Chapter 9
Dean
Mark stood behind his chair, arms crossed, as I entered his office. He wasn’t impressed as I laid the small microphone and wires on his desk.
“This equipment is expensive,” he said tightly. “Not to mention if Lily had seen this—”
“She did.” I slid my hands into the pockets of my jeans.
His jaw ticked. “I thought we agreed she wouldn’t find out.”
“Whoops.” I smiled my sarcasm and then jabbed a thumb over my shoulder in the direction of the office door. “If that’s all, I’ve gotta get to work, I ran myself late driving over here—”
“Now that you’re here, we can discuss last night.”
“Isn’t that what the device is for? So I don’t have to discuss what was said?”
“Yes, but it’d be helpful to know the layout of Antonio’s house, the club, who you saw, and what you saw.” He pulled out his chair but gestured to the empty one in front of me. “Take a seat.”
“You know some of us aren’t rollin’ in it, right? We need money to pay bills.”
“Doesn’t Antonio pay you enough?” He sat down, raising his brow in a way that meant he knew better.
“The Den burned down. I haven’t won fight money in months. And he hasn’t had any work for me… I’m relyin’ on work at the garage and shouldn’t be missin’ shifts right now. I’ll come back later.” I turned to leave and got as far as the door.
“Fine by me. It’ll give me time to have a chat with immigration.”
The only thing Lily shared with this man was the color of her eyes and her curiosity. Except while she paired her curiosity with empathy, Mark’s curiosity was driven by the need to find justice regardless of who he dragged down to get it.
My grip was tight on the door handle as I paused, grinding my jaw. There was no escaping this until I had done what was asked. Every little thing, every fucking time. I reluctantly turned around, pulled out the chair with a little too much force, and then dropped into it.
“Good man. Now…” Mark pulled out a notepad and pen. “Tell me about last night.”
I told him about Castello di Vetro’s interior and the basement below.
With each new piece of information Mark heard, he wanted it dissected, asking question after question about where the stairs, exits, and windows were.
Or how many people could the club hold compared to its basement.
The conversation then shifted to the plans Antonio had for his kids.
“Antonio plans to…teach his kids a lesson?” Mark asked.
I sighed tiredly, rubbing at the subtle ache forming between my eyebrows. We had been talking for a solid two hours, and my phone had several missed calls from my garage boss. “They fucked up a few years back and now they’re angry he cut their inheritance. Antonio sees them as a threat.”
“And he believes it was his kids who burned down his club?”
My leg was already beginning to bounce with irritation, but I kept my voice calm, disinterested. “Yes… Haven’t we talked about this already?”
“Yes, but I want to make sure I have all the facts straight…” He glanced down at his notes again and shook his head as he inhaled. “This is one roundabout way of punishing his kids when he doesn’t have all the evidence that it was them.”
“That’s what Roxy is for. Build some kind of relationship with Gabriele and bring back information to Antonio.”
“Maybe we should’ve gotten her in on our investigation too. Gabriele does have sisters.” I could see the plan forming in Mark’s eyes.
“Not happenin’.”
“Just a thought.”
“Are we done now?”
He ignored me. “Has Antonio told you about any of his more detailed plans? Is there anything else we should know about him? Any new weapon deals? Drug trafficking?”
“He plays it close to the chest, and I do what I’m told... He hasn’t brought up any other jobs for me other than this one with his kids.”
“And if you don’t do as you’re told?”
“Develop a thick skin?” I pulled my hand through my hair and leaned back in my seat. “Antonio likes makin’ examples of people who wrong him. There’s always gotta be some life lesson with everything he does.”
Mark watched me for a beat. “I imagine you’ve witnessed a few of those life lessons.”
I cocked a brow. “Isn’t that what I’m facing charges for?”
“I meant directed at you.”
I shrugged and rubbed a hand across my stomach where a bruise from Vince’s brass knuckles sat. “Sometimes… You learn pretty quickly not to fuck up when you’re working for Antonio.”
“Right…” He directed his attention to his files.
A thought crossed my mind, and I tilted my head. “How many people are on this case?”
“A handful of the best we have for organized crime. Me included.”
“And you trust them?”
Mark sighed and looked up from his notes. “What are you saying? That we’d have a mole?”
“How would you know if you had one or not?”
He scoffed and went back to reading his notes. “They’re highly respected detectives, hand-picked by our captain, with spotless records and plenty of loyalty to the badge. None are working for criminals.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, sarge.”
“Moving on… Who were you talking to before you met the Gimello triplets?”
“One of the other fighters.” White lies and half-truths were easy.
Evidence of Seb being a fighter was burned with The Den, along with everyone else’s photos. In the law's eyes, Seb didn’t exist to them, and that was how I planned to keep it.
Mark watched me closely. “He asked about the wire, but then you went quiet.”
“The tape got loose, and the wire fell. I put it in my pants before someone else saw. I guess it was unplugged. I told him it was my earphones.” My voice remained steady.
He hummed and looked back at his notes. “Are you close with any of the other fighters?”
“No.”
“And you aren’t saying that to protect a friend?”
I folded my arms loosely across my chest. “None of us are friendly with each other. It’s every man for himself in those places.”
Mark considered this for a moment, clicking his pen before he continued. “You mentioned life lessons you learned from working with Antonio. I imagine some of those included ways of getting you out of trouble. Maybe dealing with unwanted company?”
I realized too late where he was taking this new line of questioning.
“What happened to your father, Gio Calacoci?”
The mention of his name created tension in my jaw. “Read the death certificate. It was suicide.”
“There was no note.”
“He wasn’t very sentimental.”
“It’s a little odd, don’t you think? Your mother winds up a paraplegic and loses an unborn baby from a domestic dispute, and then five years later, your father kills himself? Quite brutally, may I add.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I’m trying to figure out what kind of man you are.”
Guilty people always talked first, so I kept my mouth shut and grew comfortable in the silence drawing out between us.
“Strong, silent type. Got it… Who paid for all your mother’s equipment? Like the ramps and the wheelchair.”
“Antonio.”
“That was generous of him.”
“It didn’t come free.”
“What do you mean by that?”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Why do you think I continued fighting for him?”
“Ah, gotcha.” He tapped his temple with his pen and then wrote something down in his notebook. “You know your leg bounces when you’re avoiding a topic or irritated?”
“I thought you wanted my help with Antonio. What’s with diggin’ into my past?”
“As I said, trying to figure out what kind of man you are.”