Chapter Twelve
Lilianna Genovese
The war I fought with myself tore me up on the inside as I watched Callum rush inside the apartment building excitedly. I noticed the armed guards on the outside, Sophie standing between them, and relaxed a bit.
He would be safe there. After what had happened, not a single person would be able to infiltrate that penthouse ever again.
But as we took off again, the feeling in my chest wouldn’t fade—a feeling that I didn’t want to acknowledge. Exhilaration. Excitement. Everything about the news had my heart pounding as I realized how close I was to getting my revenge. If Vlad and Aelita were found, it meant that Matteo and I could avenge my brother. It’s what I had wanted all along.
But I shouldn’t have felt so excited .
The boredom of everyday life had become something of a routine recently, and I wanted to enjoy it. I wanted to thrive in normalcy, but…. there was a part of me that couldn’t be content with it.
A part of me—a part that I’d always tried to ignore—loved the danger in this line of work. I loved finding people who didn’t want to be found. I loved taking them down.
It was why I’d made a career as a private investigator.
Something about me had always been drawn to this part of the mob life. Maybe not the killing or all the illegal shit, but the chase. Knowing that Vlad had been found had my thumbs twiddling in my lap.
“Why do you look like that?” Matteo asked as he turned onto another street.
“Like what?”
“You look like you’re thinking about something unsettling. Are you nervous to find him?”
I didn’t respond right away. Hell, I didn’t even know how to put my thoughts into words. It was normal to be excited about this news, but there was more than that. Knowing that he’d been found felt satisfying. Knowing that we would further track him was something I looked forward to doing.
It didn’t mean anything, though.
It didn’t matter that I enjoyed this part of the mafia life when so many other aspects were unfavorable.
“I’m happy Marcus found him,” I finally replied. Matteo looked at me with raised brows. He knew I was holding something back, but he didn’t ask. He pulled up to a small house with overgrown grass and empty garden beds. He parked on the street, and I got out immediately, looking around the unkept neighborhood.
I followed Matteo to the front door, and he didn’t bother knocking as he strode right through the front door. I stepped over the threshold, chuckling at the clear signs of a bachelor pad. While not “clean”, the house was tidy enough. A few empty beer cans sat on a coffee table. The only decoration in the entire main room was an oversized American flag accentuated by mismatched furniture.
“Marcus!” Matteo shouted.
A loud grunt came from the other room, and Matteo immediately strode toward it, effortlessly stepping over a bear skin rug that didn’t match a single thing in the room. It reminded me of Silas’s college dorm room that I’d only ever visited once. Mismatched, random, and almost comically masculine. “Boss, I have some good fucking news,” Marcus said with a wide grin.
Matteo placed a hand on his friend's shoulder. He sat at the kitchen table, where he had an impressive setup complete with dual monitors and a high-tech laptop.
He grabbed a can of beer at his side and tipped his head back as he took a swig.
“You’re still watching Vlad?” Matteo asked.
“Nah, I lost him,” he said.
Matteo’s face tightened, eyes narrowing. “You lost him?”
“Before you get in a tizzy,” Marcus said, holding up a hand and pointing to the leftmost screen, full of different camera angles. “There’s a hell of a lot more good news than bad. I have the plates for his car, but I lost it when he went through the projects. Not enough security cameras there, but we all know that. I think we’d rather keep it that way with all the shady shit we get into when we—”
“Marcus,” Matteo pushed.
“Sorry, boss. We lost him, but I have a trace on his plate and his face now. I caught him on a security camera outside of a tech store on the corner of 152 nd and Gomez. He went in for about a half hour and then came out of the place holding a bag.”
“What was in the bag?” I asked.
“Not a clue,” Marcus said with a chuckle.
“Then what the fuck is the good news?” I finally asked.
Marcus whistled as he looked at me up and down. “Matteo,” he said, glancing between us, “is your lady friend the new Don? I’ve heard rumors.”
I gaped at the question. “Rumors?”
He shrugged. “I work closely with some of the Genoveses. They’re talking about you taking over. Nobody knows for sure, but most of them assume that you’re going to follow in your father's footsteps.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t tell anyone I would take over.”
“It’s just a rumor. I’m excited to see how many people get angry about a woman being Don,” he said with a loud laugh. “Oh, that will be a sight to see. I’m all for women’s rights and all that shit. But a female Don? We’re not living in the 1950s, and that will be one hell of a reminder to all those self-assured pricks.”
I wanted to laugh at the clear interest in his tone. He meant every word. It was certainly an unpopular opinion to have in his line of work.
“Marcus, get on track,” Matteo finally chimed in.
“Right.” He typed on his keyboard for a moment, and one of the camera angles filled the entire screen. “I decided to go back on the footage of this particular camera. Only ninety days of footage saves at a time, and then they auto-delete, so I can’t go back more than three months. But almost every Tuesday morning like clockwork…”
He hit the space bar, and the video played.
I recognized Vlad on the screen, striding into the tech shop with an empty bag. I glanced down at the timestamp and found it had been taken two weeks ago. Then Marcus hit a few buttons, and I watched the same thing on a different day. Same bag, different outfit.
