Chapter 15 #2
Rage simmered in my gut, hot and bright, but I slammed a lid down on it before it boiled over. Calmly, I asked, “Do you know why you were brought in today?”
He gave a firm shake of his head. “No, sir.”
I clicked my tongue. “Come now, Corsi. You know how this works. You go against the family, and we don’t have any other choice but to enact vengeance.”
Genuine confusion flickered over the doctor’s features. “Go against the family?” he repeated.
Shoving my hands into my pockets, I circled him. “What else would you call it when someone colludes with the man threatening my family, who then sends an associate to administer synthetic oxytocin to my pregnant wife to trigger preterm labor just shy of my heir reaching viability?”
Corsi’s eyes bulged, and he sputtered, “A-associate? Oxytocin? Wh-what are you talking about?”
“You deny your involvement in the attempt on my unborn child’s life?” I pressed.
He scoffed. “Of course I do. I’m a doctor. I took an oath to do no harm.”
“Forgive me for not believing that the oath of a mafia doctor holds much weight.”
Maintaining eye contact, he didn’t back down. “Believe what you want, but I know my truth. I save lives. Never have I taken an action that would intentionally end one.”
“Am I expected to congratulate you for finding a loophole? For sending a woman to cause harm on your behalf? Is that how you keep your conscience clear?”
His brows furrowed. “Woman? What woman?”
The thin thread on my temper snapped. “Arianna! Who the fuck else?”
“Arianna.” Corsi shook his head. “I don’t know any Arianna.”
I surged forward, and my hand found his throat, squeezing until his face turned a deep scarlet. “You fucking sent her to my house!” Flecks of my spit landed on his skin with the force of my roar.
Matteo tapped me on the shoulder, coaxing, “Let’s give him a moment to breathe, shall we?”
I turned to my brother, giving him a look that asked, Are you out of your fucking mind? to which he shot me one back, telling me to trust him.
Since I wasn’t getting anywhere on my own, I figured it was worth a shot to let Matteo take a crack at the old man, so I released my hold on Corsi’s neck and stepped back. The sound of the doctor’s wheezing inhales filled the open space as he recovered from the near strangulation.
Playing the good cop to my bad cop in this scenario, my brother grabbed a bottle of water from a nearby table and offered our captive a sip.
“That better?” Matteo asked.
“Mmm.” Corsi cleared his throat. “Much. Thank you.”
“Gio and Rory have been through quite a terrifying ordeal this afternoon. They were faced with the reality of losing a child, which, as a father yourself, I’m sure you can agree is every parent’s nightmare.”
The doctor ducked his head. “Children are a gift from God. I would never want to see one’s life cut short.”
Matteo brought a chair over, flipped it around, and sat down.
“I want to believe you. I really do. But we’re struggling to understand why, after you’ve taken such good care of us all these years, you would send someone who would administer a drug to trigger the premature birth of a baby not yet able to survive outside of the womb. ”
Frantic brown eyes shifted from my brother to me. “You’re not listening! I didn’t send anyone!”
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my phone and opened the text thread with Corsi before handing it to Matteo.
After a quick pause to scan the words, Matteo turned the screen around to show the doctor. “So you’re saying you didn’t send this text to Gio that you were granting his request for a female physician for Rory?”
“One, I never received a message asking for a female physician for Mrs. Bellini, and two, I don’t have one on my staff.
” His gaze lifted to meet mine. “For obvious reasons. It’s simply not safe to send a woman alone to treat the type of men involved in organized crime, even when they’re incapacitated by illness or injury. ”
Matteo twisted around, lifting one shoulder as if to say, He’s got a point.
Pressing my fingers into my eye sockets, I rubbed hard. “If we look through your phone, pull its records, you’re confident that we will find zero history of our conversation on your end?”
“That’s correct,” Corsi replied with confidence.
I stepped forward menacingly, my voice going low and lethal. “If I find out you’re lying to me, that you’ve been working with Dario all along, I’ll—“
“Dario?” The doctor reared back, eyebrows raised.
When I peered over at Matteo, he gave a subtle shake of his head, silently telling me that our current enemy wasn’t common knowledge.
Corsi was smart—he’d have to be with all the schooling required to become a physician—and picked up on our wordless exchange. “Is Dario behind the attacks on the Bellinis?”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I breathed out, “Yes.”
“And you think I’d help him? After I spent years patching up Gemma and Enzo because the man found pleasure in hurting his children?”
Matteo sighed. “Honestly, we don’t know what to believe, who we can trust. Not when our own blood is actively plotting against us.”
Corsi nodded his understanding. “That’s fair. Do whatever digging you need to; I have nothing to hide. My loyalty has been and always will be to the rightful don of the Bellini Family.” Turning his attention to me, he asked, “Are Mrs. Bellini and the baby okay?”
I gave a jerky nod; the events from earlier still rattled me to the core. “They will be.”
“Good. That’s good. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do for them.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I warned. “We still have to sort out this mess first.”
Matteo stood, beckoning me to follow him to the far end of the room so that we were out of earshot.
Keeping his voice hushed, he said, “This tracks with the type of digital sabotage we saw a few years back when Dario had someone spoof my email to convince the lawyer to sell off property without our permission and steal the profits.”
A persistent pounding picked up near my temples. “Cross all the T’s and dot the I’s before you let him go, you hear?” I jerked my chin in the direction of our prisoner.
When I turned to leave, his voice halted me. “Hey, can you send Summer home when you get there?”
I spun around slowly. “Get where?”
My brother stared at me like I’d lost my mind when he was the one not making any sense. “Uh, the hospital?”
“Why would I be going to the hospital?”
“Come on, Gio. I know you’re mad at her after everything that’s happened, but she’s carrying your baby and had a terrifying scare only a few hours ago.”
“And?” I prompted, not understanding what he was getting at.
He shook his head. “You really don’t have a heart, do you?”
“My heart’s never been part of the equation when it comes to Rory.” Just like it hadn’t been with his first wife. Arranged marriages weren’t love matches; they were business arrangements. Why should it come as a surprise when I treated mine as such?
An expression of pure disappointment flickered over Matteo’s features. “I feel sorry for your son.”
I stepped back suddenly, his words acting like a physical blow. “Excuse me?”
“What do you think it’s going to do to his psyche, being constantly exposed to the animosity between you and his mother? Especially when he’ll be surrounded by loving couples who made a conscious decision to break the cycle. If I were in his shoes, I’d resent the hell out of you.”
A bark of laughter spilled from my lips. “Oh, you think you’re better than me now? Because you fell in love? That makes you weak, Matteo.”
There was pity in the brown eyes, identical to mine, that stared back at me.
“That’s where you’re wrong, brother. Having Summer stand by my side through the ups and downs this life has to offer has only made me stronger.
I hope someday you’ll figure out how to pull your head out of your ass to see that for yourself. ”
Arms folded, I tapped my foot. “Are you done yet?”
“Since there’s no point in talking to a brick wall, yeah.”
“Good, because protecting this family, securing its future, rests squarely on my shoulders. That’s where my focus needs to be right now. Not on Rory and certainly not on a useless emotion that I’m firmly convinced was created to line the pockets of florists and greeting card companies.”
I didn’t give him the chance to respond, storming out of the warehouse.
Hopping into the driver’s seat of my SUV, I gunned the engine, tearing through the city, my mind racing almost as fast as my car.
Eliminating Dario was impossible if we couldn’t get him to step out of the shadows.
I could only think of one way to do that.
It was risky and would require the entire family’s cooperation.
But in my mind, there was no other choice. We had to try.
Either that fucker was going down, or I would die trying.