60. Leona
LEONA
Badawi drove silently, casting furtive glances my way every couple of miles.
Fallon had texted me a meeting spot where Badawi could drop me off, and then I’d start figuring out next steps.
Fallon also threatened to shoot the FBI agent, but after some convincing, she decided to shoot only if Badawi shot first.
I rubbed my eyes. How were my guys? Did they get medical treatment? Was everything going okay, or were they lying dead in a dumpster somewhere? Did Greco get his hands on them? What if something went wrong? My joints ached with pent-up energy and worry.
After Badawi’s sixth glance, I broke the silence with a sigh. “How did you know where we were?”
She stared at the road. “To answer that, I have to go back a week.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “All right?”
“I got a secure message from an unknown source telling me that my bosses were compromised,” she started.
My neck prickled. That was the same time we were collecting data to give to the mayor about her cabinet.
“At first, I dismissed it until I got another one that contained surveillance footage of my boss walking into an upscale social club. The Gilded House.”
Yeah. Ciel and Obi definitely sent those messages.
“And?” I said, turning back to the window. “It’s a common club. A lot of rich men around town belong to those fancy social clubs.”
She let out a breath. “And shortly after that, Piero Greco showed up at the club. The footage fast-forwarded to a few hours later. My boss left first, followed by Greco.”
I wasn’t surprised that Greco and her boss met together. We’d suspected he’d been puppeteering officials in the FBI since the night I got arrested at the casino.
“That’s not exactly conclusive evidence,” I pointed out.
“No,” she replied. “But the FBI taught me to follow my instincts. They were screaming at me.”
“And what were your instincts saying?”
“That the mysterious messages were right,” she said.
“And if those messages were right, then I needed to follow this trail. So when the orders went through to prepare for a mafia attack on a municipal building in Lower Manhattan, I paid attention. I got one more secure message, telling me to wait in the parking garage, at the northwest corner.”
I huffed a breath and smiled softly. Obi really had everything planned to a tee.
“But why help me?” I asked, turning to her. “You know who I am.”
She sniffed, jaw ticking as she stared at the road. “I’m not sure that I do. I think everything I thought I knew was wrong.”
“So you decided to aid and abet a criminal?”
She shrugged with a crooked smile. “I’m improvising. Trying to listen to my gut.”
“What would Special Agent Greer say about your gut?”
She snorted. “He’d tell my gut to go fuck itself.”
“I don’t like him.” Not like her. I’d always felt a good vibe from Badawi.
“I don’t like him either, but he’s my partner. He’s an asshole, I’ll give you that, but he’s a good agent. Most of the time.”
Ciel and I had briefly looked into both Badawi and Greer and had come up with nothing more serious than a few parking tickets and questionable social media posts. I might dislike Greer, but he seemed to be a perfectly acceptable agent.
“What about your case?” I asked. “You’re still going after Max. One of my men, by the way.”
I knew what I was saying to her. What I was admitting. But Max was ours now, and if he went down, we went down with him.
She pressed her lips together. “I don’t know.
Maybe I’ll decide to turn the car around.
” When I stiffened, she laughed softly and then sighed.
“I won’t, but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep coming after you later.
My case makes New York a safer place. I’m not giving that goal up.
I’m in pursuit of the truth, and all I knew was that the orders to arrest a group of killers at a municipal building after the mayor had condemned the mafia was not the complete truth. ”
I sank deeper into the passenger seat while trying to process. Badawi was a good agent. I’d always felt that. Obi had placed her here, with me, on purpose.
“Quite frankly,” she continued, “I mostly just thought you were smarter than that. The Shadows would never perpetrate such an obvious attack in broad daylight. It felt like something else was going on.”
Exactly. We were fucking smarter than that.
“You know Greco’s worse than us,” I said, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye. “That is the truth.”
Badawi turned on her blinker and changed lanes. “The only truth that’s certain right now is that you’re both criminals. Organized crime is a scourge on New York City.”
