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I stretch my muscles and work up a sweat, parkour my way through the run, practice throwing knives, climbing ropes, ladders, sheer walls…and my thoughts drift back to Leo. The way his body felt pressed against mine. The dirty words he whispered in my ear. The dirtiest thing of all: telling me Ibelongedto him.
And then he walked away, pretending his cheap, broken vows were more important than the connectionwe’veforged.
By the time I finish my training, I know exactly what I need to do tonight. Once I yank the information I need out of Aldo Bernardi—once the old man is of no more use to me—thenI’ll deal with his son.
* * *
I arrive fashionably late to the Italian restaurant where Aldo Bernardi likes to conduct his business. The restaurant is a long, narrow space with red and white checkered tablecloths and dim lighting that casts everything in a falsely romantic glow. As I make my way to the private room in the back, I find myself grasped and pulled aside.
“I’m sorry,” I say with a flirtatious smile. “Do I know you?”
“Cut it out,” Leo says. “I need to know you’re going to play ball. I also need to pat you down.”
“I’ll be delighted to spread for you, Leo.”
He ignores that and drags me right through the restaurant kitchen to the alley out the back, and then pats me down. It’s the most impersonal he’s ever been while touching me, and I watch his face closely as he does it, wondering if it’s just an act.
Finally, he looks at me. “You going to have my back in there?” he murmurs.
“If you have to ask that,” I tell him softly, “then you haven’t been paying attention at all, Leo.”
He stares at me before he steps around me and opens the door. “Come on,” he throws over his shoulder.
It’s all very dull from the first moment I walk into the private room. Aldo Bernardi is a cranky old fool at the best of times, but tonight he seems determined to make everyone else suffer along with him.
“I said leave the body on display,” Aldo spits at me. “I’m not paying you for a goddamn missing person.”
“We were interrupted. Had to improvise. And besides, I thought you wanted to send a message? A disappearance with all that blood left behind is certainly more ominous, don’t you think?”
“It’s not hit the news yet. How ominous could it possibly be?”
“You wanted a message targeted at your son. If the media haven’t picked it up yet, that’s hardly my fault.” The media haven’t picked it up yet because the Castellanis are paying the right people to keep quiet. I lean back in the chair and smirk at Leo. “Ask the Lion if I did my job.”
Leo, sitting opposite me, pulls a face. “He did more than enough,” he growls. “And if you ask me, it’s time to cut this psycho loose.”
“Never officially diagnosed,” I murmur, and under the table, I run my foot up Leo’s calf. He jerks away without looking at me.
“Bring Gino in,” Aldo barks, crooking his finger at the silent guard by the door. A man I assume is Gino is brought in by two others, holding him between them. Gino Bernardi is not the kind of actor his fiancée is, that’s for certain, but the hatred he shows for me appears genuine enough.
“I want you to know,” Aldo says to Gino. “Your woman isn’t dead because of me, or because of Leo, or because of this Castellani here. She’s dead because you couldn’t keep her in line. You understand?”
Gino stays silent, looking at the floor.
“You got nothing to say for yourself? No apologies you want to make to me, your father?” He pauses, and all Gino does is glance up, nervously, at Leo.
Leo gives him a scowl, and Gino looks down again.
“Enough of that sullen face,” Aldo snaps, waving a hand. Gino is led out again. “Alright, Castellani,” he grumbles. “You kept your end of the deal. What do you want to know about your mother?”
But apparently Gino thinks maybe he wasn’t as convincing as he should have been, because we all hear a wailing begin outside the door.
“Roxy!Roxxx-yyyyy!”
“Leo,” Aldo sighs, “go shut him up.”
Leo storms out, and we hear a low, aggressive murmuring from outside. Before long, Leo re-enters the room, glaring at me as I smile.
“Dad, you gotta cut him some slack. He just lost the love of his life,” Leo says to his father.
