Chapter 9 Giovanni #2
“She … thought he liked her.” Her words are punctuated by sniffles and sobs. “She was infatuated … with him. I wish … she was still here…”
I don’t speak. There’s nothing I can say that will make her feel any better right now. So, I hold her tightly, sharing her pain and her grief.
Suddenly, she pulls away, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I want to speak to him.”
She goes to stand up, but I find her hand and hold her back.
“No, fiore. I can’t let you do that.”
“Why not? He should know what happened to Nikki. What he did to her.”
“He will, I promise you. But not like this. Please. Let me handle it.”
“Does he know where Amber is?” Her eyes glitter.
“He knows more than he is letting on.” I choose my words carefully. I don’t want to give her false hope, but I can’t bear to see her crumble if she thinks that this is another dead end.
She swallows hard. “Okay.” Pause. “But I want to see him before you let him go. I want to know what he looks like. I want to find out for myself how he managed to charm Nikki into hurting her best friend.”
“Meggie, I—”
“No, Gio. I’m not backing down on this one.” She is deadly serious.
“Okay.” I relent. “I will let you see him, but I won’t let you do it alone.”
She attempts to smile, but then her hand covers her mouth, and she looks away. “I … I’m going to be sick again.”
I act without thinking. I pick her up and carry her through to the bathroom, where she kneels beside the toilet and retches violently.
“Go, Gio.” She waves me away without looking up.
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
I stroke her hair away from her face, soak a cloth in cold water and hold it against her forehead, and brush her teeth when she is finished. Her face is pale apart from the pink flush in her cheeks.
“I’m getting you into bed and then I’m calling a doctor.”
She smiles. “I don’t need a doctor. I need to eat.”
I spend the night with my body pressed up against Meggie.
She wasn’t sick again, but I sense the slight shift in her demeanor, and it isn’t entirely down to Tommy Romano’s presence in Vermont.
Her energy is a little off. Her eyes still light up whenever she looks at me, but Amber has been missing for another twenty-four hours, and I know this is eating away at her inside.
I wake before dawn.
I shower and dress in silence, then kiss Meggie’s warm cheek and leave her sleeping; she doesn’t even stir.
I stop outside the guestroom and knock gently on the door to wake up Demi, who joins me moments later in the kitchen looking fresh, damp hair pulled back into a ponytail, face clear of makeup.
We wait for the coffee machine to gurgle to life.
“She’s getting restless.” Demi doesn’t need to mention Meggie’s name. “She needs to be out there searching for her sister.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“You think she doesn’t know that?”
“I can’t let her—”
“Whoa!” Demi raises both hands in front of her chest, palms facing outwards. “That macho stuff won’t work with me, or with Meggie. Not where Amber is concerned.”
“There’s a difference between being macho and protecting the woman I love from a psychotic assassin.”
She smiles, relenting. “I know but try not to make it sound as if you can stop her from leaving this cabin if that’s what she wants to do.
Please?” Her eyebrows shoot upwards. “While you’re over there reliving the Spanish Inquisition, she’s sitting around with nothing to fill her day but worrying about her little sister. ”
I never knew it would be so fucking tough trying to keep Meggie safe. But I know that Demi is right. Meggie needs to feel like she’s being proactive, despite almost getting killed and getting her foot blown up by a bullet.
“I just need a little more time.”
The coffee machine gurgles on the counter, and I fill two mugs, offering one to Demi.
“Time is a precious commodity, one that Amber doesn’t have.” Demi sips her drink.
I don’t need a reminder. I don’t recall ever feeling so helpless, and the feeling doesn’t sit well with me, especially when it concerns the people I care about most in the world. Losing isn’t in my vocabulary. I’m a winner, and I’ll keep chipping away at The Fish until the first crack appears.
I’m close. I know I am, and I think that he knows it too now that I have Tommy Romano. But knowing that he’s under threat will only make him more dangerous, and I’ll throw my macho weight around if it means keeping Meggie safe.
I swallow a mouthful of black coffee. “I’ll be back.”
Demi won’t let anything happen to Meggie, and I’ve ramped up the protection surrounding the cabin after her little escapade of two nights ago. They barely know each other, but they share a common interest in Amber’s survival, and Meggie trusts her.
A little more time. I didn’t intend for it to sound so fucking pretentious, like we’re characters in a standard detective movie, and I walk back to the war room with my jaw clenched.
Tommy Romano has had all night to think about what I want.
It’s time for some answers.
He glares at me when I enter the war room. The pretty boy image is gone, and in its place is a guy with a chip on his shoulder who believes that the world owes him superstar status and untold riches simply because he can smolder in front of the camera.
His hair flops over his eyes, and he flicks it back with a toss of his head as I pull out a seat and sit down in front of him again.
The men running the night shift with the prisoner don’t move.
