Chapter 18
18
SAMANTHA
I ’m going to reach out to Russo. Me. Alone.
I’m no longer the little girl who watched her parents die in a fireball of shattered glass. I’m not the terrified young woman who fled a drunken mistake. I’m not even the adult lawyer who heard her cousin die in the most horrific way imaginable.
I’m scared. Any reasonable woman would be. I’ll be matching wits with a psychopath.
My spacious office in the new house feels positively claustrophobic. My stomach churns with too much coffee and not enough courage. I’m staring at my phone like it’s a coiled rattlesnake, and for just a moment I consider flushing it down a toilet so I can’t make the call.
I’d rather face the paparazzi jackals at the end of the driveway than follow through with this.
“You don’t have to,” Braiden reminds me.
“But I do.”
I don’t know how long I have. Ninety days is the outer limit. The ethics board can come back with its decision at any time. So I swallow hard and force myself to say, “And Russo has to believe I’m changing sides. He has to think I’m betraying you. I have to give him a reason.”
For just a heartbeat, every muscle in Braiden’s body goes stiff. But his voice is perfectly level as he says, “Tell him I’m marrying Fiona.”
The suggestion’s absurd, and I start to laugh. But Braiden isn’t joking. “What do you mean?”
“I’d be consolidating power inside the Union. If I control Philadelphia and Boston, the other captains would have to make me General. I’d never have to bend a knee to anyone again. I’d never have to worry about someone taking over the Fishtown Boys.”
“You can’t—” I start, but I’m afraid to finish that sentence. He can marry Fiona if he wants to. He’s got a signed annulment to his marriage with Birte, locked inside the safe in our bedroom closet. And we both know his marriage to me was never valid and binding.
“You wouldn’t—” I try again, but that sentence isn’t any better.
“You won’t...” I trail off.
“Will you?” I finally ask.
“ Piscín ,” Braiden says, and his palm is warm against my cheek. I’m surprised by how much I need his touch, how much I need to hear him say my pet name. “I’ll never marry Fiona,” he says. “But you can make Russo think I will.”
I’m shakier than I should be, like I’ve just slammed on the brakes to avoid a deer in the middle of the road. If Fiona marries another captain… If someone else becomes General… If someone comes for the Fishtown Boys…
“I’ll never marry Fiona,” Braiden says again.
I nod, because voicing all my other fears will get us nowhere. I jam confidence into my words, pretending I believe them. “Russo will buy that. That I’m turning on you because of her. But I still need to give him something specific. Something worth a lot. He has to think I stole it from you out of spite.”
I’m right.
Braiden knows I’m right.
But this is hard enough that he forces himself to his feet. He paces my office with a grim determination. He looks out at the yard. At the neighbors’ homes beyond our strip of green. He studies the sky, as if the clouds have written him a secret message.
“Roy Krakower,” he finally says.
“Roy Law-and-order?” The press has been all over the new commissioner of prisons. In his first three months on the job, Krakower has seen two Black men die in city jails, he ordered a pregnant prisoner shackled to her hospital bed during delivery, and he made sure three gay men were sent to solitary confinement when they complained about being assaulted.
Braiden says, “Krakower has a brand-new penthouse two blocks from City Hall. He likes the view as a backdrop when he makes home movies.”
“Movies?” A fresh surge of acid in my stomach warns me I won’t like what comes next.
“Boys,” Braiden says, then shrugs. “Men. Old enough to work construction, anyway. He likes them in hard hats. Lug boots. Two, three, four at a time.”
“You have proof?”
“Kelly Construction built the penthouse. Most profitable job we had last year. It’s amazing where you can hide cameras these days.”
“Jesus,” I say, because not a single class in law school prepared me for the casual blackmailing of a city official.
Braiden says, “If Russo plays his cards right, he can use the story to muscle in on Paragon. Take the whole project from Kelly Construction.”
Paragon is Roy Law-and-order’s program to upgrade one of the city’s jails. The fifty-million-dollar contract hasn’t formally been awarded yet, but Braiden’s company placed the leading bid. He’s likely to see the payout over the next five years. “You can’t give up that much.”
Braiden’s shoulders twitch. “What option do I have? If I give you one of my clubs or a contact at the port or a gambling book, it’ll take months for Russo to see a profit.”
That’s true. But I have to say, “You can’t pass up fifty million dollars. You need the money.”
His lips twitch in a grim smile. “I’m selling the Book of Skreen. That’ll make up some of the shortfall.”
“But fifty?—”
“Russo has to know you’re a valuable asset from the moment you place that call.”
So he doesn’t kill you .
Braiden doesn’t say it out loud. He doesn’t have to. Antonio Russo has to get more satisfaction out of keeping me alive than he would by murdering me.
“All right,” I finally say. “I’ll give him Krakower.”
And I need to do it now. Because once the ethics board issues its decision, my power to do anything involving the freeport is destroyed.
My palms are sweating. I wipe them on my jeans and reach for my phone. “You don’t have to stay for this,” I say.
“Not a feckin’ chance I’ll go.”
I’ll lose if I argue. So I tap the screen and find the private number Russo fed me months ago. I place the call on speaker.
Russo answers part-way through the first ring. “Giovanna. What a pleasant surprise.” He doesn’t sound surprised. He sounds like a man cleaning his gun.
“Don Antonio,” I say.
