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“Don’t overstep, Lee,” Jimmy warned.
“I want to keep this between us.” I added a note of pleading to my voice and looked down at my shoes like I was embarrassed.
After a comment to Rossi in Italian, the consigliere left the room. The hard look he gave me as he left sent cold chills down my spine.
“I assume after all this shit, you’re here to grovel. Return the watches or pay me what you owe and then beg to get out. Am I right?” Annoyance radiated off Jimmy like a physical force.
“No,” I said.
“Ha. No to what part? You don’t fool me, Lee. You’re weak, and always have been.”
“She is many things, but she’s never weak.” John stood close, but his hand had fallen away from my waist now that the room was empty.
“I’m here out of loyalty. To you, Jimmy. I want out on my terms. I’m here to make a deal.”
“Loyalty.” He spat the word at me like a curse. “Women don’t know the meaning of the word. Bunch of whores that will sell it to the highest bidder.” He cut his eyes to John.
“I assure you, given a slightly different set of circumstances, Ms. Vance would be meeting with the FBI, not you. Her loyalty is why we are here and not at the Miami field office.” John opened the folio and started flipping through the pages.
Jimmy shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The FBI was his personal boogeyman.
“Tony has the watches,” I said.
“No.” Jimmy shook his head slowly, but I could see that he was already doubting Tony. “Why would he do that?” His voice cracked at the end of the question, and he coughed. The phlegm in his chest rattled from deep in his lungs.
“I do not know, Jimmy. See for yourself.” At my words, John passed a stack of photos to Jimmy.
The surveillance pictures of Tony wearing the watches. The old man flipped through them with shaking hands a few times, then looked up with anger shooting from his eyes.
“This isn’t proof. It’s a trick—that computer photo shit. Tony is like a son to me. You left him.” He pointed a gnarled finger at me. “You want out. You’re the traitor to the family. You’ve hated him since the divorce.”
Anger, white-hot and blinding, hit me full force. This old man throwing ancient history at me like a weapon cut deep, ripping at an old wound.
“Traitor? If I’d been a traitor, I’d have put Tony in jail back then. I didn’t press charges when he almost beat me to death. The cops had him on attempted murder. Without my loyalty, he’d have done twenty-five years.” I was shaking with anger. John gripped my arm like he worried I might launch myself at Jimmy and tear him apart with my fingernails.
“I paid you back for that. Set you up in Florida. And this is how you repay me. Lies.” Jimmy tossed the photos to the floor at my feet and pounded his fist on the arm of the chair.
“I should have put him in jail.” Not cooperating with the cops back then was the biggest regret of my life. It felt both awful and therapeutic to lay it out at the feet of the man who convinced me to make that decision.
“I can give you all the proof you need.” John’s passionless voice cut between Jimmy and me like a whip. He took a tablet computer out of a pocket in the folio and passed it to Jimmy, a video playing on the device.
Jimmy held the tablet like he’d never touched one before. But the moment he recognized Tony, he clutched it with his bent fingers like it was precious.
I’d watched the scene in the video play out in real-time from the other side of the one-way glass at the Smith Agency offices yesterday.
In the video, Tony sat on a bare mattress in a stark holding cell under glaring fluorescent lights. The bruise on his jaw from Derek’s punch was visible. His wrinkled clothes and matted hair illustrated he’d been a prisoner for some time. Outside the cell bars, Sydney O’Connor, with her back to the camera, questioned him.
“I understand you think that who you are scares me, but I assure you it does not. I’ve dealt with men that make you and your uncle look like puppy dogs. Now the only way you get out of my cell is by giving me the watches. I know you have them.” Sydney’s voice was firm, never changing in inflection. Almost annoyingly calm. Robotic.
“Fuck you, crazy bitch. They’re mine.” Tony’s voice, in stark contrast, was a ragged mess.
“Yours? No, they may be in your possession, but there is a long list of people ahead of you that have a claim to those watches. First, Gigi Mills and her charity. Then the Mexican syndicate that boosted them. Last, Uncle Jimmy, who was contracted to fence them. You’re not on that list.”
“I earned those watches. I took out the Mexican robbery crew before the cops arrested them. The idiots got caught on a fucking ATM camera. Did you know that?” Tony paced the small cell, tearing at his hair.
“And De Wispelaere, what did he owe you?”
“Performance. He should have sold the watches months ago. He couldn’t do it.” Tony muttered a few choice curses about Charles under his breath.
