Chapter Thirty-Eight Enzo
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Enzo
“Good job.” Tom awarded Sully with a brief pat on the back, his eyes grazing my face fleetingly, before landing back on his partner. He cocked an eyebrow. “What’d they get him for?”
“Extortion.” A skeletal, elderly marshal appeared from the bowels of the shadowy hallway, joining the two feds. “At a laundromat not too far from here. The owner called; we have CCTV footage of money exchanging hands from a few hours ago.”
“Sound?”
The marshal shook his head. “But we have a testimony, full report.”
“Did he make any calls?” Tom flicked his wrist to glance at his watch, radiating authority and detachment.
The marshal grinned smugly. “Not yet. He’s a fresh fish. Been here for less than half an hour.”
“Leave us alone for a sec.”
Sully hesitated for a beat before joining the marshal. They slinked across the hallway, disappearing through heavy doors.
I didn’t know why it felt so surreal to be in this setting. Me, sitting behind bars, where I undoubtedly belonged. Him, a squeaky-clean federal agent, on the other side of it, finally having me where he’d wanted me for three years. After an endless game of cat and mouse.
Still, everything about it felt wrong.
It was only last night that he’d held me so gently I fought hard not to weep.
Only ten hours ago that he’d fucked me slow and raw, never breaking eye contact, his sweat dripping into my face, down my chin, like the juicy nectar of a forbidden fruit.
Only six hours ago that I’d crawled from his bed with great reluctance after spending the night at his place, burrowing my nose into the hoodie I stole from him, to earn myself a few more moments of bliss.
The only reason I hadn’t been wearing it today was because Katya was landing in New York this evening for the final wedding preparations, and I was afraid she’d smell another man’s cologne on me. But lately, I’d wanted to get caught. Wanted to face the carnage of my actions head-on.
I wanted to tell the world that he was mine, even though it wasn’t the truth.
This whole morning had been catastrophically bad, from start to finish.
Luca had managed to get some of our soldiers released on bail, only to have another wave get arrested.
I’d been collecting protection money from eight in the morning—I even had to skip the gym—before I got detained.
And not only did I get arrested for the stupidest charge known to mankind, but the cops who read me my Miranda rights also decided to beat the crap out of me for shits and giggles.
I got it. They had a lot of pent-up rage after all the mayhem my family had caused over the years.
But that shiner was going to look fucking awful in the engagement pictures Katya was insisting we take tomorrow.
If I got out by tomorrow.
This wasn’t my first rodeo, so I knew how the next forty-eight hours would go—central booking, arraignment, then either freedom or a bus to Rikers. I really needed to talk to my lawyer.
Tom assessed me from the opposite side of the bars, cool azure eyes raking me from head to toe. I had a feeling he was waiting for me to flash him my get-out-of-jail-free card. The occasion certainly was fitting. I had the card with me at all times, like he’d asked.
He was high if he thought I was gonna waste it on a simple extortion charge.
Thrusting my chin out, I met his gaze head-on.
“Ferrante,” he drawled. Cold. Clinical. Indifferent.
“Rothwell.”
“I see the cops roughed you up.”
His gaze lingered on my shiner, my fat lip, and the bump on my forehead. Gently. So softly I could practically feel it like the soothing pads of his fingers.
“Oh, you mean these love bites?” I licked my busted lip, flicking a piece of dust from my knee. My handcuffs clinked at the movement. “Probably read my Tinder profile and knew what I was into.”
That earned me a small smile that felt like he’d injected sunshine straight into my fucking veins.
“Did you get the officers’ names?”
“Does the pope wear a funny hat?” He didn’t say anything, so I did. “You don’t look surprised to see me.”
“I’m not,” he confirmed. “Because I’m the one who put you here.”
His words detonated inside my chest. An ache spread like venom across it. I breathed through my nose, swallowing back a gasp of pain.
What did he mean by that? He put me here?
Tom’s frosty demeanor remained. “Wait here; I’ll see what I can do.”
Like I could go anywhere.
Tom vanished, but at least his lapdog, Sully, wasn’t here to taunt me. I sat back on the dingy bench and closed my eyes, trying to tell myself it was a bad joke.
I’m the one who put you here.
I needed to discuss his sense of humor with him next time we were together. More specifically, the absence of it. Standup comedy certainly wasn’t in his future.
My shiner was still sore, but nothing was as painful as having Tom treat me like the common criminal I was. Without realizing what I was doing, I dully began scratching at my wrists and forearms.