Braiden’s jaw clenches at Russo’s title, but I need to make this pitch as appealing as possible. Antonio Russo is a lazy tomcat, and I’m one of those feather toys, tied to a fishing pole. I need to flutter, to flail. I need to look so much like a wounded bird that Russo can’t resist pouncing.
“I thought everything would blow over,” I say, allowing my voice to quiver. “The information you released about my graduation night… But you heard Braiden, that night at the Rittenhouse.”
I don’t know who the fuck you are.
From the expression on Braiden’s face, he remembers exactly what he said. His fingers flex, and I know he remembers clamping down on my biceps. He dragged me to our suite, where we both used words like knives, slicing fast, stabbing deep.
And now I’m carving us again. I hope—I pray—that I’m using a scalpel this time, sacrificing as little flesh as possible. But even a scalpel can be deadly. Braiden executed his brother with one.
“I would never let a frocio like that say such things to my woman,” Russo says.
Braiden doesn’t need to understand Italian to know his manhood is being questioned. Russo’s tone is enough to drive Braiden back to the window. Every line of his body is a master class on rage.
I swallow hard and tell Russo the truth: “Braiden lied to me.”
“What lies did he tell, Giovanna?” There’s a hunger beneath the question, a bottomless pit I’ll drown in if I’m not careful.
“Y— You already know about Birte. And now he says he’ll take another wife. Fiona Ingram. He thinks that will make him General of the Grand Irish Union.”
“That morto di figa should be put down like a mad dog,” Russo says.
Braiden whirls from the window and tries to swipe my phone off my desk. I block his hand with my arm and point toward a chair with a commanding finger.
If Braiden truly were cunt-struck the way Russo says, he’d obey me. Instead, he stomps back to the window. I raise my voice, praying Russo can’t hear the angry footsteps.
“I can’t live like this, Don Antonio. The shame… I want to hurt him. I want him to know what it’s like to lose something that matters to him. Something he cares about.”
“This is a lovely story, Giovanna. But why are you telling it to me?”
“You can help me, Don Antonio.”
“I do favors for my family, Giovanna.”
“I understand that now. I made a mistake. I want to come back. I want to be your family.”
Silence, while Braiden glares out the window.
I worry that I’ve said too much, too quickly. That Russo smells the trap. I force myself to go on, testing the ground with every word, trying to find a path through a forest of hate.
“Don Antonio… I— I know people in your family bring you gifts. Things to show gratitude for all you do. I would like to give a gift to you.”
“I have no use for another man’s puttana .”
Braiden growls, and I try to cover the sound by pleading, “Not my body, Don Antonio. I know I lost that chance when I walked away before. It’s information I want to give you. Facts you can use to beat Braiden at his own game.”
Silence again, but he’s the one who breaks it this time. “I am listening.”
“If I could just see you… If we could talk…”
“You know where I live, Giovanna. In the same house where you came to take my money the night you killed three people.”
The house where he murdered Eliza. I’ll never go there. Not even to get revenge.
But I’m so close to landing him. So close to getting what I need… I leak out a little more real fear, hoping it sounds like uncertainty. “Braiden’s men watch me all day, every day. They’ll kill me if I try to come to you.” And then, like the idea has just come to me, I say, “Maybe… No…”
“What are you thinking, Giovanna?”
I make my voice soft, like a child asking Babbo Natale—Santa Claus—for a gift. “Could you come to the freeport? Meet me in my office there?”
“I am a very busy man, Giovanna. I do not have time to go to Delaware.”
“Please,” I say. “I’ll make it worth your while. I’ll set up an account for you. Give you a gallery in the warehouse. All the tax benefits of doing business through the freeport…”
His silence stretches out to nearly a minute, my first glimmer that this ploy might actually work.
“Don Antonio,” I say, drawing out the title he loves so much. “I’ll talk to my boss. He has a special group of investors… The richest men at the freeport. Braiden’s there, and Connor Boyle too, the Irish boss from New York. I’ll ask if you can join the Diamond Ring. For you, I’ll beg.”
Beg .
I use the word because I know Russo will love it.
But Braiden doesn’t. He’s reached the end of his tether. He calls from the window, as if he’s walking down the hall, “Samantha?”
I glare at him, but I try to turn his interruption to my advantage. “Don Antonio,” I whisper. “I have to go. Please say yes. Say you’ll meet me at the freeport. Monday, Tuesday, any day next week.”
“Samantha!” Braiden calls again.
I raise a silent middle finger to him as I plead, “Don Antonio…”
“Fine,” Russo says, grudging. “Wednesday afternoon. I will come to your freeport then.”
“Thank you, Don Antonio. Thank you. You won’t regret it. I promise.”
“Be certain I do not.” He ends the call before I do.
I double-check that the connection is severed before I say to Braiden, “What the fuck was that?”
“I got you what you wanted, didn’t I?
“You almost scared him off.”
“That shitehawk doesn’t scare. Don’t forget that, piscín .”
I stare at Braiden levelly. “I’ll never forget anything about Antonio Russo.”
He crosses the room faster than I think is possible, and his fingers close around my chin like he’s disciplining a naughty dog. “But you’ll beg for him?”
I toss my head, trying to break free, but Braiden only tightens his grip.
“Let me go!” My words slur because of the pressure of his fingers.
“Beg,” he orders, using the Captain’s voice that destroys me. “Beg me .”
So I do. I beg with words. I beg with my fingers. I beg with my lips and then with my entire body. And whatever doubts Braiden has about the plan we’ve hatched, they don’t keep him from taking his slow, sweet revenge for my seducing Antonio Russo.