Antonio’s estate is twenty minutes north. Tall hedges, gravel drive, two men at the gatehouse who have known Lorenzo for years and don’t bother with the tablet when his face shows in the passenger window. Lorenzo holds up the bottle. The closer guard nods. The gate slides open.
The drive curves around a fountain that’s been turned off for the season.
“You want me on the door or in the room with you?”
“In the room.”
“Good. I haven’t been in his study for a while. I want to see if he replaced the carpet.”
The front door opens before we’ve reached the bottom of the steps.
Antonio is in shirtsleeves, no jacket, a glass already in his hand. The split at his lip from this morning has scabbed over and started to look like a smirk that won’t come off. He has a phone pressed to his ear with his free hand. He doesn’t move it away when he greets us. That’s the move. He wants me to see he’s still on a call. He wants me to see I’m the second most important thing in the room.
“D’Amico. Castellano. Come in. Glasses are in the study.”
He turns and waves us down the hall, phone still at his ear.
“Yeah, no, I’m still here. Got visitors. Business…No, no, it’s fine.D’Amico’shere. Apparently, we’re making peace tonight.”
A laugh on his end. A laugh on the other end. The voice on the line is muffled, but I’m close enough to him in the hallway to catch it.
Nico.
Of course it’s Nico.
Lorenzo glances at me. Tips his chin a fraction toward Antonio’s phone. The question is clear:Is this a problem?
I shake my head.
It’s not a problem. It’s a gift.
The study is exactly the way I remember it—leather, dark wood, the decanters on the sideboard, a single lamp lit. Antonio walks straight to the sideboard and sets down his glass. He turns, still on the phone.
“Yeah, hold on a second, Nico, I gotta?—”
He cups the receiver. He grins at me.
“So. About this morning. No hard feelings, right? I got heated. You got heated. Happens.” He shrugs.
This man, who four hours ago sent two strangers to my woman’s apartment with instructions to break her open and use what spilled, just shrugs. This man, who’s grinning at me with the certainty that nobody in this city is allowed to lay a finger on him because of what his earnings buy.
No hard feelings, he says.
“Water under the bridge,” I agree.
“Exactly. See? We’re professionals. We can move past?—”
I’m across the room before he finishes the sentence.
My hand closes around his throat. His back hits the wall hard enough to rattle a framed certificate off the next panel and onto the floor. The phone leaves his hand, skidding across the rug until it stops face up just under the writing desk.
His glass shatters. His other hand comes up to claw at my forearm and gets nothing.
“What the fuck?—”
I squeeze.
From the floor: “Antonio? Antonio. What was that? Hello? Hey!”
