Lib Novel Page 72
I shudder. “There must be some other way.”
“There isn’t.” He cocks his head to the side, his piercing gaze holding mine. “It’s a fair trade. Four years of your life in exchange for freedom. For you and your kid.”
Atrade. Just hearing the term makes me want to cry. Looks like my demon was right on that account—nothing is ever free.
“Swear it,” I insist in a raspy whisper.
“I swear on my honor.”
I nod. “I’ll do it.”
Slowly, I rise from the chair, trying to process everything. I’m at the door when Massimo’s voice reaches me, pulling me up short.
“What happened to Zahara?”
“Nothing ‘happened’ to her. She has vitiligo. It’s just a skin condition. If you would have let us visit, you would have known.”
“I was counting on my sentence being reduced, but each of my applications for parole got rejected. And I’ll bet Leone was somehow behind that, too.” He lifts his hands in front of him, straining the chains. “I didn’t want either of you to see me . . . like this. Believe it or not, I care for you, Nera. You’re my family.I would have never forbidden Nuncio to marry you off when you turned eighteen if I didn’t give a shit.”
My eyes drift down his huge body sprawled on the chair, then up, over his tattooed hands and arms, halting on his face. “Or maybe you just wanted the chance to arrange a marriage that would further your plans.”
His lips widen into a devious smirk. “That, too.”
“Well, prison might have changed you on the outside, but inside, you’re still the same cunning guy I remember.”
“Never presume you know a person unless you’ve lived their life, Nera.”
“Yeah”—I grab the doorknob—“I’ve realized that exact thing recently.”
Chapter 25
“Enter.”
I close my eyes just for a moment as I reach for the handle. While driving, my body shook so much, I was afraid I’d lose control and crash into something, but once I parked in front of the Italianate-style sandstone building, an unusual calmness came over me. It was similar to the tranquility right after a storm on the ocean, when the air still feels charged with electricity but the water turns to liquid glass. That’s how I feel now. On the outside, I’m a serene iceberg floating on a calm surface, while underneath, a damned current is pulling me apart. But, I’m ready to do whatever it takes to ensure my child’s safety.
I push open the door and step inside Don Leone’s office.
“I was rather surprised when I got the call from the gate,” Batista Leone says without lifting his eyes from the leather ledger in front of him. “I’ve decided to marry you off to Salvo.”
My black heels click against the ornate wooden floor as I approach his desk and take a seat on a visitor chair set before it. I place my purse on my lap, take out the first of several folded papers, and leaning forward, drop it over the ledger he’s been perusing.
“You should be asking, what canIdo foryou.” I smile, then add, “Batista.”
Leone’s head snaps up upon hearing me utter his first name. “How dare you!” he barks.
“Look at the document before you say something you’ll regret.”
He grabs the printout of the investment contract that he and my father signed with Camorra and starts reading, his face turning redder by the second.
“I wonder, what would the Family say if they saw that.” I reach into my purse again, taking out the next set of papers. “Or perhaps they’d be more interested in the shell company that you set up, that also—so conveniently—was hired to complete all of the renovations in our casinos. And charged triple the rates for the actual, finished job. Stealing from the Family, Batista?”
Leone rips the investigator’s report that exposes him as the owner of said company out of my hands, and the color on his face fades rapidly.
“And how about this?” I pull out a stack of photos. One has him kissing a woman half his age. Another is black and white and somewhat grainy, but it clearly shows him banging the same woman from behind, inside a hotel room.
“Fucking the wife of our biggest investor? Tsk tsk tsk . . . I don’t think Adriano would take the news well.”
Leone’s face is now a sickly shade of yellow.