“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Carlo shouts, his hands flying up instinctively, but Luca just presses the gun harder into his skull.
Words and phrases are coming out of my mouth that I didn’t even know I had in me—warnings, curses, pleading, swearing vengeance, even some old Italian phrases I heard growing up, the kind of spit-curses my Nonna used to throw around the house when her grandchildren wouldn’t listen.
Luca, still with the gun to Carlo’s head, is watching me. I run out of breath, take another, and add, “Kill me. Kill me instead.”
“No,” Carlo begs, his head at an awkward angle, his eyes squeezed shut. “No, this is all my fault. Please—”
“Be quiet, Bianchi,” Luca says casually, and Carlo, with an obvious effort, stops talking. “So,” Luca continues, still staring at me, “youdolove him. Interesting.”
“You son of abitch,” I start, but he cuts me off.
“Watch it, Fontana, or this son of a bitchwillkill your boyfriend.”
I grit my teeth and swallow down the next insult. “Let him go,” I say. “I’m the one who did all the killing. Carlo had nothing to do with it.”
“Well, I don’t believethatfor a second. He was there, wasn’t he? And he never came to me—or his father, for that matter.”
“I couldn’t go to my father,” Carlo says. His eyes are open now, darting to the side, but his head is still forced down by the gun. Luca’s cold blue eyes swing from me to Carlo.
“Why not?”
“He’s—he’s not competent.”
“Not competent?” Luca asks, each syllable drawled out slow. He takes a step back, the gun still pointing at Carlo’s head. “Sit up, Bianchi.”
Carlo straightens up slowly in the chair, and then Luca walks around both of us in a slow circle until he’s behind me, the gun at my head now. “Please don’t,” Carlo whispers, his eyes wide.
“Nicky, here,” Luca says, which just makes me want to start screaming at him again, “has told me his version of events. I’d like to hear yours. That’s why I brought you here.” He doesn’t, I notice, give Carlo the same warning I got about not leaving this place. It gives me hope, and when Carlo looks at me, uncertain, I give him a little nod.
“Go on, Harvard.”
Carlo’s version is substantially the same as mine, only shorter. Partly because he wasn’t there for some of it—the body dumpings, for example—and partly because unlike me, he doesn’t stop and start, never searches for words, never has to go back and add things in or correct things. It’s like he’s memorized a set of meticulous notes about all the events, which, for all I know, he has.
Somewhere along the way, Luca has moved away from me, and now paces the floor as he takes in what Carlo tells him. “That’s it?” he asks, when Carlo stops after our arrival back in New York this morning.
Carlo pauses, checks his watch for some goddamn reason, and gives a small smile. “No, Don Morelli,” he continues, “that’s not all. Tonight, I went to the office. Sorry, Nicky,” he adds quickly, when he sees my face. “But I had to check the Sardinian contract.”
“The olive oil imports?” That piques Luca’s interest. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Well,” Carlo begins, and his eyes stray to Luca behind me, watching him walk back and forth. I’ve seen Carlo watch people this way in court, or at the station when I’m sitting there in questioning. He’s watching for a reaction, I assume. To see how his words are landing. “As your lawyer, I’ll have to advise you to pull out of that deal. Or at least,” he adds, as Luca’s feet come to a stop, “renegotiate. I’m afraid the deal Miranda Winter struck with them was made under duress. And, as it turns out, she was also the one trying to have me killed.”
I wonder if Luca is as stunned as I am as Carlo lays it all out—how this Winter woman was working for Louis Clemenza, how she asked for a hit on Carlo, and when that didn’t work, she tried again with some thug she found on the street. And whenthatdidn’t pan out, she almost tried it her goddamn self, in the offices of Bianchi and Associates.
The same rage is bubbling up in me that I felt with Gatti, with Dellacroce. Carlo can see it in my face, I think, because he looks a little alarmed.
“So you can see,” he sums up quickly, and he’s using the same voice I’ve heard him use giving a final argument to juries, “where we have a problem. My father failed to properly vet Ms. Winter, and that failure could have caused catastrophic damage to the Family.”
“And where is Ms. Winter now?” Luca asks. For the first time, I see Carlo hesitate, just an extra breath before he starts to speak, but if I didn’t know him as well as I do, I’d probably miss it.
“On the way out of New York, I assume. Mr. Carlucci didn’t, uh, give me much chance to explain my situation.”
The next thing I hear is Luca walking away, the beep of his phone as he calls someone, a low muttered conversation with exactly the kind of code words I expected. Thank God—he’ll take care of Miranda Winter. If I can’t do it myself, I’m glad Luca will. He’ll take care of Louis Clemenza, too, for sure. I blow out a few long breaths, get rid of the red fog that was gathering.
Carlo mouthsIt’ll be okayat me, and I wonder exactly what he thinks is going to happen once Luca gets off the phone. “I want you out of here and safe,” I tell him in a low voice. “So quit talking, tell Don Morelli you’re very fucking sorry, and beg him to let you go. Tell him your father won’t be happy if you end up dead.”
“Fuck my father,” Carlo says, and smiles. “Trust me, Nicky.” He looks away from me as Luca’s footsteps head back towards us.
“Miranda Winter will be dealt with,” Luca says.
