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“In his office.”
“All right. Listen to me very carefully, Zanetti. You have four hours to clean up your shit, then take your woman and be gone by five. Do you understand?”
He’s letting us go?
“Do you understand, Zanetti?”
“Why?” I ask.
“You saved my wife’s life. Now, I’m gifting you yours, so we’re even. If I’ll ever see you in my city again, you’re dead.”
“We’ll be gone in four hours.”
“Good. Make sure you cover your tracks, because if anyone connects you to this fucking mess, I’m giving my men the green light to come after both of you.”
He disconnects the call, leaving me no doubt he means it.
I set down my phone and stare at it while the wheels in my brain begin to spin. A minute later, I dial another number.
“I need another body,” I say as soon as Felix answers the call.
“What?! Are you insane? Do you know what time—”
“Stop talking, Felix. This is an emergency.”
“Life and death?”
“Yes. I need a female body, black hair, twenties. Delivery location is New York, I’ll send you the address.”
“Fine. I’ll have something for you next week.”
“I need it delivered in three hours, Felix. Not a minute longer. And I need a car.”
I cut the call and run out of the room to get my laptop and the blueprints for the mansion.
***
Planning a house fire that appears as if it was a gas leak and erasing all evidence of my involvement in about two hours is nearly impossible, but I don’t have a choice. Even if the gas leak doesn’t hold up, it won’t matter as long as they believe that Rocco, Ravenna, and I died in the blaze.
I check the blueprints spread out on the floor next to the bed one more time, then glance at Ravenna. She’s still soundly asleep.
“I’ll make this work, Ravi.”
Grabbing my laptop, I open up the video surveillance software and pull up the archived data files, finding the recording from the gate camera that shows my car when I left earlier today. The time log is for just after four in the afternoon. I edit the half-a-minute clip, switching it with a dummy video of the closed gate. Then, I skip ahead to when I snuck in and killed the two security guys at the guardhouse. I alter that part as well, along with a few frames where cameras caught me offing the rest of the guards.
It takes me almost two hours to edit every compromising frame. Since I already had several saved clips from various times in the day, it was a matter of finding suitable ones and manipulating the log entries before splicing the feeds, resulting in a clean continuous recording that shows me and Ravenna arriving at the mansion midafternoon, and then Rocco showing up at half past ten. With that done, I override all cameras between the front door and the gate to display a still image for the next two hours.
The first phase is done. Time to head downstairs to set up the stage for phase two.
***
The low rumble of the engines fills the night as I’m taking out the empty fuel canisters through the front door. A few seconds later, two black SUVs round the bend in the driveway and come to a stop near the front steps. The driver’s door of the leading car opens and a man in his late forties exits. My body bag buddy from last week.
“Another delivery from Felix Allen,” he says and walks up to open the vehicle’s cargo area. “Female. Black hair. Died of natural causes. I couldn’t get one in early twenties on short notice, so you got someone in their late thirties. Sorry.”
“It’ll work.” I nod. There won’t be much left of the body to identify anyway. If there is, I’ll have Felix do his magic and alter the DNA test results to show a match.
“Tell Felix he owes me,” the man says and throws me the car keys.
