Matteo’s on the other side of the door. He ignores the fact that his boss isn’t wearing any clothes and flinches at Caelian’s growl.
“What?” he demands. “What the fuck is it that you thought you had to pound on my door and interrupt my time with my wife?”
“C, I’ve got something real important. You’ll want to know about this.”
“Which is?”
“I know who’s behind what went down earlier. How they found out where you’d be. Somebody you trust has been sabotaging you.”
SEVENTEEN
Caelian
“Your evidence better be convincing,”I snarl. I’ve thrown on a pair of pants and gone with Matteo to my office. Somewhere private for us to talk. “You’ve disrupted the time I was spending with my wife. If your proof isn’t good enough, expect to lose something. We could start with your tongue.”
Matteo’s grown up in the same ruthless world I have. Gruesome threats don’t shake him the way they do most normal individuals. Though that makes it no less true that I’ll follow through with my threat. I won’t hesitate to cut off his tongue should the mood strike me.
He spreads out sheets of paper on my desk and then points at the numbers listed. “See these phone numbers? I began to notice a weird pattern with them when reviewing the phone records for our telecommunications.”
“When have I ever asked you to do so?”
“We’ve realized there’s somebody that’s not clean. You’ve been preoccupied with your wife’s absence. I took it upon myself?—”
“I don’t ever remember requesting you take anything upon yourself, Matteo,” I say with a severe, tight-jawed expression on my face. I’m impatient and easily pissed. Matteo has a few more seconds before I dismiss his dramatics altogether.
“You didn’t request it, but I was looking out for you, C. Too many things have been amiss. I’m telling you these phone calls being placed on the landline—they’re fishy. I traced the numbers and guess who they belong to?”
“I’m guessing one of my enemies?”
“Some of your blood. Your cousin, to be exact,” Matteo says.
“Carmelo?!”
“They’ve been in regular contact with him for months, C. See for yourself the number of times somebody dialed out to that number.”
I snatch the top sheet of paper off the desk and skim the number listing. Dates and times are provided for each time the phone number was dialed. Early mornings and late nights being the common thread.
“Who?” I grunt.
“That’s not the only piece of evidence I’ve got. Take a look at what I found on the surveillance camera footage.” Matteo opens up the laptop he’s been clutching and hits play on the video footage that’s already up on the screen.
Grainy black-and-white video begins showing the exterior of the east wing of the house. The terrace area remains untouched under the camera’s eye, barren and silent except for the click of insects. The time stamp on the screen reads as four in the morning.
Sunrise won’t be for another three hours so late into the winter.
For the first few seconds, no one is around. Nothing happens until the glass door creaks open and out emerges a shrouded figure.
Short. Round. Slow. Draped in what appears to be a night robe that almost skims the floor.
The person shuffles across the patio clutching something—an envelope, I realize as I squint my eyes at the screen and make out the shape of it.
As they make it to the other end of the terrace, their face comes further in view.
It becomes impossible to deny who it is caught on camera.
Ms. Poitier.
Tension clenches inside my broad chest. My gaze hardens into a glare. I give no reaction otherwise.
