression doesn’t so much as twitch. “Never.”

A devilish grin spreads over Sparrow’s face, and he shrugs, sharing a lingering look with his man for several seconds before turning his attention back to Alessio.

“I’d love to buy the guy a drink though. Whoever he is.”

“They’re calling him The Ghost in the papers,” Alessio says. “There are some interesting theories about him on the online forums.”

“The online forums?” I echo. “Since when are you a true crime junkie?”

Alessio ducks his head, but not before I see a flicker of a grin on his face. “What, Xaviaro is the only one who’s allowed to be fascinated by the vicious little vigilantes in this city?”

Xav rumbles another sound that’s almost a laugh. Sparrow plops himself down right on the hitman’s lap and Alessio folds the newspaper up, tucking it inside his jacket just as Lorenzo and Elio join us. They take their usual seats, and Lorenzo meets my gaze with a nod of acknowledgment.

“How’s Dante?”

“Healing. The swelling and pain are getting better every day.”

“Glad to hear it.” His tone is brusque, but that he even cared to ask about Dante means a lot. Lorenzo turns his attention towards Alessio. Apparently, he can sense the boss’s mood too, because he straightens up in his backward seat. “What did you manage to figure out?”

“Not much.” Alessio’s lips twist in an apologetic grimace and he pulls out the same reports we were looking through the other day before I got the call from Dante. “I found the spot where the discrepancies happened, but I can’t explain them.” He flips through the pages, pointing out a few places to Lorenzo, and Elio leans in to get a better look too. “There’s been money transferred into this account from an unknown account every few weeks for the past three months. I don’t know where it’s coming from or why and neither does Sal.” Alessio looks to me for confirmation, and I nod.

“No one other than the people at this table have access to this account, so if we don’t know where it’s coming from, that raises some red flags,” I add, even though I’m sure Lorenzo and Elio have already come to that conclusion themselves.

“I don’t like it,” Lorenzo agrees.

“Should we shut down the account?” Elio asks, looking at Lorenzo, who’s still glaring at the reports with a furrowed brow.

“Not to step on your dick or anything,” Sparrow says, leaning across the table with his hair falling over his forehead and his usual ballsy bravado, “but if you shut down the account, you won’t find out who hacked you or why.”

Lorenzo’s frown deepens. “You think you can find out where the transfer originated from?”

Sparrow shrugs. “Shouldn’t be that hard. Give me a few days?”

“A few days,” Lorenzo agrees with a hard edge of finality.

Sparrow gives him a lazy salute and sits back.

With a tired sigh that I’m not sure anyone else notices, Lorenzo passes the reports across the table to Sparrow and straightens his tie.

“Next order of business. Xaviaro, anything to report on Cian?”

“Not much.” There’s a reluctant twist in his expression as he answers. “He’s careful. Too careful. He never goes anywhere alone, sticks to noisy public places, buys rounds of drinks for the whole bar when he goes out. It’s almost like he’s trying to make sure he always has an alibi. If I had to bet on it, he’s definitely up to something, but I haven’t been able to get anything concrete.”

“Dante’s attacker had red hair,” I say when Xaviaro finishes.

Lorenzo’s eyebrows inch up his forehead. “You think it could have been Cian?”

“It’s possible. Or any one of the two dozen gingers running around doing Declan Fitzpatrick’s bidding.” I rub my hand along my jaw and bounce my knee under the table.

The icy chill that ripples through everyone at the table is almost palpable.

“If the Fitzpatricks are directly attacking our people, that’s a declaration of war.” Elio has always been the easygoing younger brother and second-in-command, but right now he sounds just like Lorenzo.

“Settle,” Lorenzo says firmly, his voice so low I almost can’t hear it over the din of the club. “We don’t know anything yet, and we’re not going to rush in guns blazing like a bunch of impulsive idiots. It is possible that there are people in Wildcliff with red hair who have no association with the Fitzpatricks, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Elio mutters, and Lorenzo gives a brief nod of satisfaction.

“I agree, the connection is suspicious. We’ll get to the bottom of it,” he says definitively, then looks at Xaviaro. “And we’ll start with Antonio. I trust you can incentivize him to share what he knows about Dante’s attack.”

“No problem. I’ll pick him up when we’re done here and have a little chat with him.” Xaviaro rolls his head from side to side like he’s limbering up and the wicked grin returns to Sparrow’s lips.

Lorenzo shifts the meeting to standard reporting and regular business, but my knee continues to bounce under the table. There are too many missing pieces of this puzzle still, but something is itching at the back of my brain, telling me it’s all connected. Keeping secrets from Enzo is only going to come back to bite me in the ass. By the time the meeting draws to an end, I know what I have to do.

Sparrow kisses Xaviaro on the cheek. “I have to deal with something first, then I’ll come meet you.”

Xav grunts and nods, playfully swatting Sparrow on the ass as he walks away.

“Lorenzo,” I call out as everyone else starts to disperse. “Do you have a minute?”

He doesn’t hesitate to pull his chair back out and gesture to the one Elio just left empty.

“What can I do for you?”

I take Elio’s seat, hoping it’s not obvious that I’m starting to sweat. With so much uncertainty and bullshit going on right now, Lorenzo could easily think that Dante is everything Antonio tried to imply. But if Don is somehow all tangled up with the Fitzpatricks, it’ll only look worse for Dante and for me when it comes out.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you, but I want to change that right now.” I hold his gaze so he can see the truth in my eyes. I’m not here to bullshit him, I’m here to set things straight.

His brow creases. “Go on,” he says coolly.

I clear my throat. “The impromptu marriage in Los Vespar… there’s more to the story.”

