59. Lorenzo
CHAPTER 59
Lorenzo
“ T he investigation into the bombings is officially closed,” Miriam reported.
I pretended to be surprised, just like I was supposed to. There was no telling who was listening on Agent Lewis’s side of things. “Oh? I was expecting to be called back in for questioning.”
Across from me, Elias rolled his eyes. You’re a terrible actor , he mouthed at me, and I flipped him off. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Vitali,” Miriam said, and then I knew that someone was standing beside her. “We have a full confession from the individual responsible.”
“I will, of course, be on standby for the trial.”
She cleared her throat. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Vitali,” he said. “Unfortunately, while in custody, the suspect got into a fight with another inmate while they were in the shower. He was pushed and hit a jagged tile that was sticking out of the floor. He’s currently in a coma, and we aren’t sure if he’s going to wake up.”
Elias made a harrumph sound deep in his throat. “I hope you’re not insinuating that my client had anything to do with this man’s death while in your custody, Agent Lewis.”
“That thought never occurred to me, Mr. Greco,” she said. Miriam was a much better actress than me…even I had believed what she was saying. “For now, the Department of Justice is considering the case closed. We apologize for any undue stress that this might have caused your client.”
The phone call ended, and I felt my shoulders let go. “A jagged tile, Elias?”
“We paid a custodian to pop a few the day before Alfie was taken to the prison,” he said succinctly. He pulled a file from the bag that he’d brought with him and handed it to me. “These are the final contracts for you and Nikolai to sign to formalize the alliance with the Syndicate.”
I glanced through the document. “You added the mutual arms trade?”
“I did,” he said. “Don Gallo and Don Bianchi were particularly happy with the terms.”
“Good.” I grabbed the pen and signed the contract and handed it back to him.
From the armchair near the window, Elio scoffed. “I still think this is going to blow up in your face.” His grudge against the Russians over what happened to Amalia was still holding strong, but at least, he hadn’t thrown anymore punches at me.
“That’s what the contract is for,” Elias said.
My cousin held up his hands. “I forgot that your fancy piece of paper was a magical shield.”
Elias rolled his eyes. “It’s mutually assured destruction,” he said. “If they fuck up, we can legally take eighty percent of their legal businesses and vice versa. Nikolai is a businessman; he’s not going to mess with his money anymore than Lorenzo would.”
“Whatever.” My phone jingled, cutting off whatever argument Elio was building up to. He smirked. “Another craving?”
I looked at the text from Isabella. She was thirty-four weeks, and she was already beginning to dilate, so her new OB recommended that she go on partial bedrest. It had been rough on her, especially since she was only allowed to climb the stairs once a day, so she had to pick if she wanted to be upstairs or downstairs and stay there.
“She wants some of that chocolate cranberry biscotti that Amalia made. Do we still have some down in the kitchen?”
Elio nodded. “Amalia made sure the pantry has been stocked since it’s become your wife’s hyper-fixation.”
I hummed and looked at Elias. “Well, it seems I have some errands to attend to. Do you need anything else?”
Elias shook his head and put the folder with the signed papers back into his bag. “This is it.”
I went down the stairs, intent on grabbing Isabella her snack and going straight back upstairs, but Damian opened the basement door as I was passing by. “It’s lunchtime, boss,” he said.
“Already?” I sent Isabella a text and asked if she could wait a few minutes; her response wasn’t thrilled, but she assured me that she could.
I followed Damian into the cell at the very end of the soundproofed hallway. When the door opened, the smell of rotten meat hit my nose. I reached for the Vicks VapoRub on the workbench near the door and smeared a little beneath my nose, not taking my eyes off the man chained to the wall ahead of me.
Artem sagged in his chains. His wrists were rubbed raw from all the pulling he had done when we’d first brought him here. He’d stopped doing that, but the wounds were infected now. Damian kept them manageably clean: we couldn’t let the man die from sepsis, not yet.
The man looked up when we came through the door, and although he barely reacted to Damian, his face lost the little color it had when he saw me. I smiled and knew that it was a nasty thing that stretched my face grotesquely. He flinched, and I cooed at him in a saccharine way. “I’ve brought you a present,” I told him.
Damian held up a tablet, and when Artem wouldn’t look at it, I crossed the room and grabbed him by his filthy hair. “You don’t want to miss this,” I said and nodded for Damian to press play. When I glanced down, I saw that Artem had shut his eyes. “If you don’t open your eyes, I’ll cut off your eyelids.”
He opened them, whimpering pitifully. This was a truly broken man, and I reveled in his misery. The video was of an older man, an uncle who lived in Chicago. Elio had gone to visit him, forcing him onto his knees, making him beg for a mercy that wouldn’t come.
Artem watched Elio spray the man’s brains all over the wall with dull eyes. He’d settled once the man had come on screen. Every day he waited for the video to contain his wife and daughter, and whenever it wasn’t them, he relaxed. He accepted his fate.
My phone started ringing. “ Dolcezza ? Are you all right?”
“Are you baking my biscotti, or what?” she snapped, and I did my best to hide my laughter. Teasing Isabella over a craving wasn’t a smart move at the moment. While she had managed with cravings fine before, being stuck on bedrest had made her cranky and quick-tempered over just about anything.
“I apologize,” I said. “I’ll be right up. Is there anything else that I can bring for you?”
She was quiet for a moment. “Will you lay with me for a while?” she asked. “Do you have time?”
Povero amore mio . “Of course,” I promised. “Three minutes.”
“Three minutes,” she repeated. “I’m timing you.”
I hung up. “I would burn the world down for her,” I said before glancing at Artem. “You know what I mean, don’t you? The whole world revolves around ways to make her smile.”
“You better go, Enzo,” Damian said. “You promised her.”
“I did,” I agreed. “Make sure he’s ready for tomorrow.” Artem looked at me, moving slowly, as if he were wading through water. “I want him lucid for his special lunch guests.” His eyes widened a fraction, and I laughed outright. “It’s a two-fer, after all.”
Artem’s broken, rattled screams followed me out into the hall, but when the door swung shut, and the sound cut off, I sighed, content, in the stillness. I took the stairs two at a time leaving the basement and made it to Isabella’s side with twenty seconds to spare.
She smiled, and it lit me up from the inside. “You always keep your promises,” she said as I settled onto the bed beside her and handing over her treat.
“And I always will, dolcezza .”