They look fresher than the actor, a fact that would make him panic if only he could see their faces.
Because he has the Hollywood syndrome, big-time.
I smile. “Tell me where The Fish is and I’ll have you back in LA by nightfall.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not a fucking idiot. I know I’m not getting out of here alive.”
He’s had time to think about it, and has channeled his inner Dennis Hopper in True Romance, refusing to give me what I want because there’s no way out for him. It’s his final stab at gaining control.
My eyes flicker to the men in the corners of the room. One steps forward and places a gun against the side of Tommy’s head.
The bravado is replaced by fear. Tommy squirms in his seat, the gun following his twitchy movements. “Just fucking do it, why don’t you?”
“Because you haven’t given me anything to work with yet, Tommy, and you owe me.”
“Yeah?” The attitude resurfaces briefly until the gun forces his head forward, his eyes bulging as he tries to keep me in sight. “How do you work that out?”
“I made the Nikki situation go away.”
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth using Meggie’s best friend this way, but I’m doing it for Amber. The end justifies the means.
He swallows, and I hear it from where I’m sitting. A nod, and the bodyguard backs away allowing Tommy to sit back up. “H-how?”
“It’s unimportant. But no one will ever know about your … affair.” The word sticks in my throat.
Men like Tommy Romano make me sick. They don’t only believe that the world owes them, but that women are here to be used to their own advantage.
Men like him have set the bar so low that many women still fall for their romantic gestures and think themselves lucky when they find a guy who buys them flowers and doesn’t lash out with their fists when things don’t go their way.
The smug gleam in his eye rams the point home. “Is she…?”
Deep breath. “She won’t say a word, so we can either do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. Piece by piece. Starting with your right ear.”
The other guard is beside him in a flash, the tip of Tommy’s ear hitting the floor before Tommy can make a sound.
“You fucking asshole.” Saliva spills from his bottom lip. “You motherfucking, pussy-sucking bastardo.”
“Where is he?”
“I told you, I don’t fucking know.” His voice is laced with pain.
“How can I find him?”
“Fuck off.” He spits saliva onto the floor.
The guard slices the tip of Tommy’s little finger off as his howls fill the room.
“You think he’ll knock on the door and introduce himself?” he says finally. “You’re fucking deluded, man.”
“Who is he working for?”
“I don’t know.” The color has drained from his face, but he’s still holding back.
“Tell me about the queen.”
He furrows his brow like I’ve just lost the plot. The title means nothing to him; he’s nothing more than a dispensable pawn in this game.
I change course. “How does he get paid?”
He raises dark eyes to me, the pain etched into the lines around his mouth. I’m tempted to tell him that he’ll need Botox to smooth them out if he keeps scowling at me, but that’s no doubt already a staple part of his beauty regime.
“Cash. Favors. Secrets. What more do you want me to tell you?”
Now, we’re getting somewhere. “What’s his interest in the Sabatelli family?”
“Ha!” He shakes his head. “What makes you think you’re so fucking special?” He sees me exchange another glance with the bodyguard behind him and quickly adds, “You must have something he wants. But it won’t be your empire.”
I study him closely. “Why are you so sure?”
“He’s a maverick. A loner. He has his own empire.”
He’s refusing to meet my eyes now. So far, he has given me nothing that I don’t already know, and my patience is wearing thin like a sweater that has been through the wash cycle too many times.
He’s holding onto something. If he wasn’t, he’d be begging for his life, because despite what the American public have been encouraged to believe, he isn’t that great an actor.
“Fifteen years ago, a road traffic accident in Sicily killed my parents and fiancée.”
He’s listening through the pain ricocheting around his body.
“There was insufficient evidence for the polizia to rule it as anything other than accidental death. But I believe otherwise. Do you know the incident I’m talking about?”
His eyes twitch as if another lie is about to glide off his tongue. “I heard about it.”
Of course he fucking did. Everyone on the island knew about it, Don Calderone and I made certain of that.
“What else did you hear?”
“Nothing.” There’s the lie. His eyes give him away every time.
“Was The Fish involved?”
“I just told you I know nothing about it.” Before I can claim another one of his fingers, he blurts out, “Why would he want to kill your parents and your fiancée?”
“For money?” I shrug. “Or the other currency he deals in: favors?”
Tommy slants his eyes in my direction, and I picture a movie director telling him to act like he’s holding the ace in a game of poker. “Think about it. Who stood to gain the most from killing your parents?”
Is he accusing me?
I’m on my feet, my fist gripping his throat again, his Adam’s apple bobbing against the palm of my hand. “You’ve got five seconds to explain whatever the fuck that comment was supposed to mean. One…”
“The rumors were…”
“Two…”
Tears trickle from the corners of his bulging eyes.
“Three…”
“Everyone said … it was one of the Sabatelli kids.”