“Every Tuesday?” I asked.
“Bingo,” Marcus said. “And I have more.”
The next clip he played was a little different. This time, Vlad came into view, a woman at his side. I would recognize the turned-up nose and dark hair anywhere. Aelita. The woman responsible for my brother’s death.
“His daughter was with him. Does she go with him often?”
“It looks like the first two Tuesdays every month,” Marcus remarked. “And you’re in luck. Next Tuesday is the first of the month.”
The news came as a shock as I stared at the paused screen. This was the closest I’d come to my family’s killer, and I took a small step forward, looking at the screen a little more closely. I hadn’t ever felt so much hatred for anyone in my life. I’d never wanted to see someone suffer as much as I did her. Vlad deserved to burn in hell for what he did, but Aelita…
She took everything from me.
She deserved more than to burn in hell. She deserved to live in hell for years before dying and being sent there.
My brother’s final look of betrayal flashed in my mind. The way he’d fully trusted her before falling to his knees.
I would kill her with my bare hands for that alone.
“You’re saying that next Tuesday, we’ll find them there?” I clarified.
“You sound like you’re making some sinister plans, Genovese,” Marcus teased. “You’ve got more Don in you than you think.”
I didn’t reply as I turned and strode out of the house, not bothering to take in the eccentric details. Nothing mattered other than the thought of finally avenging my family. This was the first and only lead we’d had, and I knew it would pan out. I could feel it. We’d finally be able to look them in the eyes and give them what they deserved.
My excitement after learning that information made sense.
It was the only thing that made sense.
I sat on the curb in front of the house, my head in my hands as I tried to justify the rest of my feelings. I wasn’t Don. I didn’t want to be Don. Marcus had said it in good humor, and I knew he meant nothing by the comments. I had no obligation to take my father’s role.
But I couldn’t stop considering the way I’d felt recently.
Why had I been bored by the prospect of everyday life? The exhilaration I felt at the prospect of finding Vlad and Aelita wasn’t only because of the justice I deserved, and I knew that.
I was looking forward to the chase.
I heard as Matteo’s even footfalls approached behind me. I glanced back at him and found him standing directly behind me, both hands in his pockets.
“I thought you’d be excited about this news,” he said.
I paused. What could I tell him?
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“I can take care of it if you don’t want to be involved anymore.”
I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “I’m here because I want to be involved in this. It’s—” God, how did I even put these feelings into words? “I’m excited by the thought of killing them. I feel like this is the part of the crime life I most wanted to leave behind, but the prospect of danger is exciting to me. I never used to feel that way. I loved the idea of a normal life, but in the past few days, the normalcy has felt boring.”
“Normalcy is boring,” Matteo argued.
“For you,” I said, my voice raising slightly. “For someone like you, it would be boring. You don’t have the limitations that a normal person has. I want to be a normal person.”
“Do you?”
Do I?
The question hit home. I didn’t want to be normal, but I did want to be safe. I wanted the benefits of a normal life without the boringness of it. Being here with Matteo has been exhilarating in a way I couldn’t put into words. But I’m only here because of tragedy.
If I stayed, would there be more tragedy that followed?
I had to be honest with him. I’d lied to Matteo enough.
“This lifestyle wasn’t something I thought I wanted. I left because of that.” I took a deep breath. “Then I went and started a career that adds danger to my life. I think I’ve always liked the exhilaration of potential danger, but on the flip side, I want the safest possible life for Callum.” I took a long breath and pushed myself to my feet as I turned to Matteo. “I feel like you’ve been trying to convince me to stay, and that can’t happen.”
“I haven’t asked you to stay.”
Matteo looked so calm and collected as he spoke, almost as if this conversation meant nothing to him.
“You don’t want me to stay?” I asked.
“I didn’t say that, either.”
“Damn it, Matteo. Just tell me what you want!” I shouted.
My words echoed down the street, and the silence Matteo left between us scolded me. He said nothing for a long moment as he stared at me. He looked at me like I was a puzzle beneath his gaze.
“You’re not sure how you feel right now,” Matteo remarked, stepping forward and looking into my eyes. “You’re happy that we finally have a lead, but you’re just beginning to realize that after growing up in the mafia life, it’s not as easy to leave behind as you’d once thought. There were parts of it that you liked, and you won’t acknowledge that. Instead, you’re trying to frame this narrative that the mafia is entirely bad. You’re trying to convince yourself of that, but I don’t fit your narrative. I can’t fit it, because you feel something for me that isn’t bad or negative.”
“I—” I couldn’t find words as he uncovered every single one of my emotions.
“You don’t want to stay here because you don’t want to admit that you want this life. You won’t stay because you think that Callum is safer elsewhere. But once we take out Vlad, you’re not considering that Callum is safer under my protection than he would be anywhere else in the world.”
The only thing I could think to say slipped from my lips before I could stop it. “I don’t want to stay.”
The words felt slimy. They felt like a lie, and the narrowing of Matteo’s eyes told me that he sensed it, too. He knew the truth as well as I did.
If it wasn’t for all the risks, staying with him didn’t sound so bad.