Complete Corruption (Corruption #1-3) (43 page)

My fork clinked loudly when I put it down. “Are you serious? You think Paulie’s going to try something at a wedding? I thought you guys worked it out.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m just letting you know where I’ll be that day,” he said.

I wanted to throw my fork at him.

Having given me the information and laid down the law, he settled into a few bites of
osso buco
. Then he looked at me over the rim of his wine glass and caught my expression. “What?”

“How is this ‘getting out by going through’?”

He raised an eyebrow as if I’d just asked him to bend me over the buffet. “Forget it.”

“You decide to bring me closer, then you keep me in a box all over again.”

“I’m figuring out how to do this, same as you.”

“You have to take some risks.”

“Not with your safety,” he said.

“If you bring me, it will show that whatever I said to Daniel that day didn’t hurt you.”

“Or that I’m a fool.”

“It’s business. Your family is undoubtedly in the middle of a negotiation with the Sicilians, but am I right in thinking nothing’s locked down yet? As far as the details go, I mean.”

“You’re right,” he said.

“If you bring me, it empowers you. It’s going to disarm them. They’re going to wonder what the hell you’re thinking.” I took a bite of meat and chewed slowly. “Also, it’ll scare the hell out of Paulie. There’s no use in having a bazooka unless the enemy knows you have it. If you want to keep the peace, that is.”

He sipped his wine, avoiding my gaze. It wasn’t like him. I could have asked what was bothering him, but I had the feeling I knew the answer.

I was right again.

theresa

e passed the night in the cocoon of the bed. When I was with him, my isolation was acceptable, simply a way to be close, to hear his stories uninterrupted. He talked about the color of Naples, the veiled identities of the camorra, the family he called his own and the one he inherited when his father came back into his life.

“Your father really loves you,” I said, propped up on my elbows. He leaned on the headboard, stroking my shoulder with a fingertip. “He gave mixed messages, I admit. But he only wanted what was best for you.”

“He was trying to keep me safe as
consigliere
,” he whispered, brushing his thumb over my cheek. “
Consiglieri
are lawyers who advise bosses, so they aren’t meant for vendettas. But I had to send a message to the men who killed my wife.”

“Did you send the message?”

His lower lip covered his upper for a second. He slid down into the sheets and wove his legs into mine. “You’re going to ruin me, Contessa.”

“
Rovinato
,” I replied.

He laughed. His eyes lit up, and his cares fell off him. I wondered if I’d ever get to see him smile once a day, or even once a week. As beautiful as he was on any given day, he was a treat for the eyes and heart when he laughed.

antonio

here’s talk,” Zia Giovanna said, twisting a fistful of dough into a long beige tube. She insisted on making her own bread at five a.m., even when it would have been more economical to leave the bread making to bakers. “My sister tells me they’re whispering over there.”

Zia Giovanna’s sister was my mother. Both held advanced degrees in gossip and hearsay, so in their garden of chatter, a seed of truth often sprouted leaves and flowers of beautiful lies.

“How can they hear each other over the traffic?” I didn’t want to hear her little rumors. I had a ledger spread on the stainless counter. The office had become claustrophobic in seconds. I had rows and columns of numbers to organize since Numbers Niccolò had taken off and left me with them. I wasn’t a numbers guy. I could do the basics, but past that, I’d always had people to organize the larger concepts into smaller processes. Niccolò seemed to have done his job of hiding and cleaning money through the restaurant by means of misdirection and sleight of coin. Theresa had been dead right, though. Once she showed me where the trail led, it was very obvious he’d done a terrible job.

“When you came here, I told you to stay away from Donna Maria. Sicilians. You can’t trust them. They’re animals. You didn’t listen. You never listen.”

I could do numbers and listen to her scold me at the same time. One took up the attention of my brain, the other, my heart.

“But you run.” She pounded her dough, pulling and twisting. “And you sit by her as
consigliere,
and that puts you in her sight. She knew Paulie was going to fuck up. He’s American. He can’t do anything the right way, the patient way. Even though he wanted Theresa out, he couldn’t do it right. A smart man would have waited to marry into the family then taken you out but—”

“
Aspetta
. What are you talking about?”

She looked like she was going to cry. She slapped a ball of dough down. “Paulie’s wedding is off. He’s weak. They’re all talking about you beating him, and they’re looking at you to unify the families.”

“What?” I said.

“Your father stepped in. He thinks he has you. He says it will be done. His Neapolitan interests and the American Sicilian. You and Irene.”

I held my hand up. “Slow down.”

“Make this go away.” She pounded her dough, flattening the tube in one place. “Tell them you want the red-haired one. She’s all right. She won’t hurt you. She won’t force you.”

I couldn’t make it go away. I had no way to undo what was done, and if all Napoli was already whispering, it was unlikely my father could undo it without brutal consequences, not just to me, with my disposable life, but to Theresa, who was under my care.

