“Angelo,” I said, and grabbed his hand even harder. “That wasn’t—don’t you see how incrediblyfucked upthat was? Not just that, either. Your—your wholelife.”
“Don’t try to make excuses for me. I’m a killer, Bax, pure and simple.”
“You’re a killer, but it’s not anywherenearsimple. Can’t you see what Tino Morelli did to you?”
His head came up and his eyes flashed proudly. “I know exactly what he did. He saved me from a terrible home and he raised me as his own. He made me one of the most powerful and feared men in all New York.”
“Uh, yeah, or—bear with me here—he bought you from your parents, made you into a child soldier, and then forced you to do something so unspeakable that it tore apart any chance you had of enjoying your sexuality in an open and healthy way.”
A tiny crease appeared between his eyebrows. “He didn’t… No. That’s not how—how it was.”
“You know what?” I asked softly, “I really think it was.”
He pulled his hand away from mine abruptly. “I’m tired,” he said.
“Angelo—”
“I want to sleep. You need to leave.”
My stomach flipped again. “If that’s what you really want,” I said. “I’ll leave the room. But I’ll still be in this house when you wake up.”
He said nothing more, just lay back against the pillows and closed his eyes.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Baxter
Iclosed Angelo’s door softly and made my way down to the kitchen, which seemed to be where people congregated. There was a constant presence in the D’Amato home of bodyguards, house guards, friends dropping by, and hopeful associates or members of other Families who came to supplicate the young Morelli Don.
I hadn’t seen much of Luca D’Amato while I’d been there, but Finch was becoming more familiar to me, his strange, loud laugh less startling. He was there in the kitchen when I went down, with his bodyguard Teo Vitali, and the man who, oddly, seemed to be Finch’s closest friend, Aidan O’Leary, from the parish Church—not yet a priest, but certainly on the way.
“Baxter,” Aidan called with a smile. “Come and eat with us. How’s Angelo?”
They were sitting at the kitchen table, sharing a variety of Italian dishes, and watching the evening news on a small television. “You’re really famous now,” Finch D’Amato observed, nodding at the TV. “Made the FBI’s most wanted fugitive list.”
“Exciting,” I said drily, and sat down at the table with them.
“Finch,” Aidan said in a soft, warning voice. He turned to me and asked again, “Is Angelo feeling better?”
“He’s doing okay.”
“Here—” Aidan handed me a plate and encouraged me to help myself, but I just wasn’t hungry. I ended up picking at a slice of garlic bread. Aidan grabbed the remote and turned the TV volume down. I felt like I’d brought the room down.
“What are you planning to do?” Finch asked, ignoring the tone that Aidan was desperately trying to set. “I mean, you say it’s this ex-boss of yours who’s the killer. You gonna let him walk?” He was genuinely interested, I saw, not just trying to twist the knife.
Although it certainly felt that way.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I know what I’d do if anyone took a shot like that at Luca,” Finch said. There it was, in the flash of his eyes, the edge to him that made him not just some party boy, but a dangerous man in his own right. When word had gotten out about his marriage to Luca D’Amato, it had taken the whole law enforcement world by surprise. People still joked about it, but mostly they wondered how long before the D’Amatos would be taken out.
Now, though, I could see that they were a well-matched team, a partnership that made them each individually stronger by being together. If I’d still been an FBI agent, I would have written a brief to my superiors emphasizing the dangers of such an effective criminal match.
But I wasn’t an FBI agent anymore. I saw it now, that even if I managed to clear my name, show Villiers for what he really was, wrap up the Central Park Slayer case with a neat little bow on top—even ifI achieved all of that, I would never be welcomed back into the fold.
Not while I was associated with Angelo Messina. But it wasn’t even a contest, as far as I was concerned.
And as Finch looked at me there, eyes curious and appraising, I knew what I needed to do.