Well, I couldn’t argue with that. “Your bosses are cashing in on a terrible deal, and you’ll be the one who has to clean up the mess.
Greco will be the scourge you fear. Things will get worse than they’ve ever been.
If you’re familiar with organized crime at all, then you know what they’ve done in Italy.
You know the control they have. At least my men and I have been trying to fix things and mind our own business while we’re at it. ”
The leather on the steering wheel creaked with her tightened grip. “Did you get rid of the Vokshi Clan?” she asked. “And the Alacrán cartel?”
“That’s a conversation you should have with my lawyer. Samuel would be more than happy to answer your questions.”
“Miss Vero,” she said. Something about the soft tone of her voice made me look. Her eyebrows drew together, and her mouth formed a tight frown. It was a genuine question, not a trap. “If I wanted to arrest you, I’d drive back to Manhattan.”
After a moment, I gave her a brief nod. “My men and I have been fixing my father’s mistakes.” I touched gentle fingers to my cheek, and my voice went quiet. “The Albanians gave me this scar.”
She exhaled. “I thought so.”
“You are pursuing truth and justice,” I said. “Maybe I’m doing the same thing, just from the other side of the fence.”
“Perhaps,” she said softly. “Maybe we have more in common than we think.”
She went quiet for a moment, and I recognized this as my time to move the next piece on the chessboard. Max and Obi had said we needed to get both the FBI and Greco off our backs, and the only way to do that was to pit them against each other instead of against us. This was my chance.
“Farrah,” I said while I shifted my body in the seat to face her more fully. “Your case won’t just go away, will it? We can’t just make it disappear?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Not even if we bribe all the right people?”
Badawi rolled her eyes and shrugged. “Probably not, but what do I know? My bosses are corrupt. Anything seems possible.”
“But that wouldn’t be good enough, would it?” I asked. “Someone else would pick up the trail. If you and Greer were ordered to back off, would you? Would he?”
Her sideways glance gave me her answer before she spoke. “No.”
“Okay, so then you need someone to bring to justice,” I said. “I need to take out Greco and get my men free from jail. We can work together.”
The longer she waited to answer, the more I was convinced she’d shoot down our plan. But then she tilted her head to the side. “How so?”
“Help me turn this around on Greco,” I answered. “He’s more of a kingpin than Max ever was. Or me. Or my father.”
She barked a laugh. “You think I can arrest him, and he won’t be able to buy his way to freedom? My bosses are already corrupt. A case against him would never stick.”
“No, no, I know,” I said. “But listen. What if we could?”
“It’s imposs—”
“Farrah, what if we could, though?” I leaned closer. “If it were possible to catch him, possible to pin everything on him, possible to get the testimony we need to corroborate that he is the head of the mafia…if all of that went right, what if you arrested him instead?”
“Then…I would turn the focus of our case against him. I’d at least try.” She chewed her lip for a moment. “Someone would have to serve jail time. I don’t see any other way around it.”
I sucked in an excited breath.
This is what Obi and Max needed me to do.
I had to convince the FBI to take on Greco, and then I had to catch him in an inescapable trap. Then, I’d serve the time and make this entire thing go away. My men would be safe. It was the win we needed.
“I will testify against Greco. I will help you build a case against him, that he has been the one pulling all the strings, not Max. I’ll admit to whatever I need in order to prove that he’s the real villain here.”
“But Leona…if you do that, I don’t think I can get you immunity. You’d have to admit to the racketeering charges and serve the time.”
“I know,” I replied. “That’s okay. I’ll do it if it gets Greco behind bars.”
“Maybe I can get you a reduced sentence, but…”
I waved my hand. “We’ll deal with that when it comes. But I know I can get close to him, and I can make sure that you catch him in an indisputable act of crime. If Greco is arrested for the RICO case in our place …do you think my men can get free?”
She watched the road for a few moments while my words sank in.
Then she smirked.
“Yes. I think we can make that happen.”