I needed to get out more than ever, and as difficult as that would have been anyway, it had just become nearly impossible.

Was I committed to this? Or was I going to make half efforts? Leaving the life, breaking so many ties, and slipping away was always a nice fantasy when I couldn’t find my way through a problem or when the light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be an oncoming train.

After I’d lost Valentina, I’d made choices. I’d gone in with my eyes open, and having made those choices, I never questioned the fact that I’d earned all my own troubles.

theresa

atrina’s text woke me from a dead sleep. I swung my arm for Antonio, but he was gone. He’d left me alone in his little Spanish house. He must have trusted me with the silver.

—Can you come to the editing bay?—

—Why?—

It wasn’t like me to question Katrina, but I was half asleep, and I missed Antonio already. I should have been thankful that I was out of
The Afidnes
, but I wasn’t. I felt like I’d stepped out the door to find the stoop had disappeared and the sidewalk was open beneath me.

—Because you were a part-time script supervisor, and you’re half the team that put the half shots in order and I’m confused right now—

—Fine. Give me 20—

Otto waited outside.

“Do you ever see your wife?” I handed him a thermos of coffee.

“It’s the arrangement,” he replied. “She knows what I have to do, and she accepts.”

“She’s very generous.”

“She is.”

“I want to take my car. Can you follow to the post-production place?” I helped up two fingers. “No burgers, I promise.”

He agreed to follow close, and I let him, not making a move to lose him. I knew his proximity relaxed Antonio, and that was important to me.

“What’s up?” I asked Katrina when she opened the glass door.

“Nothing.” She wouldn’t look at me.

“Nothing? Describe ‘nothing.’”

She walked a pace ahead, looking at the floor. “The type of nothing that’s just unpleasant.” She reached the door to her editing bay and put her hand on the knob.

“Katrina?”

“I didn’t have much in the way of choices,” she said. “I had wonky location permits and my financing was, you know, questionable.”

“You don’t need to review a shot list. That’s what I’m getting.”

“I hate my fucking life. Really.” She opened the door.

Daniel sat in the biggest chair, one leg crossed over the other at the ankle.

This was how a poor kid from Van Nuys got to be a mayoral candidate. First, he showed up where he wasn’t wanted, and he was ready. He was armed with information, and he had a plan. He surrounded himself with people who could help him, and he cut the rest of them loose. He was ruthless in his pursuit, hungry, careful, and above all, shrewd.

“Sorry, Tee,” Katrina said.

“It’s fine. I have this.”

This was how a poor kid from Carthay Circle became an award-winning director. First, she did what other people wanted, as long as they stayed out of her way. She understood the hierarchies of power as they related to her singular goal. She understood personalities and could make judgment calls about how to play them for and against each other. She apologized for it, and she never pushed far enough to make enemies, but she knew how precarious her situation was, and she protected the twelve inches of upper-floor ledge she stood on, because one wrong move, and she would have been in midair, calculating the hardness of her skull against the acceleration of gravity. And since she’d already fallen, and had to climb the building again, she was especially careful of her footing.

What kind of person can love two people like that?

The kind of person who could love a killer,
I decided, as I sat in front of Daniel, and Katrina closed the door behind me. I was the kind of person who was rotten inside, whose very core was drawn to the ambitions of others, no matter its form.

“The last time you came to me, at WDE, you said it was my last chance,” I said.

“I did. And nice to see you, too.”

“I said I’d ruin you, Daniel, and I meant it.”

He smiled. I found myself disarmed by it. It wasn’t a political smile but something more genuine that I remembered from the very beginning of our relationship, when he was starting as a prosecutor. That was before he’d been beaten down and had to be built back up.

“No, actually, you didn’t mean it,” he said. “You and I, see, we’re in this tension. You got me in the palm of your hand, but I have you in my pocket.”

“Really? Interesting. Tell me.” I settled into the chair, swinging it so the back was to the computer screens. I betrayed nothing.

He said nothing immediately but looked me up and down as if considering something he hadn’t seen before. “You look good.”

“Thank you.”

“Different.” He put his hand out, cupping me in space. “I noticed it last time, but I was so thrown by you showing up I couldn’t pin it down.”

“I’m the same. Maybe the eyes that see me are different.”

“No, not that, but maybe something else. You were always… I don’t know the word.”

“Do try,” I said. “We spent so much time talking about how you looked and how you came across, so now it’s my turn. I’m curious.”

“By outward appearance, you’re the same. Aloof. Ladylike. Perfect.”

“And inside?”

“Feral,” he said.

“If you’d known that earlier, things would have been a lot different.”

He shrugged. “No way to tell. But, things have changed. And I’m not looking forward to this conversation the way you looked forward to the one you brought to me at the club.”