Clink, clink, clink, went the handcuffs again.
Great. Another flare-up was forming. The stress of the wedding, of our secret, of the Cold War with the Bratva were all taking their toll on me.
And while I was pretty sure I wasn’t going down on extortion charges, especially ones where I hadn’t even laid a finger on the man, it was less than ideal that I was here in the first place.
Luca had enough to deal with, and Achilles was basically co-captaining the operation right now. It was like we had two dons. Neither of which was going to be happy I’d ended up here.
About an hour and some change into my arrest, I asked to speak with my lawyer.
My request was met with a chirpy snort of derision. The stocky booker shook her head, flipping a page on her glossy magazine with her long, colorful nails. “In a little bit.”
“It’s my constitutional right.” I stood and leaned a shoulder against the bars.
“As I’m sure you’re aware, headquarters is not a precinct. You’ll get processed and receive all your rights once you’re transferred. For now, the FBI wants you here.”
“Until when?”
“Dunno.” The booker popped pink bubble gum, flipping another page. “What can I say? You’re a popular guy, handsome.”
Pushing off the bars and back to my little bench, I let out a slow exhale.
I had no idea what the fuck was going on, and whether my prolonged stay here was positive or not. If Sully was behind this fuckery, I was toast. But if it was Tom who’d pulled some strings behind the scenes, maybe I could get out of here unscathed…?
Another hour passed before Tom materialized from the long hallway, looking like he descended from Mount Olympus. Seriously, he wore authority so fucking well, I wanted to punch my own face for never asking him to handcuff me in bed. He wasn’t accompanied by Sully, which further lifted my mood.
Tom went straight to the booker and the marshal who stood beside her at the reception, ignoring my existence. He slapped a document on their desk. “I’m releasing him to the custody of the FBI, under my supervision,” he announced dryly, scribbling his signature on a clipped file on the counter.
The marshal whistled, peering at the paper. “That fast, huh? Maddox sure has a hard-on for the Ferrantes.”
“He’s not the only one…” my smart mouth couldn’t help but muttering. Tom’s face remained unreadable, but I knew he’d heard me.
“Uncuff him,” he said.
We were at the door when I asked him, “How’d you turn my case federal? I allegedly committed a state crime.”
I knew a decent amount about the law, because my father had made all three of us go to law school and pass the bar. To cheat the system, he’d said, you must first know it by heart.
“You bank-wired the alleged protection money. It crossed state lines. Wire fraud is federal.”
I had not wired that money in the twenty minutes between its collection and my arrest anywhere, and he damn well knew it.
He’d done it for me.
He was saving my goddamn ass.
Fuck me.
My heart started beating out of whack, my pulse drumming against places in my body I didn’t know existed. I sped up my pace to keep up with him. “Where’d I transfer the money? You know, just in case someone asks.”
“Naples, Florida. Chase.”
“Naples, Italy, would’ve made more sense.”
“Naples, Italy, would’ve sent you straight into the arms of Interpol, and I hear their agents are dashing. Couldn’t run the risk.”
My dick had no fucking business twitching at that joke. I licked my lips to cover my smile. People were watching as we exited the building. “Are you flirting with me, Agent Rothwell?”
“What do you think?” He flicked his sunglasses on. He still hadn’t looked at me. Not even once.
“I’m not sure what to think. My day has been a bit of a mess so far. I’m a little disoriented.”
“Join me in my office, and I’ll untangle you from the mess.” He slipped his hands into his front pockets. We walked side by side, a criminal and a federal agent, toward Civic Center.
He was really, really dry and point-blank, and it annoyed me that he was immune to my charms whenever we were in public. It also made me worried he was a robot—because who the fuck could resist me?
“Where’s your partner?” I asked.
“In the office. Yours?” he asked without missing a beat.
Touché.
“I believe Katya is at Heathrow right now, on her way here.”
“Ah. Engagement shoot tomorrow, I hear.”
His words barraged straight through my breastbone.
I cleared my throat. “How do you know?”
“Yours is not the only Instagram I stalk.”
I said nothing. Suddenly, I got the feeling that the main calamity of today was yet to come, but he was about to deliver it to me soon.
Was he breaking us up? Had I extorted too close to the sun, and he’d finally realized how much of a deadweight I was in his life and to his career and decided to cut me loose?
If so, releasing me made sense. He wanted to do me a solid, so he could send me off with a clean conscience.