30. Gio
GIO
“You don’t need to get involved in this, Alik.”
Alik is standing at the front entrance of Hotel Alba Dorata, a ball of barely leashed energy as he watches me stalk toward him. He’s barely repressing the urge to tap his toe. “Funny, I remember you being faster on your feet than this.”
“Fuck off. As I said, you don’t have to be here.”
“Your ex-business partner gets caught trespassing at your hotel the same day I check in with your niece and my family, and you think I’m not going to interrogate him with you? What a fucking insult.”
He’s only half joking.
It’s after one in the morning. The call from the hotel’s head of security pulled me from a mental clusterfuck, thoughts impossibly tangled after today’s trip to Sant’Angelo.
I’ve been running everything Vivi said on repeat, analyzing and reanalyzing until I can’t think straight.
I want to believe her. I want to believe her so fucking badly I’m terrified to let myself do it. To give myself permission to think about what it would mean for our future. What it would mean for my deal with Pazzi. For Aurora.
Vampa thinks Vivi is lying. He made that excruciatingly clear after we returned to Lisca Bianca and I’d settled her in her room. After everything she’s been through, she passed out in the helo and barely woke up when I put her in bed.
Vampa was waiting in my office. Waiting for me to confirm the situation hasn’t changed. That the plan is still a go.
I couldn’t give him the reassurance he wanted. He left, demeanor ice cold, and we haven’t spoken since. I’ve filled the intervening hours by running scenario after scenario, testing every detail to see if I can catch Vivi in a lie. Or if it’s possible she’s telling the truth.
Holy fuck, do I want her to be telling the truth.
I got the call from Alba Dorata before I could decide one way or the other.
Romano has been in the basement holding cell for at least an hour. Alik has been waiting not so patiently for half that.
“Fine. Fuck it. Come on.” I wave him to follow.
We’re greeted by the head of my hotel security; he brings us down to the holding room, unlocking the door to reveal a filthy Edoardo Romano handcuffed to a chair.
Alik and I enter. I dismiss the third man. I don’t need witnesses, not tonight.
Edoardo stares at me like a petulant child for a full thirty seconds before growling, “You can’t keep me locked in here. This is my hotel, too.”
“Was. Past tense.”
“Only because you went mental over a woman, Marchetti. Not something I ever expected from you.” He definitely means it as an insult.
Just like I mean my punch as punishment.
Edoardo’s head flies back with a satisfying snap. A bruise almost instantly starts to spread across the underside of his jaw.
“Let’s try this again.” I take a stance in front of him while Alik leans against one wall. “Where the fuck have you been, Edoardo?”
He spits out a wad of blood. It lands with a wet smack at my feet. No answer.
“Okay, how about this one—why are you here, Edoardo?”
His eyes twitch. “I’m here to make a deal.”
I click my tongue. “That’s going to be hard, seeing as you don’t have anything I want.”
Something hard flashes in Romano’s face. Disturbingly gleeful. “You don’t know how wrong you are, Marchetti. I have something you want very much.”
Vivi is safe on the island. Aurora is safe asleep, upstairs with Sera, Alik’s wife, and his guard Dimitri. Multiple guards have confirmed those facts multiple times. I have the things I want.
Still, I play along. “What the fuck could you possibly have that I want?”
“The answer to who poisoned your dumpy little wife.”
He barely gets the last word out before my fist is flying, his head is repelling back again. “Vaffanculo. You really don’t learn, do you?”
This time his bloody spit splatters across my shoes. Alik stiffens. He knows how I feel about my shoes. It just goes to show how fucking fed up I am that I don’t bother wiping them clean.
When Edoardo can make his mouth work again, I say, “Fine. Tell me.”
“Not before we make a deal.”
“And what is it that you want?”
“Money. Clemency. Safe passage out of Italy.”
I rest my ass on the metal table sitting in the middle of the room. Within perfect punching distance of Romano. “Pick one. You don’t get all three.”
Panic wells before he’s able to hide it. “Fuck. Money, then. A lot of it.”
“Two million euros.”
“Ten.”
“You’re not understanding how this works.” I pull my Beretta from beneath my suit jacket, aim it at his kneecap. “One million, and maybe I let you leave with two functional legs. Depending on how fast you tell me what I want to know.”
“Lucia,” he spits, legs shaking. “Lucia poisoned Vivi.”
It’s confirmation of what I’ve suspected for days. Hearing it from her husband’s mouth doesn’t make it more palatable. “Why?”
“Payback. For cutting us out of the business. All because we insulted your wife.”
