Chapter 8
MATTEO
THE TABLE IN FRONT of Amalia and me is buried in paper.
Maps with half the streets circled, folders with their corners curling, and a spread of photographs that Amalia rearranges every now and then, frowning, as if the right order will make one of them talk.
I lean my elbows on the edge and watch her instead of the photos, because the photos aren’t going anywhere and she’s more interesting to look at anyway.
She picks one up and holds it close. It’s Dominic, grinning at some party, a glass in his hand and his collar open, with a couple of men flanking him and one of them watching the door instead.
Dominic’s looking at the camera, as if he knew it was there.
Smug bastard. I can tell that’s what Amalia’s thinking too, because her mouth presses into a thin line as she studies him.
“My father used to tell me stories about him,” she says. “Dominic would let a man think he’d won, right up until the moment he took everything. He never raised his voice. He’d just smile, and the next thing you knew, you lost.”
“I heard my father say the same thing about him once.” I lean back.
“He’s the most dangerous sort.” She sets the photo down and lines it up with the others. “The one people actually like.”
I get it, actually. I grew up around a man people were terrified of, but at some point, people who are scared of him eventually decide dying is better than another day under his thumb.
But people who like him and want him to like them back will go to great lengths to please him, even when it hurts them.
Amalia turns another photo toward the light. She told me once that going in blind against a man like him would get us both killed, and she wasn’t being dramatic. To destroy Dominic, we need to know him better than he knows himself, which isn’t easy at all.
Amalia glances up at me. “We don’t know enough about him, and that worries me.
I don’t know where he keeps his money, or which of his men would put a knife in him for the right price, or what he’s been doing lately that he doesn’t want anyone to know.
Knowing the small, boring things can be crucial. ”
“So we can go dig up the boring things.”
“That’s the plan.” A faint smile tugs at her lips.
I pull the stack of photographs toward me.
Half of these men I don’t recognize, but a few I do, since there are names my father dropped at dinner back when he still thought I’d grow into someone worth talking to, and I researched them, thinking it would make him happy.
I spread them out and point at the older man with gray at his temples and the empty gaze of someone who’s done a lot of unpleasant things and slept fine afterward.
“This one’s been with him forever,” I say. “Santi, I think. My father said Dominic doesn’t make a move without him. Santi would die for him, and probably has plans to kill anyone who tries to get between them.”
Amalia leans in, her shoulder almost touching mine, and I keep my focus on the photo so I don’t get distracted by how close she is. “What about the rest?”
I slide a few of the newer faces forward.
“These came in after Dominic was already big, so they’re probably loyal to what he can give them, not to him.
A man like Santi... you can’t touch. But these.
..” I shrug. “Everybody’s got a price, and the ones who joined for money are the easiest, because money’s all they want. ”
“You think one of them could be turned.”
“I bet someone already resents being the new guy who has to prove himself, and resentment’s a crack. You don’t have to turn a man all the way. You just have to find whoever’s already halfway out the door and give him a reason to walk.”
She studies me for a moment. “My father would’ve never thought of it that way. He’d have wanted to break the loyal one. Santi. Just to prove he could.”
“And he would have died trying. The loyal ones are like a wall. You can’t go through a wall. You go around it, through the guy who’s already wishing he worked somewhere else.”
A smile spreads over her lips, and she pulls a clean sheet of paper and starts writing.
I watch her hand move and think about how strange it is that I’m here helping her plan all this.
But it’s not a bad thing. A man who becomes necessary is a man who’s harder to kill, sure, but he’s also a man who gets watched more closely. I’ll have to remember that.
“So... his money, his people, and whatever he’s changed recently.”
“Why the changes?” I furrow my brow.
“Because men like Dominic don’t change anything unless something forces them to.
” She glances at me. “If he’s moved money, or pulled someone off a job, or stopped doing something he used to do every week.
.. That’s not him being clever. He’s reacting to a problem.
And we need to figure out what it is because it might be his weakness. ”
“Right.”
“Tomasso used to say the same thing about my father. That you could always tell when the old man was scared, because he’d start doing things differently and pretend nothing was wrong.” Her jaw tightens.
It must’ve been nice to have someone like Tomasso in her life. I never had anyone like that, and I wish I had.
“Alright,” I say. “So how do we actually get any of this? We can’t exactly knock on his door and ask to see his books.”
She laughs. “The slow way, of course. The money leaves a trail whether he likes it or not. There are public records, property he owns through other names, companies that exist only on paper... My father had people who could find all that, and some of them still work for me. We’ll start there.”
“And the men?”
“We’ll watch them even more carefully. Learn when they come and go, who they drink with, who they owe.
.. People talk when they think no one’s listening, and Dominic’s men have gotten comfortable.
Comfortable people get sloppy.” She taps her pen against the page.
“I’ve got connections too. Old debts my father was owed and people in places that matter.
Some of them have been waiting years for a reason to be useful to a Petrelli again. ”
“And those changes you mentioned?”
“That’s the hardest part, because we don’t know what we’re looking for yet. So we need to watch everything and wait for something to feel off.” She meets my gaze. “It’s going to take time. Maybe a lot of it. Are you going to get bored?”
I grin at her. “Probably,” I say. “But not yet.”
She holds my gaze a moment before she picks the pen back up, and I focus back on the photographs. Why am I enjoying this way more than I should? It’s like there’s something wrong with me, but it doesn’t feel that way. Strange.