Chapter Forty-Three Tom
Chapter Forty-Three
Tom
For the next week, I moved on autopilot.
Enzo was out of sight, but never out of mind. I knew what he was going through, and every minute he spent dealing with it alone turned me inside out.
He’d come out of the closet. I was proud, but also terrified for him.
It was the talk of the Camorra. The blowback was brutal, down to memes and jokes they passed around on their end-to-end encrypted messaging channels.
I hoped he wasn’t privy to them, but if I had access to those chats, I bet my goddamn neck he did, too.
Thirty-two soldiers had bowed out of the Camorra, citing the fact that they could not receive orders from a gay man. Sometimes Sully showed me a snippet or two from what the soldiers said on their messaging apps. I pretended it amused me, though it killed me inside.
Enzo hadn’t posted anything on Instagram and had turned off the option to comment.
From clawing at the mental walls of my sanity from watching him interact with internet fangirls (and sometimes boys), I’d switched to feeling acutely, irrationally upset on his behalf.
As long as he posted stupid shit online, I knew that he was doing fine, more or less.
This new quiet made his suffering so loud.
There had been movement in bank accounts they thought weren’t under surveillance, too.
Luca had transferred a large sum to Switzerland and liquidated many of his rentals.
Enzo and Achilles had transferred funds to the Cayman Islands.
I was sure they had escape routes, several fake passports, and hideouts in place.
I’d imagined being a Ferrante right now felt like a convict standing in front of a firing squad, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
What they didn’t know was that the shoe was never going to hit the ground.
Grams was right. I had found a way to fix it after all.
I was sabotaging my own case.
And I was beyond giving one measly fuck about the consequences.
Best-case scenario, my plan would get me fired. Worst? Imprisoned.
Truth be told, I was pretty certain I would end up in prison for what I was about to do.
And I wouldn’t be the only one to bear the wrath of my actions. I was fucking Zeke over, too. There was no chance President Keaton would promote him to director of the FBI if anyone found out about the clusterfuck I was planning.
It would kill every career prospect both of us had ever had. And if this came out to the public, the FBI would need years to recover its reputation.
Because in order to save Enzo, I now had to save the entire Camorra.
The murderers, the thieves, the drug dealers, the abusers, the very filth I’d vowed to keep off the streets of New York.
Every single one of them, spared. Because of my weakness. Because of him.
“Has my informant arrived?” I strode into the office at seven thirty in the morning.
I’d been taking great pains to look and act like my normal self. I worked out, dressed well, had gotten a nice, expensive haircut, and kept up appearances. I’d even taken Zeke’s wife up on her offer and had dinner at their place yesterday. It was crucial to show the world business was as usual.
“Yes.” My secretary didn’t bother looking up from her screen, still typing. “He’s in the conference room. Your coffee and notes are on your desk.”
“Sully?”
“Not here yet.”
“Pity. I’ll have to start without him.”
I was counting on it, though. I’d arranged most of the meetings with my informant at hours when Sully was either asleep or passed out drunk over a sticky bar.
After swiping my notepad and coffee from my desk on the way to the conference room, I readjusted my tie before opening the door. Then I walked inside.
“Hello, Slava.”
Slava sat at the far corner of the table, in a ball cap with the bill pushed low and an unassuming tracksuit.
Each trip he’d made into New York put him at a monumental risk.
We’d done our part by giving him a safe apartment, assigning a driver to take him to and from our offices, and cloaked him in complete anonymity.
But if the Camorra found out, he’d be deader than dead.
Still, he’d done it. His hatred for the Ferrantes was Mariana Trench–deep.
I was still trying to figure out why.
“Coffee?” I assumed the seat opposite to him, on the other side of the table.
He gestured toward a paper cup in front of him silently.
“Let’s pick up from where we left off last time.” I flipped my notepad open. Clicked the pen. “You were going to tell me why you’re executing our plan next week. Why you’re faking that drug shipment coming into New York to bait the Camorra. I’m interested in hearing all about it.”
“Why?” he drawled. “You’re an FBI agent, not my shrink. The fuck does it matter why I want to help the bureau nail the Ferrantes?”
My pen halted above the pad. I set it down. “You’re asking me to send my best men to the field, where there’ll be dozens of Bratva and Camorra members, heavily armed, and you don’t know why I’m questioning your motives?”
He ran his tongue along his top teeth before waving a flippant hand. “Fine. Let’s get it over with so we can move to the actual operation.”
“Why did you want to sabotage the engagement between your sister and the younger Ferrante brother so badly?” I asked blandly. I couldn’t bring myself to say Enzo’s name without my voice cracking. Everything in the room was recorded. His reactions and mine.
