Chapter Thirty-Six #2
“A gift.” He nods toward the laptop on the table between us.
A blue thumb drive sticks out from the USB port.
“Two drives full of evidence that Luca was the one working against us all along. Recorded calls, conversations, video footage of him setting things up, including the villa attack and the ambush on us. He was the perfect Trojan horse. I never suspected him. Not for a second.”
Perfect indeed, because neither did I. “Any clues about the man on the outside?”
“Nope.” He shakes his head slowly. “Whoever left this wants us to figure it out ourselves. In all the phone conversations, there’s only one voice that was distorted on purpose.
Which tells me it’s someone we would recognize immediately.
And that’s the voice giving the orders, fed him directives.
” He pauses. “As for the other voices… Two Uppermen, four Soldatis, and one junior member from the surveillance team. All are suddenly conveniently missing. Likely ran scared after seeing what happened to Luca.”
Taking a slow drink of my coffee, I gaze out over the backyard. “Luca was their chosen king, huh? Meant to ‘replace’ me.”
“According to the evidence, yeah.” He nudges the laptop toward me. “Listen to the recordings for yo—”
“Luca’s already dead. No point listening to him be a disloyal piece of shit.” I don’t even look at the screen. “Whatever’s on there will just piss me off. And I need to keep a clear head for whatever’s coming next.”
“You think it’s Red Cage helping us?”
“Nah.” I shake my head. “They’d never risk it with THE O.”
“Then I don’t fucking get it.” He throws his hands up, frustrated. “Who left this, and why? Are they helping, or taunting?”
I know exactly who left it. But Lorenzo’s already looking at me like I’m deranged for admitting out loud that I felt Raya here last night, so I keep it to myself. He won’t believe it’s her. “Go get some rest, Lo. I’ve got a meeting with the Gregors at three. I’ll take over until then.”
Lorenzo stands, stretches his arms behind his back. “Just so you know, I blame you for all this disruption. If you hadn’t kept pushing the limits with THE O, this would’ve all been handled clean without us ever knowing it happened.”
I wave him off. “Yeah, yeah.”
He’s about to leave when the chime from the front door echoes through the house.
A minute later, Cora appears. “Tazi and Eleni are asking to speak with you. They say they have information about Luca.”
“Doubt it’s anything we don’t already know,” Lorenzo mutters through a yawn.
“Bring them in,” I say.
In a few moments, Tazi and her wife are in front of me. While Tazi’s standing strong and undaunted as usual, Eleni’s shaking like a leaf, head bowed in either fear or remorse.
“What the fuck’s her problem?” I demand.
“Apologies, boss,” Tazi says, side-eying her with barely masked resentment. “She’s shaken up. In the wake of this morning, she came clean to me about something. And I want her to relay it to you herself.”
She elbows the trembling blonde beside her. “Tell them.”
Eleni stammers, “I-I-I didn’t want to—I-I—”
Before I can chuck my coffee mug at the blubbering idiot’s face, Lorenzo steps in and cuts to the point, “What did she come clean about? We don’t have time for this shit.”
Tazi notices my grip tightening on the mug and instinctively steps in front of her wife. “Raya found out Eleni was cheating on me with an Upper, and she used that information to blackmail her into hooking up with Luca, just so she could plant some kind of chip inside his belt.”
Lorenzo darts me a look.
Well, hell. Don’t I just love being right. Beating back a smile, I motion for Tazi to move out of the way.
She hesitates, but steps aside.
“Hey, look at me,” I tell her wife.
Eleni trembles harder.
“LOOK AT ME!”
She jumps in place, head snapping up, her fast-blinking eyes struggling to focus on me.
“Raya blackmailed you into planting a chip on Luca?” I ask.
“Y-yes.”
“A chip he somehow never noticed even though it was on his belt?”
“It was s-small. A t-type of t-transparent thingy,” she stutters.
“She told me to p-press it into the inside of his belt buckle, the one with the eagle that he w-wore all the t-time.” She swallows.
