Once Finch D’Amatohad made up his mind about something, he didn’t like to waste time. And so he called Aidan back in to finish his dinner, but spoke quietly into the ear of Teo Vitali, who nodded and left the room.
Vitali came back not twenty minutes later and gave me an up-nod. Aidan, who had been chatting happily since his return to the dinner table, stopped looking so happy. I wondered again exactly how his friendship with Finch worked. They didn’t seem to me to have much in common, though they were obviously fond of each other. And Aidan clearly disapproved of the Morelli business.
“Excuse me,” I said vaguely, and followed Vitali out of the room.
He held a folded slip of paper in his fingers, and held it out to me, before pulling it back. “You sure about this, Fed?”
“I’m sure.”
“Well.” He grinned. “If you’resure. Me, I’d talk to Messina first. He won’t be happy.”
“Thanks for the advice,” I said, and snatched the paper from him. On it were GPS coordinates. “What’s this?”
Vitali shrugged. “That’s where your guy is right now. According to all those satellites spying on us from above, anyways.”
Restraining a comment about how not-helpful he was, I plugged the coordinates into the electronic map on Angelo’s phone. I’d kept his phone with me after programming a new passcode, even though it was still stained with his blood in the grooves and scratches. It was a reminder to me just what Ethan Villiers had almost taken away from me.
“Fuck,” I said, when the GPS showed me where he was. Central Park. Of course. I looked up at Vitali, astonished. “How did you—”
“Uh-uh,” Vitali said, shaking his head, finger to his lips. Then he shrugged. “Wasn’t me, anyway. I’m no tech. But you wanna be careful, huh? Park’s crawling with the boys and girls in blue these days.”
He was right, damn it. After Hanson’s death, and again after Bachman’s, the task force had recommended increased police patrols in Central Park at night.
And I, if I was going to be completely honest with myself, was a shitty covert operator.
But I also wasn’t going to pass up this chance. Ethan Villiers, wandering around in Central Park, which I could enter just by running across the road? Sure, he was about a mile down from where we were, but if I hauled ass, and managed to avoid any patrols…
I looked up at Teo again. “I don’t have a gun. And I’m not supposed to leave the townhouse, anyway,” I said, my heart sinking.
“Mm,” he agreed. And then he pulled out one of the guns from his double holster and handed it to me. “Welp, that’s one problem solved. And it sure would be a shame if you did leave, and no one saw you. Can’t stop what you don’t see.” With that, he turned around and went back into the kitchen.
I really hoped I was reading him right. But then, what would the Morelli Family care anyway about a Fed who wanted to go and get himself killed? That seemed to be the vibe Vitali had given off, and it made sense.
I thought about going upstairs to Angelo, kissing him, just in case…but he woulddefinitelyknow something was up.
I was a neither a good operative nor a good liar.
So I walked through the hallway, past the TV room, where two house guards were watching comedy reruns. They didn’t look over, although I stopped right there in the open archway. I kept going to the foyer, where I grabbed my coat and put the gun, safety on, into my pocket. I pulled on gloves and a black beanie, took a deep breath, and opened the front door.
Two more house guards were waiting on the stoop as usual, but they didn’t even glance up at the door.
I was about to walk across the threshold when a voice spoke behind me and froze me in place.
“Kid, if you take one step outside this townhouse, I will kill you myself.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Angelo
Earlier
It was very difficult to sleep once Bax left the room, or even pretend to sleep. His words, the things he’d said, his accusations against Tino—they ran around my head getting louder with each circuit. There was a part of me that wanted to deny it completely, to retreat back to the safety of habit, of the myth I had built up around Tino Morelli. Around myself.
But the problem with truth was that, in the end, it was undeniable. Facts were facts. They could be spun, denied, twisted, but ultimately…
Truth would out.
A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts, and I sat up, my heart beating faster, ignoring the pain in my chest. “Bax?”
