“Scusi,” she whispered before she spun on the bench and slipped out. I imagined it was her son, our son, she needed to attend to.
Brower was left. I stood. I wouldn’t straddle a bench with this fucker in the room. I would break his head open with it. He closed the door and stepped toward me until we were nose to nose. I was in his territory. His building. I couldn’t touch him, and he knew it.
He sat down and indicated the bench across from him.
“What did you think you were doing?” I asked.
“Can you sit?”
I didn’t move. I could sit, but I didn’t want to be across from him. Didn’t want to be on an equal footing.
“There was no easy way to tell you,” he said. “It was going to suck no matter what.”
“So you tried to spare my feelings?”
“Your feelings? I couldn’t give a shit. Are you going to sit? Or do you think standing puts you in some kind of position of power?”
He sat with both elbows on the table, palms up. I assumed he was going to tell me about Valentina. How he found her, what he intended to do with her.
I sat.
He tapped his fingertips together. “I know you guys. I know how you operate, and you know why.”
“Because you pick the olives and uproot the tree at the same time?”
He smirked. “Spoken like an Italian.”
“Spoken like a man who can keep two conflicting ideas in his mind.”
“The skill of criminals and priests.”
“Which are you?” I asked, because in a way, he was both.
He stopped tapping his fingertips and folded his hands together. He took a long time to answer—too long, as if he was searching in a file for what he wanted to say and couldn’t find the paperwork for it.
“You know what I think of you,” he said.
I nodded. I didn’t need a list.
“But that aside, I’m conceding defeat. You win,” he said.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I thought Theresa was dead, and I died with her. Everything died. Even my desire to hurt you for it. When I realized she was alive, I swore I wouldn’t make her life difficult any more. Which means I’m not taking revenge on you for hurting her, or stealing her, and I’m not coming after you for fucking me up. I don’t care if you think I’m a coward for that.”
“Not for that.”
“Touché. But I’m not done. We have conflicting intel regarding the price on your head for bailing on Irene Carloni[→9]. As low as half a million for your corpse. Alive, we’ve heard up to two million.”
“Alive is nice. They get to torture me.” I smiled at him. I wasn’t afraid of torture or death. I’d been hurt before, and I’d be hurt again.
“I assumed it was because if the murder is witnessed and documented, she gets your territory.”
“Money is a great motivator.”
“They also want Theresa. Quarter million.”
My hair stood on end. My fists balled tightly enough to stretch the skin over the knuckles to white. I put my hands under the table.
“Who told you this?” I asked.
“Fuck you.”
“No. Fuck you.”
We regarded each other over the table. It didn’t matter who the mole was. What mattered was that the life I’d promised Theresa wouldn’t happen.
“And your wife and child?” Daniel said as if reading my mind. “Once they find out they’re here, she’ll be a target. Never mind the fact that if you’d married Irene, you’d be a bigamist. Let’s focus on this. You’re going to be followed everywhere. You’re going to be in constant danger. Even if I wanted to cut you down, I wouldn’t. All I’d have to do is step back and watch. Except for Theresa, who’s so upset you’re married, I don’t think she’s absorbed that she’s going to get killed.”
“You told her? That’s for me—”