“Well, when should we do it?” She looked at Carmine. “Thoughts?”
“We shouldn’t do it too quickly, as I think it will arouse suspicion.” He looked over at me, and there was an ire in his eyes that almost made me happy. “A few days for Denise to get the word out, get her affairs in order, and get Ashton out of town should suffice.” He looked back at Illiana. “Wednesday?”
She nodded. “Wednesday. Tell him that you’re planning to ambush me at the Quartertown Warehouse by the river. We’ll make it convincing, so you just worry about getting him there. Ten o’clock Wednesday night.”
“We’ll be there,” I said with a smile. “I’ll miss you, Mom.”
Her smile widened, and her eyes flared wildly, almost like she was gearing up for a bullfight. “Oh, my dear. Notnearlyas much as I’m going to miss you.”
Chapter Sixteen:Ashton
I sat with one leg crossed over the other in the sterile testing clinic. Several people were watching me with suspicion in their eyes, but I was unmoved. There were far greater things for me to worry about other than the judgemental gaze of a few people who would never have to go through a fraction of the things I did. When one woman shuffled her son a few seats down from me, I did take a little bit of offense. It wasn’t like I was doing anything wrong.
I leaned my head back against the wall and let the influx of information I’d received in the past twenty-four hours wash over me. Even with everything Denise had managed to figure out on her own, she still hadn’t figured out how Illiana found out about her being in contact with us, to begin with. I forced my brain backward, trying to remember everything that had happened, not just since Denise came back from Philly, but even before. It should have been more obvious that Callista was losing patience with sitting under my dad while he twiddled his thumbs about Illiana. Only someone truly desperate would do something so stupid in our world. There weren’t a whole lot of mobsters who survived turning on their families—or any other family for that matter—or working with the police.
“Fuck!” I yelled out loud, and the woman with her son looked at me with her mouth agape. I held up a hand toward them. “Sorry.”
Just like that, it clicked into place. When I accused Denise of working with the police, she was pissed because she knew Illiana had the department rigged and would know right away if she did. That’s what happened. Callista must have let it slip to the crime squad that it was Denise specifically that they needed to look for to try and catch a scent to lead them back to the Costas, and when one of Illiana’s men found out, they informed her that Callista and Denise had been in contact.
That all but confirmed it. Callista reallywasworking with the police. What was her end game? Did she eventually plan to roll on the Carduccis, too, and just save herself, or was she actually so naive and dumb that she let them convince her that they’d leave our family alone so long as they could get the Costas? It would be tough, navigating that while I was trying to put my family off my scent before going to join Denise and her mom in California. If my dad or Arturo found out that Callista was working with the police, related or not, they’d kill her. She wasn’t in a much different position than Denise. They’d both been prisoners of their circumstances. Denise was finally breaking out, but Callista’s situation was probably going to get worse.
That did make me feel bad.
Still, as much as I wanted to help her, I couldn’t do much, knowing that she was working with the cops. If I told her any part of mine and Denise’s plan or any of what Denise had learned while in the Carducci household, it was only going to get us arrested before we ever had the chance to get out. If Callista truly believed that she was better off working with the police than with her own family, she was going to have to live with that decision. Or die because of it.
“Ashton?”
I looked up, and a woman was standing with a clipboard at the head of the waiting room. I stuck my hand in the air. “Yep!” I hopped up from my seat and walked over to her. “I’m Ashton.”
She pinched the silver clasp on the clipboard and pulled a manilla envelope from its hold. With a smile, she handed it over to me. “Dr. Otice says hello and that he expects compensation within five business days.”
I smiled back at her. “Let him know that he’ll have it before the end of the day.”
She nodded. “I will do that. Have a wonderful day.”
“Thank you, and you as well.”
With the envelope in hand, I nodded at the woman whose son I had traumatized by screaming an expletive and headed back out of the testing clinic. A few contacts that existed outside of my family were good to have in my back pocket because it drastically reduced any fear I had that something I was doing without their knowledge would get back to them.
I climbed into my car, and once I was inside and confident that I wasn’t being watched or followed, I lifted the flap to the envelope and slid out the pack of papers inside. I flipped past all of the technical and medical jargon and scanned the last page for the information I was looking for.
DNA testing was completed to determine the half-siblingship of the siblings, listed here as Sibling A (female sibling) and Sibling B (male sibling). Based on the testing of the loci results, it has been determined that the likelihood that Sibling A and Sibling B are related exists at about 0.003 percent.
“Holy shit,” I grumbled. “Carmine’s not a fucking Costa.” I pressed the call button on my phone and navigated to Denise’s number. I was planning on just leaving a voicemail for her to call me when she had a chance, but the line picked up after just a couple of rings. “Hello?”
“Hi,” Denise said, with a notable lightness to her voice.
“Hi,” I replied, smiling at the sound of it. “You sound…happy.”
She chuckled. “Well, I spent the night with a pretty amazing guy, and he told me that he loved me, so I’ve secured a win for the day, I think.”
“You know, it’s crazy. I spent the night with this unbelievably sexy woman, and she told me that she loved me. Small world.”
“Who is she? I’ll kill her.”
I laughed. “I miss you already.”
“Speaking of which, there’s been a change of plans.”