I’ve started to squeeze the trigger before he’s finished speaking. His kneecap shatters, blood and bits of bone scattering as Edoardo screams. The smell of piss fills the air.
“You don’t learn, Romano. You simply do not learn.”
He’s breathing through clenched teeth, spit and sweat going everywhere. When he can finally open his eyes, his look is murderous. “You. Fucking. Bastard.”
“You. Fucking. Cunt.” I press the muzzle of the gun against his wound. “Should we keep going? We can trade insults all night if you’d like. Or until I get bored and take out your other knee.”
“Fuck, fuck, FINE!” His chest saws up and down.
“When you cut us out of the hotel and club, our cash flow collapsed. We were bleeding too much money. And Lucia was so pissed you picked that dumpy bitch over her. Christ, that woman’s fucking ego…
Lucia couldn’t handle it. She wanted to punish you.
Both of you. She was still friendly with one of the club’s waitstaff.
Well, fucking one of the waitstaff. She convinced him to put the arsenic in your wife’s drink. ”
“And where is that poor bastard now?”
Edoardo squints his beady little eyes. “Same place as Lucia. In my trunk.”
Ah. “And your car is where?”
Edoardo gives us the cross streets where he’s parked. Alik notes the information and leaves.
“Where’s he going?” Edoardo asks.
“To confirm your story.”
“And what do I get when he comes back?”
“That’s going to depend on what he finds.”
We don’t have to wait long. Within ten minutes, my phone buzzes with a message. No text, just images of two bodies in the trunk of a nondescript black car.
I sigh. “Why did you kill Lucia, Edo?”
“Because she wouldn’t shut the fuck up. After she tried to kill your wife, everything got worse.
The bank started repossessing our shit. We went completely bankrupt.
Lucia wouldn’t stop blaming me, kept telling me it was all my fault.
That if I’d just kept my fucking mouth shut, we’d still be business partners, we’d be cashing in from the hotel and club, getting our cut from the cocaine sales.
She told me it was my fault we were broke, and I was tired of being yelled at.
I found her with her boy toy, killed them both. Two birds, two bullets.”
If I ever needed an example of why it’s critical to maintain control, Edo’s story is it. What a fucking mess.
I let the weight of my gun settle against my palm. “And when were you planning to tell me about the cocaine?”
Edoardo’s sweat production doubles right in front of my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Come on, Edo. You didn’t think you’d get away with it, did you? The contact, the names, the new crew? You and Lucia have been around long enough to know a story like that was never going to track.”
“Then why did you play along? You sent your man to deal with us, to get the intel Lucia received from her contacts. If you knew we were behind the theft, why not threaten us then and there, get the cocaine back?”
“Because I wanted it done quietly. Because I didn’t want it to jeopardize the launch of the club. Because you made it so fucking easy to get it back.”
Because I didn’t think you had the balls to retaliate by attacking my family with fucking arsenic.
An error in judgment I’ll be rectifying tonight.
“And because,” I continue, “it gave my accountants enough time to track down the offshore account you’ve been using to hide all your kickbacks.
” I let the answer settle. Let him start to piece together the implications.
“You know, the off-the-book payments from the friends whose firms you contracted to work on the hotel. The finder’s fee you charged those assholes in Naples for ‘sourcing’ their product for them.
My accountants needed time to gain access to the account.
To empty it. Before I contacted your creditors and politely asked them to call in your debts. ”
Edoardo’s eyes look like they are going to fall out of his head. “It was you? You’re the reason I have fuck-all left to my name!? No house, no car, no fucking money!”
“No wife,” I add. “Don’t forget about her.”
“Fuck you, Marchetti.”
“No.” I slam my gun against his shattered knee. “Fuck you for ever thinking you could fuck me over. For thinking you could steal from me. Thinking you could hurt my wife. Fuck. You.”
The man thrashes in the chair. Blood, spit, sweat flying. He’s cursing me, cursing everyone in my family. The noise becomes unbearable.
I aim my gun at his head. Fire.
The dead body of Edoardo Romano slams against the chair. The chair tips back, crashing to the ground. Then, thank fuck, there is silence.
One less problem to deal with. What feels like a million to go…
Alik returns as I’m wiping down my weapon. He looks around the room, face souring. “I hope you don’t expect me to help you clean this up.”
“No. I’ve called my people. The mess will be gone shortly. The one in the car, too.”
We wait in the hall until my crew arrives. I give the hotel security strict instructions to leave them alone, then Alik and I go up to the lobby. We’re still meters from the bar when the bartender places two glasses of vodka on the highly polished surface.