Chapter 34
Geneva
The night was humid, the wind in the polluted city more like a hot waft of car exhaust than anything even resembling pleasant. The park was surprisingly empty, though considering the awful heat, the lack of visitors made sense. The mixed hardwood deciduous and evergreens at least created a pleasing setting for what might be about to happen. The moon was out, the light more than enough to illuminate the flagstone walk that snaked its way across the ill-kept lawn marred by yellowed islands of pet burns, toward the fountain where I waited.
My jeans and oversized sweater were entirely wrong for the weather, but there was nothing for it. Rick felt it was the best way to conceal the wire down the back of my pants. He’d nixed me wearing an earpiece—he’d called it an IF something—concluding it was too likely to be spotted.
I desperately wanted… something at that moment though, feeling entirely naked, beads of itching sweat running down between my breasts under the sweater threads. The faint scent of chlorine, no doubt added to a fountain that was probably regularly used for something quite different than decoration, was just detectable on the air.
Now and then an evening jogger, or an evening pair of them, would pass, and I’d wave, trying to look as relaxed as possible. I hoped I looked like just some bored girl fiddling with her phone. Nothing special. ‘Forgettable’ was the word Rick used. I tried not to be bothered by it.
Don’t be an idiot. He’s not saying you’re forgettable.
Still, I didn’t like it.
Salazzo always passed the fountain on his evening walkabouts. Not always at the same time, but it was in a range from just after 8:00 to right around 8:20. I found it odd that a man like him was such a strict creature of habit. I’d thought maybe he was arrogant, certain nobody would dare mess with him. Rick had explained it was more likely a throwback to his roots, in keeping with the Italian tradition of taking la passeggiata, an evening stroll.
Or the man could just be crazy.
On the surface the place looked inviting, even pretty if one didn’t study it too hard. But at that moment, none of it even came close to countering the dread sinking deep and hot in the pit of my stomach. For all I knew, the next few minutes might be the last ones of my life.
I had never actually seen Salazzo in the flesh before, but Rick had told me enough. I’d certainly read plenty about him. I knew who to look for.
That’s when I saw them, a group of at least six men clustered around another. About fifty yards away, they emerged from the shadows of the trees. The one man’s arm was gesticulating, the moonlight catching on the silver metal of the watch band at his wrist. He was saying something, but the moan of the wind in my ears drowned it out.
Laughter rippled through the group as it drew closer. They were big, all of them, but at the center of the group was the biggest of all.
That’s him.
He was a tall, broad-shouldered figure, hair dark and perfectly coiffed. While all the men around him wore variations of the dark suit, he had, of all things, a short-sleeve blue and white patterned polo shirt on, and dark slacks. His shoes were nice, meticulously clean. Expensive, but not flashy.
Not exactly the profile of the bloodthirsty thug you were expecting.
But as they drew closer, their footfalls now just audible, I caught a glimpse of his eyes. They seemed to gather the moonlight, their gaze as harsh and unforgiving as the vacuum of space.
Definitely Salazzo.
“Fuck, I hope you’re right about this, Rick,” I whispered to myself, careful not to be seen watching the men as they came closer still, just on the other side of the fountain from me.
I was so scared my phone was actually shaking in my hand.
Keep it together!
“M-Mr. Salazzo?”
“Who the fuck are you?” A towering, heavy-set man in a rumpled off-gray suitcoat said it, but I didn’t think it was Salazzo. Someone that big had to be one of his guards.
In the blink of an eye, the men surrounded me in an arc.
You’re screwed.
“Looks like a lost girl to me,” one of the others drawled.
A chill ran down my spine.
Do it, Genie!
“I-I have a message I’m supposed to give to you.”
“Is that so?” Salazzo was in shadow, the moonlight shining down upon him, illuminating the breadth of his shoulders, but casting his face in inky blackness. “Who from?”
“Chester.”
“What?” Several of the men said it at the same time. I’d surprised them, but I didn’t know if that was good or bad.
“Chester… who?”
I knew that he knew. It wasn’t a good sign that he was making me say it.
“Nantes.”
The men went silent.
“You never answered the question.” This time, Salazzo did step into the light. His nose was strong and straight, but a scar ran down the right side of it, from the bridge to just under his right nostril. Maybe a knife? Maybe an animal? Whatever it was, it must have been terrible. While it was long healed, it distorted his facial features just enough, especially in the low light, to render his visage into something feral.
In his eyes glittered not even the thought of anything approaching kindness. It was pure cruelty, avarice, and callousness. It was like looking into the abyss.
It’s just a small-time thug. It’s not Satan himself. Stay calm.
But that was much easier said than done.
I held out the envelope, hoping they didn’t see how it quavered in my grasp.
Salazzo nodded to one of his men, a huge, fat one in an ill-fitting suit, whose coat was much too tight at the belly. Smelling vaguely of something that had gone over as he stepped closer, he snatched up the envelope, the paper tearing loudly as he opened it. “Says?—”
“Give it to me, stupid,” Salazzo snapped. “I know how to read.”
“H-he asked me to deliver that only to you, Mr. Salazzo.”
Salazzo’s gimlet gaze peered at me from under dark, prominent brows. “You read this?”
“No.”
“You lyin’ to me?” He drew closer. “I don’t like liars.”
“I swear,” I croaked, almost swallowing my tongue.
But he didn’t reply immediately, scanning the paper, then balling it up in his fist, throwing it behind him. “You believe this shit? Nantes has the balls to threaten me? And he sends… you.”
