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The woman’s eyes light up—probably at the thought of her commission. “I’ll go check.”
She disappears.
“I like the plain.”
A voice beside me makes me startle. I turn.
It’s Agent Greggs.
Fuck.
I look around quickly. Luckily I’m in the back room of the store, away from the windows, but still… “Were you this careless when you were my father’s handler?” I snap, moving behind a shelf of cocktail glasses.
He follows.
“The window is closing for you to make a deal with us,” he says. “My boss is gunning for arrests,” he continues. “Now that you’re a Barretti, she won’t hesitate to bring you down too. I’ve talked her into giving me a little more time to get you to become an informant, but you need to make a decision now. Make the right one.”
I fold my arms and glare at him. “Tell me this… Can you guarantee my safety?”
“We’ll do everything in our power to—”
“That’s not a guarantee.” I interrupt. “You lose witnesses all the time. Nero found me in Vegas. Sure, it took ten years, but it happened.”
“And if Nero is in prison? Somewhere that he can’t get to you? Just consider it,” Greggs implores. “Now that the two of you are married… It’ll be even harder for you to escape his downfall. You could be tried as an accessory, a coconspirator…”
“But I don’t know anything!”
“Is that really true?” Greggs challenges, and I fall silent.
Sure, Nero hasn’t told me anything about his business, but that still doesn’t mean I haven’t witnessed enough incriminating things in our short time together. The beating and likely murder of that rapist, his blackmailing a sitting City Council member…
Which, oh yeah, I was party to.
“I thought so.” Agent Greggs sighs, looking at me with real regret in his eyes. “I’m doing what I can for you, Lily, because of your father. But you have to help me.”
“I have to plan this party,” I correct him, trying to keep my voice light. “And also stay alive. Let me know when you can guarantee either.”
“Be smart,” he implores me. “You need to protect yourself. Your new husband isn’t going to do it.”
He leaves me be, and I go back to shopping, but I can’t get his words out of my head. I know that he’s probably just trying to further his own career, to make himself look good in front of his boss by turning me, but that doesn’t make his words untrue.
I feel like I’m walking on a tightrope. Nero must still find me useful, especially if he wants to keep up appearances with New York’s elite. And by marrying me, he’s trying to make it impossible for me to sell him out to the Feds. But for how long will this uneasy truce hold?
When will the scales of value shift, which side will I be left standing on?
Be smart.
Agent Greggs is right about that, at least. I need to figure out my own path out of this mess, and I won’t find it by filling my days with china place settings and spa treatments.
I need to tell Nero about this little encounter, before someone else does it for me. It may not earn me his trust, but it’ll buy me more time to figure shit out.
So, I finish up at the store, and direct my driver to take me to Nero’s office at the club.
Kyle meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Is he expecting you?”
“I need to talk to my husband,” I say breezily, as if we both don’t know what a lie that word is. “About the party.”
Kyle starts the engine and moves off, but he places a call through his headset, murmuring low so I can’t hear.
