“That’s Don Castellani to you,topolino.” He appears in a nearby doorway, making me jump. “In here.”
He’s fully dressed now, in a soft white open-throated shirt and black pants. He doesn’t mention my wearing his robe, or how long I took in the shower. I pad toward him and find myself in an office—a study, I guess. The window looks out over the same part of the grounds that the bathroom window did, and I see the same, bored guard wandering by. When I look back at Alessandro, I’m pretty sure he’s noticed me noticing the security.
He gives that crooked smile again. Maybe the muscles near his mouth were damaged by the knife, or machete, or whatever it was that gave him that scar. “We are well protected here, as you see,” he says, his eyes even darker than usual. “No one comes in or goes out without my knowing.”
“I won’t try to escape.” It’s true, because I can’t see any way I’d even make it out of the grounds.
He gives an impatient flick of the head. “Of course you won’t. What I mean, little teddy bear, is that security has always been tight around here. But on the night of my father’s murder, no one was seen on the grounds. No one was caught on camera.”
I nod slowly. “You think the killer was inside the house?”
“Or tampered with the cameras,” he allows, “but to do that, one would have to be very careful and very clever. So you see, since Julian was found in the study, standing over my father’s corpse, his hands covered in my father’s blood—it seems most likely that he is the killer.”
“Julian told me that he found your father, and reached to take his pulse. That’s how he got the blood on his hands.”
Alessandro regards me silently for a few seconds. “Do you know who Julian is? What he’s done?”
“Yes.”
“And you believe him—let us be candid, believe this monster—when he says he did not kill my father?”
I’m getting annoyed now, and I relish it, because it covers up the fear. “It doesn’t matter whether I believe him, does it? It only matters ifyoudo. And I think you do, because otherwise, why keep him alive? And you wouldn’t be having secret meetings with the Pacific Syndicate, trying to find out if they had anything to do with it.”
There’s that smile again, but it’s more dangerous this time. “What I think,bellissimo, is that you have two more minutes to impress me a whole hell of a lot more than you have so far. What,exactly, do you think you can do to help me?”
I swallow. “I can tell you if the cameras were tampered with, for one thing.”
He says nothing, does nothing.
“And I have access to inside information.”
“You.” It’s not a question, not a statement, just an amused snort.
“Me.” I take a breath. “Let me show you. I’ll log into the forums on my website, and I’llshowyou.”
“YourCute Crimswebsite, eh?” He waves his hand in invitation toward the computer. “Alright, then. Show me. But don’t do anything foolish, like let anyone know where you are. I would hate for our little friendship to die so quickly.”
I sit down in the large leather seat before his laptop, and open up the browser.
“If you don’t think Julian did it,” I mutter, not daring to look up at him, “I don’t get why you’re keeping him down there like that.”
A hand descends on my shoulder, squeezing hard. “Julian has done an admirable job with you. You’ve known him a few hours, yet here you are, passionately advocating for him.” His hand retreats. “Don’t worry about Julian, little mouse. Worry about yourself.”
Julian was wrong. I don’t have any influence over Alessandro, not really.
I’m just what he keeps calling me: a mouse, being toyed with by a cat.
CHAPTER10
SANDRO
I watchTeddy closely as he logs into his website. His password is long and complicated, and he has to enter it twice, more slowly the second time, another indication that he is nervous. There’s some strange part of me that wants to soothe him, to keep him soft and yielding instead of on edge. But I need him nervous. Iwanthim nervous. Nervous people slip up.
I still don’t know for sure that he’s not a plant. But that’s a subject we’ll tackle later. I already know that the threat of going back to the cells will go a long way with this one—and hell, I don’t blame him. Those cells are a nightmare my father built, and while useful, they are outside of the traditions and conduct of a man of honor. When this business is over, I will have them filled in with concrete.
Julian may or may not be in them when that happens. I haven’t decided yet.
“There’s a whole subforum now,” Teddy says, having logged in finally. “Yesterday, after the news broke about Ciro Castellani, there were so many new posts popping up, I made a new subforum to corral them. Had to suspend a few people who weren’t playing nice…” He nods at the screen. “This guy, Smokerpoke, he posts alot. Usually about the Morellis, and he mostly has kinda out-there theories about your dad, but a lot of people seem to agree with him...um, that the Bernardis had something to do with it.”