He lets out a sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose. “For the love of fuck, Sal, if you tell me you forced that man into a marriage he didn’t want, I really will shoot you.”

I huff out a laugh. “No, Enz, it’s not like that. He… uh… came to me and told me he needed help.” Honesty doesn’t have to include the part where Dante drugged me, as far as I’m concerned. “I still don’t know all the details, he wasn’t ready to share them, but someone’s coming after him and he thought being married to a Moretti would be enough to scare them off. So I agreed to help him out.”

“ Help him out ,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Any idiot can see you’ve been in love with him for years. How do you know he isn’t setting you up? Setting us up?”

“He’s not,” I growl, filled with the same certainty I’ve had from the start. Dante is a lot of things, but I’d bet my life he couldn’t have faked the fear in his eyes when he told me he was in trouble. “He was attacked. That’s proof, isn’t it?”

“Or it’s the perfect way to make his story look real,” Lorenzo counters.

“He didn’t dislocate his own shoulder or brand himself,” I argue through clenched teeth. “He’s telling the truth.”

Lorenzo is silent for several long seconds while my heart pounds.

“I hope so,” he says with an air of finality, and I don’t have to ask to know what it means. If I’m wrong, it won’t matter that we’re family, I’ll just become another liability.

I nod, my certainty not wavering for a second. I might not know the whole story yet, but I know Dante is everything he says he is. I’m willing to bet my life on it.

DANTE

“I’m bored,” I sigh, slumping down on the couch. “Take me somewhere.” I already know the answer, but needling Luca is the only entertainment I have around here.

“Absolutely not. If you’re bored, we can watch a movie.”

“We’ve already watched a thousand movies, and they all sucked,” I grumble. “Are you afraid of Salvatore?” I taunt.

“Yeah.” He nods earnestly. “Who do you think had to mop up Antonio’s blood a few days ago?”

I roll my eyes. “He’s still alive… I think.”

There’s a knock at the door. I sit up so fast a jolt of pain radiates from my shoulder. I clench my teeth to keep from gasping. Luca heaves himself off of the couch and pulls his gun out of its holster.

I arch an eyebrow at him. “You think someone who wants to attack me is going to come to the apartment and politely knock at the door?”

He shrugs. “Better safe than sorry. Wait here.”

He disappears down the hall, and I listen to the faint sound of beeps as he disarms the alarm and then opens the door. The clomp of boots is the only clue I need to know who came to visit.

“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m so fucking glad you’re here. I was about to die of boredom,” I call out, earning a faint laugh in return.

Sparrow steps around the corner into the living room with Luca right behind him.

“Sorry, bestie, this isn’t a social call.”

My gaze falls on the folder in his hand.

“What’s that?”

He looks over his shoulder at Luca. “Give us a couple of minutes?”

Luca’s thick eyebrows pull together and he frowns.

“Yeah, go.” I wave him off, my eyes still fixed on the folder, my heart beating faster with every passing second. Sparrow wouldn’t have… would he? I’ve seen his hacking skills, they’re almost as good as mine, so I know he could . Most of it is public record anyway.

Luca hesitates another second before pointing towards the balcony. “I’ll be right out there. Five minutes.”

Neither of us say anything as he crosses the living room and steps outside. As soon as we’re alone, Sparrow closes the last few feet of space between us and tosses the folder onto the cushion next to me, then braces his hands on the back of the couch.

“Salvatore asked me to dig up whatever I could about Don. He didn’t give me any details at the time, just a name.”

The fear pounding in my chest quickly morphs into throbbing rage. I spring off of the couch faster than I should have. Refusing to let Sparrow see me wince in pain, I snarl at him instead.

“How fucking dare you. This is my private business. If I want Salvatore to know, then I’ll tell him. You have no goddamn right.”

He sets his jaw and glares right back at me. “That’s why I didn’t give it to him. I’m giving it to you.”

His response is so reasonable it only pisses me off more. If I can’t be angry at him, then the only thing I’m left with is this hollow feeling in my chest knowing that an entire, messy part of my life is summed up inside that folder and the knowledge that’s already been dogging me for days that Salvatore deserves to know the truth before Don is released.

“It’s more complicated than what’s in the court documents,” I mutter.

“It usually is,” he says agreeably.

I grind my back teeth and stare at the folder like it’s a living thing, a beating heart under the floorboards taunting me to unburden myself of years’ worth of secrets.

“I’ve never talked about it. Any of it. I don’t even know where to start with Salvatore,” I confess, my throat tightening at the thought of finally spewing all of this poison. What if he sees me differently once he knows?

“Start with what?” I startle at the sound of Salvatore’s voice, and surprisingly, so does Sparrow.

Sparrow meets my eyes, glances at the folder, then back to me. I can see the silent question written all over his face. He’ll take the folder with him, and I don’t have to tell Salvatore anything if I’m not ready. I give a small shake of my head. I can’t keep running from this. Maybe it’ll even feel better for someone else to know the whole story.

I pick up the folder and hold it out towards Sal, standing in the entrance to the living room with Sparrow still between us.

“Do you want—” Sparrow starts to ask, and I shake my head again.

“We’re good. Thanks for bringing this.” I wave the folder. He turns to leave. “If you want to hang out or anything, you can stop by another day,” I call out before he’s gone.

He stops and shoots me a fleeting smirk over his shoulder. “Will do.”

Salvatore’s hands are in his pockets and he’s staring at the folder the same way I was just a few minutes ago when Sparrow showed up.

“Is that…?”

“I haven’t looked inside, but I’m guessing it’s the court transcripts and police reports. There’s a lot more to it than what’s on the official record, but I think you should read it first. Then I’ll tell you why my Uncle Don is coming after me and why I had to lie.”