“When I did, it just kind of...uh, faded in. Like n-nothing was there. If I hadn’t put it there myself, I—I wouldn’t be able to t-tell anything w-was there. ”
“So what, keeping your affair a secret was more important than telling us what she was doing?”
She glances at Tazi, drops her eyes, catches herself, then snaps them back to me. “Raya knew about...s-something else. Something that would have ended my marriage if it got out. She threatened to reveal it if I told anyone. So I...uh, I-I didn’t.”
Tazi steps back, fuming. “What are you talking about? What did—”
“Not here,” I clip. “Sort your marital issues somewhere else.”
Tazi grits her teeth.
“Is that all?” I ask.
Eleni nods frantically, then blurts, “She killed Luca. And I’m worried she’s coming for me next. That’s why I wanted to—”
“What makes you think she killed Luca?”
Her eyes widen at the question, whipping between me and Lorenzo, as though she’s questioning her own sanity.
“Because... s-she’s scary?” Her voice pitches higher.
“She’s not who she pretends to be. She was cold and borderline psychotic with me.
There was nothing behind her eyes. Nothing.
And when I threatened to tell you what she’s really like, she laughed and told me to go ahead and do it so I could get to see her die.
” She shudders. “I’ve been avoiding her at all costs because she’s evil. ”
Lorenzo cocks his head. “We’re still talking about Raya here, right? My Raya?”
Eleni nods wildly. “Yes! It’s true! She’s not who she says she is. She killed Luca. I know it was her. And she’ll come for me now that—”
“Leave,” I cut in.
“But w-what if she—”
Tazi grabs her and hauls her out before she can finish.
Lorenzo grips the back of his now-empty chair. “You believe that shit?”
“What reason would she have to lie?” I ask calmly. “If anything, it explains some of what’s on the thumb drive. The chip must’ve been a transmitter. Or a bug. Maybe both. Something.”
See? I knew she was the one who left that gift. But could my little liar be a little killer, too? To hide the spike of excitement that thought gives me, I lift my mug and take a long sip of coffee.
Lorenzo, still thinking, mutters, “Last time I spoke to her, she told me she was disappointed in me for not knowing where she’d been that weekend.
” He pauses, brow furrowed in thought. “So the surveillance feed wasn’t ‘hacked’ last night.
It was her. She went in, looped the feed, and blinded the surveillance team.
” He shakes his head. “She was always showing me how to be clean and clever. Goddammit, I should’ve recognized her fingerprints on all of it.
” He kicks the chair. “Fuck! You were right about her all along.”
With a shit-eating smirk, I toast him with my coffee mug. “I’m always right.”
“I don’t understand.” He starts pacing. “What’s she doing? Helping us, or fucking with us?”
Welcome to the frustrating, confusing world of trying to figure out Raya fucking Michel, brother. Nice to finally have some company. “Maybe both.”
“If she’s the one who left the evidence, then she knows who’s been coming after us. She’s known all along.” He grips the back of his neck. “So why distort their voice? Why leave only partial information?”
“For the same reason she didn’t tell you she was with me that weekend,” I infer. “She wants us to figure it out ourselves. Just like you said.”
He stops pacing and stares at me, frustrated, bewildered. “How the hell are you so fucking calm right now? You’re the one who was fucking her. Who threw hands at Gio over her. Who acted like a goddamn sophomore with his first crush.”
My answering grin is too wide for my face. “And now that crush is even bigger.”
“For fuck’s sake.”
“Relax,” I say through a laugh. “Go get some sleep, you’re spinning out. If she wants us to figure it out on our own, then she probably left clues. Assuming she’s actually helping us, that is. While you rest up, I’ll go over everything. See what she buried in the noise.”
He drags a hand down his face and nods. “Okay. Okay…”
He starts to walk off, then stops. Looks back at me. “Shit, you really think she’s capable of killing Luca? And Rochi?”
I think of the snarling green-eyed wolf from my dreams, fur of thick black smoke, sharp teeth bared, leaping at me with cold ferocity. “Yeah. I do.”