“He doesn’t deserve her.” Slava flicked a ball of lint from his tracksuit.
“Why doesn’t he deserve her?”
“Because he’s a damn faggot!”
“Can you repeat that?” I drawled dispassionately, scribbling on my notepad without lifting my gaze. Inside, my rage was as sharp as a knife, begging to slice him open.
“A faggot,” Slava repeated. “He fucks men. Or…men fuck him. And other shit like that. The first time I heard about it, through some homo lackey of mine with a profile on one of their…their dating sites,” he growled heatedly, “I couldn’t believe it myself.
So I sent Konstantin to get me proof. Told him I’d pay him fifty grand if he came back to me with evidence. ”
“Konstantin?” Again, my tone was jaded. Impersonal.
“Yes. Kosta.”
Or Cash, I mused.
If only Slava knew that I, myself, had cracked his spine like a lobster’s to save Enzo from his own downfall.
“And did you get the proof you were after?”
“Not exactly.” Slava huffed, one of his legs bouncing over the other. “Enzo killed Cash and got rid of the body. But that, in itself, is proof, you see?”
“Can’t say that I do.”
“I’ve had an open beef with the Ferrantes ever since Achilles broke off his engagement to Katya for that redheaded whore.” He was going in circles, with the subject always returning to his younger sister. “Stupid cunt,” he muttered.
“And yet you decided to break another engagement for her.”
“It’s for her own good,” he stressed. “These men are deplorable and not in her league. They’re animals! She deserves someone better. Someone who understands.”
“Did you ever ask Katya what she wants?” I inquired calmly. “Perhaps she knew about Ferrante’s alleged sexual orientation and was fine with it. Arrangements of convenience aren’t unheard of in your world.”
“I hate all three of them.” Slava ignored me, locked in a trance. “Luca, Achilles, and Enzo. But Enzo is the weakest link. He simply won’t do for my beautiful Katya.”
Placing my pen on the desk, I leaned back in my seat, drumming my fingers against one another. “Who would you pair Katya with, Slava?”
“Huh?” He let out a ragged breath.
“In an ideal world, if you were to match her in an arranged marriage, who would you pick from the underworld?”
“No one!” He swore in Russian. “No one deserves her.”
“No one but…you?”
Slava turned as pale as milk. The jig was up. He was in love with his sister. In love with her and unable to handle the idea of someone else touching her. It was perverted, twisted, and wrong, and yet he had the audacity to judge Enzo for being attracted to men.
“She’s my sister.” He swallowed hard.
“I know. Which is why you got yourself a pretty girlfriend. The perfect cover-up.” He stared down at his feet.
I let him stew on my words before continuing.
“Then you sent said girlfriend to tell the Camorra the Bratva was going to get a drug shipment in their territory, hoping it’d be enough to spark a war. ”
“Hey, that wasn’t my idea,” he reminded me, stabbing his index finger at his chest.
“And what of your girlfriend?” I ignored his little hissy fit. “Even with all the Ferrante brothers in prison, she’ll be killed for uttering the lie by someone from the outside.”
Slava’s eyes hardened, and he yanked his ball cap off, tossing it on the table. He dragged his fingers through unkempt hair. “Are we done now? Can we talk about our plan?”
“Yes. Give me the details.”
“It’s going to happen on Wednesday night. Approximately two in the morning,” Slava said.
“Does the pakhan know?”
“No.” Slava’s eyes skittered to the ceiling; the signs of unrest kept piling up. “Alex isn’t as trigger happy as me when it comes to the Camorra.”
“Why?”
“He loves Tiernan, and Tiernan is married to that goody two-shoes Ferrante sister. The pakhan won’t provoke the Camorra so openly. He might still fight them, but he’ll fight clean. Too clean, if you ask me.”
“So all the Bratva soldiers at the port are going to be…what? Rebels?”
Slava’s jaw twitched. “Loyalists. I’m a Rasputin. I should be pakhan.”
You should be dead, I thought.
“And you promise me all of the Ferrante brothers will be there, so we can arrest them?”
“Yes,” Slava said. “There’s no way in hell Luca would let anyone miss out on the operation. They have to save face. You need to make sure you arrest them before they touch my soldiers, though. I need them.”
“And then what?” I asked.
“Then I return to Vegas after heroically throwing the Ferrante brothers in prison for life. I shove Alex out of the way, assume the throne, and become the pakhan.”
“And Katya?”
“Katya will stay with me”—Slava’s eyes gleamed—“where she belongs.”