“Leave.”
Victor raises his hands one more time, a small chuckle drifting through the night as he goes. The car door closes behind him, and the engine grumbles to life. A moment later, the headlights swing across our lawn, and then away.
The night swallows him.
When the sound of his retreat disappears, all that’s left is the low whistle of a light breeze. For a long moment, Raffaele doesn’t move. The gun stays locked in his hand as he glares at the empty driveway.
Part of me wants to go to him; the other part knows better.
Still, I can’t help but wonder,What happens now?
I don’t ask.
I don’t think I want to know.
30
BEA
He’s getting ready at the foot of the bed.
He’s checking the gun for the third time. He ejects the magazine, looks at it, slides it back in.
He hasn’t looked at me since he started.
“I don’t trust him.” I say it to his back.
“Neither do I.” He says it without turning.
That stops me.
“Then why are you going?”
“Because Victor thinks he’s setting a trap.” Now he turns. He’s still adjusting the jacket. “And I want to see what kind.”
“You’re willingly walking into a trap.”
“I’m walking into a meeting where I have to figure out what the trap is before it closes. That’s a different thing.”
“Is it?”
“He’s been playing both sides for weeks,” Raffaele explains. “Maybe longer. I don’t know what he was doing the night the casino went up. I don’t know how much of Nico’s mess he’s been feeding or feeding off of. I don’t know what kind of deal he thinks he can build out of this. But he came to my driveway, alone,hands up, in the middle of the night. That’s one hell of a risk, and I don’t know what it means.”
“It means he’s good at theater.”
“It means he wants me to think it means something. Same thing for our purposes.” He pulls a second magazine out of the dresser drawer and slides it into his inside pocket.
“Raffaele.”
“Mm.”
“Have you actually thought about?—”
“All of it. Yes. I thought about it in the shower. I thought about it on three different phone calls this morning. Every scenario where it goes wrong, and every version of him I can imagine on the other side of the table.” He crosses to me. He sits on the edge of the bed, close, and takes my face in his hands. “I’m not walking in blind. I’m walking in with a list.”
“What if it’s not on the list?”
“Then I adapt. That’s what I do.”
