Chapter 27 - MASSIMO #2
She survived. She didn't break. She didn't raise him weak or bitter or afraid of the world. She raised him aware. Observant. Compassionate. Which means that when I face her again, I won't be able to dismiss her as reckless or selfish or cruel. I hate the part of me that understands it.
I look down at Amauri again, memorizing the curve of his lashes, the way his mouth relaxes in sleep.
So much like me, it almost hurts. So much like her in ways I can't see yet.
Jenna will still answer for what she did.
But not the way I thought. Not with rage alone.
Because the woman who raised this? She's no longer just someone who took something from me.
She's someone who made something extraordinary.
And that changes everything.
Noise from the rear cabin interrupts the moment.
"Where is my wheelchair?" Whitford's voice cracks through the hum of the engines. "I need a phone. I need to call—"
My men bring him forward. They're being careful with him. I haven't told them yet how to handle him. Hell, I don't know how to handle him yet. They're moving him like he's something fragile and unpleasant at the same time. Which I suppose he is.
I watch them approach, I watch Whitford with the same loathing I've always felt for him. He's not really broken, but he's been—reduced.
He's lost weight. His hands shake. His face has that hollow, pinched look of a man who has never had to be brave and who has finally run out of shields.
This isn't survival etched into bone like Amauri carries it.
This is decay. I feel nothing like pity.
I never have. He was never a man. Men don't sell their girlfriends.
Men don't offer women up like currency so they can climb a ladder that was never meant to hold their weight.
Playtime, he'd called it. Coach would get his with Jenna, and Whitford would get his on the field, under the lights, with scouts watching and a future bought in bruises and silence.
I remember when I learned what he'd done. The night Jenna and I buried Coach in the desert. That was the moment I decided he would die. I gave her time. Time to leave him. Time to realize she deserved better. Time to walk away from the boy who thought women were stepping stones.
She did. The very next day. Or so she told me.
That was when I put my plan in motion. The memory flickers—
I'm standing on the edge of the field, anonymous in the crowd. Friday night lights. Noise. Heat. Violence disguised as sport.
"It's all set," Jerry assures me, nodding his head towards a boy on the opposing team. He's big. Number 57. "He'll break his neck, get it done. It'll be quick and public. An unfortunate accident." He shrugs. "Happens all the time in football."
I nod my agreement. It irks me that it'll be quick for Whitford, but it's the best I could do right now, flying under my uncle's radar.
If the old man found out what I was up to…
It's not family business. Hell, it's not business at all, it's personal, and he always warned me to be careful with personal shit.
No, nobody can ever find out about this.
Least of all, my uncle and his sons. So it'll be quick.
Dead is dead, I tell myself as I watch 57 tackle Whitford.
Hard. The angle is what matters. Whitford goes down, rolls awkwardly.
The crowd is too loud to hear the snapping of his neck.
But when the golden boy doesn't get up, it gets really, really quiet on the field.
I hand Jerry an envelope. A hundred grand. I'm not sure how much of that will get to 57, and I don't care. It's done.
Only it wasn't. Paralyzed, they told me. From the chest down. Karma has a sick sense of humor. I didn't demand my money back. It didn't matter. He was nothing but a walking corpse to me until… he married Jenna.
They place Whitford into a seat across from where I stand.
He fusses with his legs, the seat belt, and a blanket.
I remain still and standing. Fully intending to let the height do the work for me, letting him crane his neck just enough that it irritates him.
Petty? Absolutely. Satisfying? Immensely.
He looks up at me with polite confusion, not recognition. That alone is interesting.
"I owe you thanks," he nods, arranging his face into something practiced and political. The smile doesn't quite stick. "Did Kingsley send you?"
He waves down the flight attendant like he owns the aircraft. "Food," he says briskly. "Something light."
I don't stop it. I let him believe, for a few seconds longer, that he's still the kind of man whose gestures matter.
"No," my voice catches his attention again. "Kingsley didn't send me."
He looks up properly now, eyes sharpening, reassessing, brows furrowing. "Then… who?"
He studies my clothes. My stance. My men, strategically positioned without being obvious. The way the cabin seems to orbit me instead of him.
"You're not," he hesitates, then tries again, "some kind of special ops?"
