“Why did you do it?” I asked softly. “Please tell me. What is it that you want?”
“I wantjustice. I’ve always been open with you about that. And there is no justice to be had when the NYPD treats mobsters like celebrities. When the FBI refuses to crack down on criminals just because they think it’s better to use them as informers. When the whole system is set up to let these murderers run free.”
“Was it justice to setmeup for your crimes? To set Angelo up? To kill good men, men like Hanson, Bachman—”
“Oh, spare me,” Villiers said, and he actually laughed. “Did you actually think you could capture something on tape that you could rework into a false confession? I’m not quite so foolish as you, Flynn. And besides which, I’m the new interim head of the Operation Safe Center Task Force. Maybe I haven’t had justice yet, but I will be able to influence the direction of LE from now on. Justicewillcome.”
“Justice for Giorgio Benetti?”
Villiers and I both jumped at the sound of Angelo’s voice. Somehow he had crept right around us both, silently, and was standing on the path behind Villiers, so that Villiers was between us. Hemmed in.
It wasn’t wise to corner him like this. To make him feel like his options were running out.
This wasn’t what we’d talked about.
Villiers had whirled around on him, his gun back out now. “Don’t you say that name,” he hissed, and then he gave a strange little giggle, threw his voice back over his shoulder at me. “You know, Flynn, I actually believed you when you said he wasn’t here? Kudos to you on learning to lie more effectively. Perhaps Messina here has influenced you.”
“Angelo—” I began but, Angelo cut me off with the lazy wave of one hand.
“It’s alright, kid.” His voice changed when he addressed Villiers again. “I’m not sure why you care so much about one violent psychopath among many. That’s how you see us all, isn’t it? What makes Benetti any different?”
Villiers made a growling noise, a literal growl that sounded distressed and threatening at the same time. “You took him. Youtookhim—”
“I did,” Angelo said coolly. “I took him and then I killed him, but I don’t see why it’s any of your business.”
It occurred to me then that Angelo had a real gift for compartmentalization, and that it might actually stand him in good stead as he tried to work through his shit. Because to listen to him then, I never would have guessed that Benetti had meant anything to him, ever.
Villiers’ hand on the gun was shaking now, and I took a few steps closer to him, wondering if I could somehow disarm him while he was distracted. Disarm him and—what? Perform a goddamn citizen’s arrest? I couldn’t think straight.
Things were getting out of control. All I could see was the gun trained on Angelo, and all I could feel was the same rising panic I’d felt as Angelo’s blood kept spurting through my hands no matter how hard I pushed down.
“Giorgio Benetti was no psychopath,” Villiers spat out. “He was caught in a terrible cycle of violence, but he wanted out. Withme. He was mine. He was mine and you killed him.”
Angelo snorted. “Yours?Giorgio Benetti looking to get out of the life he’d worked so hard to getinto? He might have been sleeping with you, might even have promised you the world, but he was a man who enjoyed his work and lived it to the full. I buried enough of my brothers in his wake to know exactly what kind of man he was. You, my dear Dr. Villiers, are delusional.”
I was thinking the same thing myself, but once again, it didn’t seem like a great idea to poke the delusional bear. “Angelo,” I said sharply. “Leave it. Let’s—let’s just get out of here.”
But Angelo ignored me again. “Well?” he demanded from Villiers. “Was I right? Is it actually justice for Benetti that you want, and everyone else can go to hell?”
Villiers let out that horrible growl again, the one that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I knew then what justice meant to him.
Blood for blood.
I’d read about time seeming to slow down for some people under stress. When the police came around to break the news about my family, for me, time sped up. It felt like one second I had a family, a life, happiness—and the next, all of that was gone. The police were there and then they were gone, and in the moment between, I’d lost everything.
But right then, in that moment after Villiers growled, timedidseem slow. Too slow. Villiers moved forward on stumbling feet, but his gun was straight and steady as he fired.
Angelo was already moving, darting out of the way, but his hand hesitated on his gun, and there was no answering fire from him. For a moment I thought it was his injury, but then I realized—he didn’t have a clear shot at Villiers because I was right there behind him. And Angelo was not going to open fire if there was any chance he’d hit me.
He’d rather take another bullet himself than chance my life.
It all happened in seconds, but later I remembered each component quite clearly, all the logical links my mind made, coming to one conclusion.
And so right after Villiers fired his gun, I pulled my trigger, too.
Chapter Forty
Angelo
