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“You know them?” he asked, though there was no question in his expression.
There seemed little point in denying it. “They’re old flats… apartment buildings. My father used to—” I had to swallow past the lump that formed in my throat. “My father did maintenance work there. When my mum had to work, he’d take me with him. He’d let me play in the hallways so long as I stayed on the same floor he was working on.”
“Did you ever tell Bianchi this?” he asked. His lips moved more quickly.
I nodded, feeling a new coldness try to creep in.
“He said, ‘the money’s got to be there’,” Amadeo repeated the words. His eyes were thoughtful like he was mulling them over.
“I never said anything to Elio about any money.” I scoffed; the thought was absurd. “My family wasn’t… well-to-do. My father never had more money with him than the loose change in his trouser pocket.”
“Grazie,perla,” he said, but his eyes were still caught up in thought. He strode right past me toward the door but paused there and turned around.
“Stay put, Heidi. Don’t make me cuff you to the bed. You see that shit?” he asked, nodding toward the contents of the conspicuous black duffel bag I’d dumped out in my search. “That’s the shit I get off on. So, be a good girl, and don’t make using it any more tempting than it already is.”
He strode out of the room then, presumably locking the door behind him, while I stood in a strange man’s bedroom—a bedroom I wasn’t permitted to leave—and pretended the heat tingling through my veins had nothing at all to do with my captor.
Chapter Thirteen
Amadeo
“According to Heidi, her father did maintenance work on The Regalton Arms and The Beresford,” I said, sitting across from my father at his desk with my hands laced behind my neck, massaging muscles that were way too tight.
“That seems like more than a coincidence,” he mused. He had his fingers steepled on his stomach and an untouched glass of Scotch on the desk in front of him.
Greta nodded her head from where she sat next to me.
“And for some reason, Bianchi thinks there’s money there,” I finished summing up what Heidi had revealed. “Thanks to Vito, we know that neither of her parents have any history. And someone with no history usually has a lot to hide.”
“So, you’re thinking they were involved in something?” Greta asked. “Maybe hid the money in one of these buildings when someone started sniffing around?”
I nodded. “It makes sense. And I might know how Bianchi got his hands on that information.”
My father cocked an eyebrow, waiting for me to continue.
“Harry Belemonte.” The man had dealt in plenty of shit, but the one commodity he’d prided himself on most: information.
“That asshole’s dead,” Greta jumped in, shaking her head.
“He’s dead now,” I conceded, “but he wasn’t not that long ago. And according to Heidi, Bianchi’s been talking about ‘birds’. I’m thinking she meant the Free Birds—Belemonte’s gang of thugs.”
“Son of a bitch,” Greta muttered under her breath. “The guy’s dead and he’s still managing to make waves?”
“Si,it seems to be too much to ask dead men to stay dead. I couldn’t figure out how Bianchi could be up to his nuts in debt and still manage to pay men to work for him, to attack Freya, to come for Heidi, but now…”
“You believe he has the Free Birds working for him?” my father asked.
I nodded. I was almost sure of it. “The Free Birds were a piss-poor collection of thugs—no real skills, not enough street smarts to make it on their own after Belemonte died. It explains the kid I killed at the cabin too,” I said, feeling a ghost of guilt whisper through my veins. “Belemonte would have had no qualms about taking on kids. I’m guessing Bianchi has no qualms about it either. It’s all about the lowest bidder, and what’s left of the Free Birds have got to be desperate, so they’re at the top of that list.”
“All right, that’s it,” Greta said, shaking her head. “The next time we put an asshole in the ground, all his piss-poor henchmen go there with him.”
“Agreed,” my father said. He wasn’t joking.
“But if Bianchi has the Free Birds treasure-hunting like goddamned pirates, why the continued interest in Heidi?” I wondered aloud. “Why send men after her?”
“Maybe she knows more than she’s letting on?” Greta speculated.
I mulled over the possibility, but it wasn’t sitting right. Heidi wouldn’t have revealed as much as she had if she was after that money too. It seemed she’d handed over information to Bianchi unwittingly.