I laugh. It slips out before I can stop it. Low. Genuine. The sound of something being entertained by its own restraint. "No."
I lean back against the seat across from him and cross my arms over my chest.
"Then who?" he presses, irritation creeping in. "Because you're clearly not military. And you're not State. And I don't recognize you."
"I know," I chuckle. "That's my favorite part."
The stewardess returns with a tray. She sets it down in front of him.
He's nervous now, sensing the imbalance but not understanding it.
Whitford thanks her distractedly, already losing interest in the food.
He's lucky he's still amusing me in a strange way.
My uncle always said don't play with your victims, but I find the opposite much more entertaining.
"I'm the man who paid for the plane. The men. The doctor. The silence."
He frowns. "You're… private?"
"In a way."
He exhales sharply, impatient. "Listen, whoever you are, I appreciate the rescue. Truly. But I need to contact my father-in-law. There are arrangements—"
"Your father-in-law," I interrupt, "figured you're more worth to him dead than alive."
Whitford freezes.
I continue, unhurried. "You sold a woman for a career. You bought a child for cover. And you've been coasting on borrowed authority ever since."
His smile collapses. "That's not—"
"You don't know who I am," I agree. "But you know who she is."
I let that sit.
His eyes flick, just once, toward the back of the cabin. Toward the couch. Toward the small, sleeping shape wrapped in a blanket. I step into his line of sight again, blocking it completely.
"You don't get to look at him," my tone is still soft, deceivingly so.
Fear finally arrives—pure, undiluted—as he starts picking up that I'm not here to rescue him.
"Who are you?" he whispers.
I lean down until we're eye level, close enough that he can see there's no anger left in me for him. Just judgment.
"You should have died the moment you touched what wasn't yours.
" I let that sink in, but it only confuses him further.
He's clueless. "I'm the man who ordered you hit on the field.
" His breath stutters. "I'm the reason you're still alive," I continue.
"And the reason your life is about to become very small.
" I straighten. "My name is Massimo Manetti. "
He recognizes the name instantly. It hits him late, but when it does, it's catastrophic. The color drains from his face.
"Oh," he breathes.
"Yes," I nod. "That's usually the moment."
Carter still doesn't understand. I can see it in the way his brow furrows, the way he keeps searching my face for a role he can recognize.
"But why would you come for me?" he asks, voice thin. "Save me?"
I almost smile.
"Who said I saved you?" I reply calmly. "Your wife asked me to save our son." The word our hits him like a slap. "You were just… part of the package," I continue. "Collateral."
His mouth opens, disbelief flickers into something closer to panic.
"You're lucky," I add, stepping back just enough to gesture at the tray in front of him. "I haven't quite decided what to do with you yet."
I tap the edge of the plate. Then the glass. "So eat. Drink." I let my gaze settle on him, heavy and unblinking. "Until I do decide, you'll keep breathing. "But make no mistake—" I straighten, towering over him again. "You're on my time now."
The words sink in slowly. His hands hover uselessly above the food, appetite gone, power stripped bare.
My phone rings. Perfect timing. I turn away from Whitford without another glance, done for now. Whatever comes next for him can wait. "Enzo?"
"Boss," he greets. His voice is tight. Focused. "We got a name. The Mexican talked."
Of course he did.
"The Oven never fails." It has never failed. Pain, fire, the prospect of a slow death… it works miracles. I move toward the back of the cabin, away from Carter, away from ears that don't deserve context. There's a pause.
"Enzo?" I stop. "Spit it out."
"The Oven might have failed us this time."
I still. "What?"
"It wasn't the Oven who made him talk." His next words give me a chill. "It was Jenna."
Silence slams down so hard I feel it in my chest. "…what?"
"She got him to talk," Enzo continues. "She didn't touch him. She didn't threaten. She just—" He exhales. "She broke him."
I hear admiration in his voice. That stops me for a fraction of a second, because Enzo doesn't give out that kind of compliment freely or often, but then undiluted fury flares so fast it almost blinds me. "Why the fuck was Jenna anywhere near that place?" I snap. "Of all the—"
"Listen to me," Enzo cuts in, calm but firm. He explains what happened. What she did. What she said. The name. The cartel. Joaquín Beltrán. La Orden del Norte. I don't interrupt. When he finishes, I'm standing very still.