“I’m aware,” Lazzaro answers through his teeth.
“I’m glad to hear it,” I smile again. “Because at this very moment in time, I find myself in a forgiving mood.”
Claudio blinks as he begins to understand what I’m getting at.
Still, I keep nudging him along. “Teo, what’s the interest rate on loans from the Guild?”
“There isn’t one,” he replies promptly.
“And why is that?”
“Because there aren’t any late payments.”
Perhaps the most effective banking system in the world. The threat of death tends to keep prospective borrowers away. Mia’s father, Chiavari, makes that abundantly and terrifyingly clear.
The fact that Lazzaro has gone so long without making a repayment is a massive anomaly—one that speaks to a corruption that goes far deeper than the few factions that defected when my father retired.
To have even pulled this off, Lazzaro would have needed an accomplice within my inner circle.
“How interesting.”
Despite Carmine Bellini’s insistence that he was the only rat trading secrets with the Cartel, information is still getting out from somewhere embarrassingly high up the food chain.
So I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both these things are happening at the same time. In fact, I’d be willing to bet my life that the second rat and Lazzaro’s accomplice are one and the same person.
We just need Lazzaro to slip up and lead us to them.
“You’re due to make your final payment next week, aren’t you?” I lie.
The date I’m referring to was taken from the forged loan agreement Teo initially dug up. The original expired over a month ago.
“Yes,” Claudio plays along gratefully, and it feels a bit like leading a lamb to slaughter.
I pick up the fountain pen at my side and examine its opal exterior with disinterest. “Given my forgiving mood and the fact you have something I desire, I would like to make you an offer, Claudio Lazzaro.”
Claudio sits up a little straighter. “All right.”
“I will strike off your remaining one hundred and one thousand dollars…in exchange for a hundred and one nights with your darling Miss Cassandra.”
8
CASSANDRA
“You’ve got to be fucking joking.”
The words explode from my mouth before I can stop them. Even Teo looks up from his book to stare at me in surprise.
How was this the best idea Rocco could come up with? Trade me for Claudio’s debt? It’s hard to feel relieved that he kept his word when the solution is somehow far more revolting than the problem.
“Miss Cassandra,” Rocco begins, but I don’t let him finish.
“I’m not some kind of commodity you can barter for!”
“Cas,” Claudio glares at me. “Don’t speak to him like that.”
But I ignore him, too enraged to mind my tongue.
“What happened to, ‘She won’t do shit for you’?” I mock his words from the other night, hoping to strike a nerve. “What happened to condemning coercion?”
