Page 37 of Body of Trust

He’s never tried to trap or hurt me.

He watches over me at night.

He listens.

He cares.

He’s here.

There’s something about the way he’s kneeling in my living room, pleading with me to talk to him. It’s breaking down my walls.

He’s trying to put my father away, but he doesn’t want us dead. I drop my hands in a dramatic fashion and close the door, conceding with myself that if I’m going to have someone on my side, it should be him. It’s a gamble. A life-or-death game, our Russian roulette. If I’m going to play the game, I want to be on Jesse’s team.

“I have been selected by DeLuca & Associates to be an outside auditor of the Mega State Jackpot this weekend,” I start.

He stands and waits for me to continue.

“I have to rig the game, and I don’t know how I’ll pull it off.” I walk around the living room as I run through the instructions I was given, retelling every detail, including the numbers and how I’ll remember them. I lean against the back of my couch and bite my thumb. “I’m scared. I’ve never broken a law, let alone fixed a multimillion-dollar lotto. I have to do it though. My mother and sister mean the world to me. My family is everything.”

“You should never have been asked to do this.”

“Why then? Why do I have to?”

He shakes his head with a grimace. “I’m trying to figure it out. There are so many moving parts. The Lugazzis are an upstate crime family who are angry with your father and uncle for breaking a deal.”

“That’s quite a big payout for a sanitation deal gone bad.”

“It wasn’t just a sanitation deal. Carlo Lugazzi had plans to smuggle twenty-five thousand pounds of pure cocaine from Guyana in South America to the port of Gioia Tauro in Calabria. Your father and uncle agreed to move the product from the shipyards in Bayonne up until a few weeks ago when they backed out. Without their help, Lugazzi had no way of transporting the product.”

I’m glad my father pulled out of a drug smuggling deal, but it all sounds too surreal for my brain to keep up with. “I don’t understand what the lottery has to do with this?”

“It was a four hundred million dollar shipment that was confiscated by the Feds. When the trucks never showed up in the morning, the crate was left there to be discovered.”

“Then arrest Carlo Lugazzi. They’re his drugs!”

“We’re trying but the evidence isn’t there. It’s not like there’s a bill of sale! Amelia, please, I’m trying to put this together as quickly as I can but here are still so many holes and I’m trying to figure out how to fill them before something happens to you.”

“Then let’s kill him first.”

“There’s an entire crime family behind him. A militia who will protect their boss, their weapons, their drugs and, most importantly, their money. They’re pissed and they want retribution.”

I run my hand through my hair in disbelief. “Why me? Why this ridiculous plan?”

“At the end of the day it’s about money. The Mega State Jackpot is hundreds of millions of dollars. You’re a means to an end. Plus, if it all goes wrong, all evidence points to you and your family connections. The Lugazzis will walk away scot-free.”

I nod even though the notion of being in jail terrifies me. “What do you think the gloves are for?”

“I can only assume there’s a substance on one glove that will weigh the balls down, letting the others get sucked up.”

That makes sense, I guess. “Not the red power balls?”

He shrugs as he tries to make sense of the instructions. “Easy to win when you’re only guessing the Mega ball number. You only have to buy a hundred different tickets.”

My body shakes with the nerves that this is something I might actually have to do. “I’m frightened.”

He walks to me, standing inches from me. “I’m going with you to the drawing.”

“You’re not going. He said not to tell the cops.” I tap my finger against my lips as I think about my alternatives. “Then again, how would he know if the FBI found out? Maybe there’s a way to handle this with your connections—”