“No,” I said again, more quietly now. “No, it didn’t matter to them.”
He stared at me, his face a mess of conflicting emotions. “All the blood on your hands,” he said. “And for what? For what, huh? So you can buy nice suits, fancy cars? So you can buy windowless rat holes all over the city to hide in? I need to know. Why do you do it?”
“Lately I’ve been asking myself the same question.” While Tino had lived, I had had one purpose, and my heart had been glad to fulfill it: protect the Boss. At all costs, protect him.
But I was starting to see that my undying loyalty had made me…blind. In the same ways that Baxter Flynn’s loyalty to his mentor had made him blind. Too trusting, the both of us. Too willing to believe that in all actions, our father figures had been working for our good.
When Luca D’Amato had ascended, I protected him with the same fierceness, because I’d known it was what Tino would have wanted. After my failures, I was determined that Luca D’Amato would stay alive on my watch.
But my purpose in the Morelli Family had become less clear to me as time went on. Underboss, yes. But to what end? I disliked giving orders. I preferred to act alone, as I always had, or at the express orders of one man. I had been most comfortable being Tino’s guard, ally, weapon. He had never asked me to kill indiscriminately or without good reason…
Or so I’d convinced myself over the years.
And I had held my head high, proud that the Morelli Family was one of thegoodones. We weren’t the Giulianos, drinking and having knife fights all over town. We weren’t the Clemenzas, terrifying Brooklyn restaurateurs, threatening construction company owners, bringing in drugs to flood the streets with misery.
In the end, though, did it make much difference? In Bax’s eyes, we were all the same. In Bax’s eyes, which I could read plainly right then, I was as monstrous as Ethan Villiers.
He wasn’t wrong.
I reached out for his hand. “Bax,” I whispered, and then cleared my throat. My heart was beating hard enough to hurt my shoulder as I went on, “You don’t have to stay here. I’ll tell Luca to let you go. I’ll—I’ll give you everything you need to get out of the city, the country. You don’t have to stay here.”
He gave me another exasperated look, as though I’d completely and purposely misunderstood him. “Yeah, I do,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere. Not without you.”
“You’re not?” I choked out.
“Not gonna happen,” he confirmed. “But there’s something I want to ask you about, and I need you to be honest.”
“Anything,” I said. I couldn’t help smiling, squeezing his hand.
I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to take him in my arms and kiss the life out of him.
“It’s what Villiers said about Giorgio Benetti. I keep wondering why he brought that up. So—why did he?”
And just like that, I couldn’t breathe.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Baxter
For a moment, I thought Angelo was going to pass out again. I shot up, leaned over him, put my hand on his face. “Are you okay?”
There were a horrible few seconds when he did not reply, and I wondered if he was having a heart attack or internal bleeding or something, but then he nodded, and made a facial expression that I thought was supposed to be a smile. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?” He nodded jerkily. “Okay,” I said cautiously, sitting back down again, but on the edge of the chair, just in case I needed to jump up again. “Well, then, will you tell me about Benetti?”
“It’s my understanding that most people in law enforcement are well-informed about the death of Giorgio Benetti.”
I frowned at him. “No. See, this is what you were like when we first met. Cagey. I want you to tell me why Villiers would be talking about the Benetti murder.”
“I have no idea.”
There, at least, I could see he was telling the truth. I was on high alert for lies right then, given that my blind belief in Villiers’ lies had bitten me in the ass so bad. “Then tell me what happened.”
“I killed him.” His eyes were wide, his voice clipped. He looked like a man who had just been confronted with his greatest fear.
But I pressed on. “I want the whole story. Beginning to end. I mean it, Angelo. We need to figure this shit out if we’re going to have a chance to take down Villiers. And I intend to take that motherfucker down if it’s the last thing I do.”
He gave a ghost of a smile, and took my hand again. “I don’t doubt you will. But I don’t know what Giorgio Benetti has to do with any of it. I’ll tell you if you really want, but it’s not a nice story. I…” He swallowed. “I’m afraid it might change the way you look at me.”
