Stunned silence followed the ultimatum I hoped came as a bombshell to all but one or two people. I knew it would spread like wildfire through the crew in minutes, so I texted Rafaelle to watch out for suspicious behaviour. When I tossed my phone onto the table, Renzo was staring at me, his raised eyebrows lost in the sweeping hair slanting across his forehead.
I shrugged.
‘Right, meeting’s over. Let’s start prepping for FP Two, everyone,’ Bibi said through barely clenched teeth. ‘You too, Renzo,’ she said when he remained sitting while everyone hightailed it out the door to get out of firing squad range.
The moment he shut the door behind him, she rounded on me. ‘What the fuck, Cesare! Why would you blurt that out there without speaking to me first?’
‘It was a spur-of-the-moment thing,’ I replied with zero regret. ‘At the very least it should shake things up a bit.’
‘Shake things up? You’re going to have people out there walking on eggshells and afraid to do their jobs in case you point a finger at them.’
‘Unless they’re a bunch of pussies, and I don’t think I managed to build a team from scratch and win two championships on the back of pussies, they have nothing to worry about unless they’ve done something wrong.’
She surged out of her seat and paced to the door before spinning back around, anger bristling through her tall frame. ‘Jesus, even you’re not naïve enough to think that just because you tell them there’s nothing to be afraid of, they’ll automatically stop shitting themselves? You strike the fear of God into them just by walking down the damn corridor.’
‘Good. I should. I’d like to think they joined this crew because they wanted to be part of something exciting,’ I countered.
‘And how fucking excited do you think they are about being called snitches?’
‘At the risk of repeating myself, if they’ve done nothing wrong then they don’t need to worry,sì?’
She pinched the bridge of her nose and I felt almost sorry for her. Almost. She wasn’t the one headed home to face Orazio’s wrath, wondering which bone he would break this time in his rage.
‘Rafa said you were making progress in locating the mole. How is that going?’
I raised my brows. ‘How do you think?’
She shook her head. ‘It still doesn’t justify you scaring the bejesus out of them. Most of them are good, talented people.’
‘A little fear goes a long way in reconsidering a bad idea. Tell me you didn’t think twice about rebelling because you knew the old man would skin you alive if you were found out?’ At her crossed arms and pursed lips, I continued. ‘Tell me the only reason you haven’t gotten around to telling him and Orazio tofuck off with the plans they’re cooking up for you even as we speak isn’t out of fear?’
She paled and, yeah, I hated myself a little bit for pulling that card.
As the only female offspring of my generation of Salvatores, she had it three times as hard. Her astonishing IQ had earned her a seat at the table but not a voice the older generation liked to hear. And since the not-so-small incident of a shot-to-death-multiple-times-under-mysterious-circumstances husband had left a huge question mark over her head, she was even more ignored than the wives and girlfriends.
Back in New York she was treated worse than a sidepiece. She was a near pariah. She’d found a place within my racing team and earned the respect sorely due to her.
‘You dare to bring that up? Throw it in my face?’ she muttered, her voice tight with the strain of unspoken trauma and deadly secrets.
I sighed and rounded the table, approaching her with caution.
Like me, she had the vicious Salvatore temper. Raising my hands, I tried to look conciliatory. ‘Sorry, Bibi. That was below the belt.’
She didn’t immediately throat-punch me when I reached touching distance, so I pushed my luck and pulled her into my arms. She remained stiff and unyielding for a full minute before her arms dropped.
Sliding them around my waist, she sniffed into my shoulder. ‘What the fuck, Cesare,’ she repeated.
I hugged her tighter. ‘I know. I’m a fuckwit.’
She waited a beat. ‘And?’
I sighed again. ‘And I’m in a shitty mood because I’ve been summoned.’
She pulled back to look into my face, her eyes shadowed with past ghosts having risen to the surface with my unthinking comment. ‘Orazio?’
I nodded. ‘And since it looks like the top podium isn’t going to happen this weekend either…’ I left the rest unsaid.
She grimaced. ‘He’s going to tear you a shiny new one if we don’t get him this championship.’