“I-I don’t know anything. He just paid me to?—”
“Bullshit.” Salazzo stepped still closer. “I know who you are. You’re his family. Daughter? Or is it niece?”
Oh, fuck.
How did he know who I was? That was not how things were supposed to go.
Salazzo towered over me, grinning balefully. “You expect me to believe Nantes sent you, his own blood, to deliver this message?” His voice rose to a savage roar. “Do you!”
“I don’t know! He’s not my… a-anything. I’m just a girl.”
“Let me tell you something, Miss Just a Fucking Girl.” Salazzo surprised me then, dropping to one knee before me, a deceptively relaxed smile on his face. He reached out to me, running a callused thumb across the point of my chin.
He hooked a thumb toward his men. “You boys remember the bodega owner on Evangeline? That little fuckin’ hole in the wall? The one who wouldn’t play ball with us?” There was a murmur from the group.
His voice took on the hushed note of heated confidence, conveyed in a moment of intimate candor. “He had a daughter, too. Smart college girl. So, when Mr. Bodega man got a big dick about donating to the cause, I told him he wouldn’t be seeing her again until he opened that fucking wallet.”
Jesus Christ.
Salazzo seemed to be warming to his story, staring at me, a gleam of spittle at one corner of his lip as he spoke, his eyes not leaving mine. “I even showed him the missing person’s article in the paper. Told him my boys were having lots of fun with his princess. Prick still wouldn’t pay. Didn’t believe me. So, I sent him proof to get him to see the light.” He grinned, an awful rictus that made my stomach drop. “Those photos were the kind you’ll never see in a fucking newspaper. Never had one issue with him paying ever again though. You believe that shit? I’m not a monster though. Sent her back to him, as a thanks for a mutually beneficial business arrangement.”
His men laughed loudly at that.
“I… I’m gonna go.” I turned, intending to run, but a giant fist closed over my shoulder, squeezing so hard, I thought my collarbone might snap.
“You’re not going anywhere.” Salazzo’s voice dropped to a low, menacing timbre. “I wonder what Nantes will give me for Miss I’m-Just-a-Girl here?”
“Let’s see what else she’s carrying,” the fat one said, taking hold of my hair. I tried to pull away, yelping at the hot pain at my scalp… then the man let me go entirely.
“What the fuck…?” one of the men hissed under his breath.
“That’s enough. No, no, no. Stay right there, fat boy. That’s better, step away from her.”
The gruff voice was new—and blessedly familiar.
Rick!
Flanked by his second-in-command Viola, who was also armed, Rick had a pistol trained on the men. He emerged from the shadows of the same trees Salazzo and his man had come from.
Were they following him?
“Come here, girl,” Rick said softly. I wasted no time, dashing over to him as if I were running for my life. Which I was.
He tucked me in close, his gaze not leaving the thugs as he murmured to me, “You okay? You hurt?”
“No, no. I’m all right.” I hugged his side. “You got here just in time. Thank God.”
“Who the fuck is this?” Salazzo stood, advancing toward us, stepping onto the grass.
“That’s far enough, tough guy,” Viola said, her blonde single plait almost a shimmering white in the moonlight where it hung down behind her back. She held her own gun up, aiming straight at Salazzo. “I will fucking air you out,” she snapped, “if you come even one step closer.”
Wisely, the men stopped. For the moment.
“There’s a lot more of us than you. We’ll get to you before you can shoot all of us.” Salazzo grinned. “You should have brought more friends, bitch.”
“You don’t seem to understand the situation,” Viola purred, waving her gun at all of them, her other hand on her hip. Her black jeans were painted on, enviably showing off a trim, athletic figure, her boots lending her height that made her even more imposing than she might otherwise have been.
“There’s two of you, and eight of us. We understand it just fine,” Salazzo said, walking toward us again.
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Rick spun me around, yanking my shirt out of the waistband of my jeans, baring the small of my back to the men.
“Shit,” one of them hissed. “Fucking wire.”
The thugs stopped in their tracks.
“We have something better than friends. We have an insurance policy on good behavior. You getting what I’m saying here? I’ve already got enough here to put you boys away for what? Serial extortion? Kidnapping? Aggravated battery? Rape?”
“I’ll take my chances.” Salazzo’s smile faded instantly, his teeth almost bared, so deep was his sneer. “What’s stopping me from killing her, and torturing you—or your blonde pet—until we get the location where that wire’s recordings are being held?”
“You prick,” Vi said, shaking her head. “There are three jarhead snipers out there with you zeroed at two hundred yards—and they really love to practice their shots. Do you feel like taking that chance? No, I mean it. Are you really that fucking stupid?”
Rick held up a hand. “Nothing like that needs to happen. All you boys have to do is play nice. You let Mr. Nantes get what he wants, and nothing we recorded tonight ever needs to get into the wrong hands, Salazzo. It’ll be as if it never got recorded at all.”
Salazzo was silent for a moment. “How do we know you won’t leak it anyway?”
“You don’t,” Rick said, glaring at the thug. “But you and I both know the less attention given to this little, uh, project, the better. It’s in everyone’s interest to stay quiet. Isn’t it?”
“Fuck,” Salazzo snarled. “Fuck! Tell Chester… I’ll-I’ll agree to it.”
Rick and Viola were already backing up, their pistols still up and trained on the group of men. Rick’s big arm heavy across my shoulders brought me along with him. “I thought you’d see it that way. Nice doing business with you boys.”