Page 40 of Finding Love

“You don’t have to go out with me,” I remind him as I wrap the ice in a towel and hold it to my knuckles. “I don’t need anybody holding my hand.”

“Who said anything about holding your hand?” he asks while carrying his empty bowl to the sink.

“You better not think about leaving that shit in there for Mama to find,” I warn when it looks like he’s about to walk away. “I’d gladly go out there and hunt down those Vitali pricks, but I wouldn’t go up against my mother.”

“You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He’s good-natured about picking up a sponge. “As I was about to say, you know I’d never say anything against going out and cracking a few skulls, especially if those skulls belong to anybody stupid enough to associate with those Vitali assholes.” He spits into the sink for emphasis.

It does feel good to inflict a little pain, that’s for sure. If only it got me anywhere. “I’ve been thinking about what that guy was saying last night when he was still conscious and talking,” I add. There is something almost alarmingly satisfying in remembering how I broke him down. He managed to hold out through an entire hour of me pounding on him before he cracked and gave up what little information he had.

“You were able to make out anything he said?” Cesco asks, drying the bowl and putting it away. It’s funny watching him do something so domestic when he held that pathetic, weeping prick on his feet for me to continue my interrogation last night. He did it while wearing a grim smile too.

It has bothered me throughout the day, the almost incoherent rambling once I punched and eventually kicked that asshole until he realized he had no way of surviving the night. “Something about paying somebody? What did that have to do with anything? Was he trying to say they have one of our guys?”

“It could be.” My cousin shrugs but doesn’t look away when I give him a sharp look. If there’s one thing I can count on, it’s him looking me straight in the eye when he knows he is going to tell me something I don’t want to hear. “It would make the most sense. We’ve gotten nowhere after all these weeks, questions, and beatings. Alessandro locks that shit down, man. He makes sure not to let information leak.”

“Are you saying we do?” I ask as bile begins to rise in my throat. Is he right?

His head swings back and forth. “You’re not listening to me. Vitali doesn’t share plans with anybody who doesn’t absolutely need to know about them. Up until now, we have gotten no information that led anywhere… and believe me, I was just as persuasive as you all these nights I’ve been out, looking under every rock and whore in New York.” He gives my fist a pointed look. “How’s the ice treating you?”

My cousin rarely inserts his opinion, and even more rarely does he speak this much at one time. That doesn’t mean I feel like hearing it. “Get to the point.”

“My point is, I have to believe the information we do get is the real thing. Like the info we got last night. I know we don’t leak around here,” he adds. “Which tells me if somebody did hand over info, they were paid to do it. Do I need to pull out a whiteboard and draw it for you?”

I’ve already considered this. It was one of several scenarios I weighed today since what else is there to do but absolutely anything that will take my mind off the crushing, numbing emptiness now that Emilia is gone. I can’t bear to be down at the house now that she’s no longer in it, waiting for me. It never felt empty before, but now it feels so cold and comfortless despite having every possible comfort at my fingertips. None of it matters. I would rather hang around here and go hunting for Vitali soldiers until I’m too tired to see straight than spend time there.

“Where are you going?” Cesco asks when I walk away without warning. Rather than answer, I let him follow me to Papa’s office. The door is open, and the light burns inside, spilling out into the hall.

Dante sits on the corner of the desk, a glass of scotch in hand. His mouth snaps shut like my appearance leaves him unwilling to speak. It’s no secret Emilia is gone, nor that my brother believed she should be here in the first place. I wonder how long he’s spent gloating to our father over this turn of events.

Papa sits in his chair, his own scotch in hand. “Don’t go ratting me out to your mother,” he warns me. “I told her I would give this up.”

“Sure, whatever,” I mutter. I can’t pretend to care as I nod to both of them. “Sorry to interrupt whatever this is, but there’s something I think we need to discuss.”

“What else is new?” Dante asks before staring pointedly at my iced fist. “Shouldn’t you be out somewhere in the city by now? Maybe there’s a cab driver you can beat up. Or a dishwasher.”

My hackles rise at the mention of it. “No wonder we can’t find Vitali, with everybody hanging around and gossiping like a bunch of schoolgirls. At least I’m out there getting my hands dirty instead of sitting here in an office and pretending I’m hot shit.”

“I do not hear this, do I?” Papa shakes his head before scowling at both of us.

Dante barely glances at him. He’s far too busy smirking at me, setting his glass aside before standing with his chest puffed out like he’s hot shit. The sight disgusts me. “Don’t pretend anything you’ve been doing has anything to do with this family. It’s all about her, and everybody knows it.” He sneers.

I take one menacing step toward my brother before Cesco places himself between us, facing Dante. “Luca and I were just talking about somebody we questioned last night. It wasn’t easy to make out a lot of what he was saying by the time he started talking. A mouth full of broken teeth will do that to you, I guess.” He snickers, obviously trying and failing to break the tension. “But we both think we heard him talking about somebody Vitali is paying. That’s the guy we need to talk to, he said. He never used a name.”

“Where is he right now?” Papa asks.

“He’s in no condition to talk again. Don’t worry about it,” Cesco quickly replies. I doubt there’s much of a question as to how our unfortunate informant ended up last night. “The point is, if Vitali is paying somebody to hand over information, this goes way further than Emilia.”

Dante’s brows draw together. I’ll be damned if he doesn’t look like a mirror image of Papa, who wears the same expression. “No. That’s impossible,” Dante murmurs, shaking his head. “We’ve never had a problem with that before, have we?”

He turns to Papa, who shakes his head. “Never. That’s one thing we always made sure of back before my grandfather’s time. Pay them well, take care of them, and they have no reason to turn their back on you.”

But Frankie did, didn’t he? My best friend, more of a brother than Dante ever was, betrayed the family who took him in and treated him as their own. Papa either forgets or doesn’t want to think about it. Either way, the past remains the same. “Everybody has a pain point,” I muse. “All it takes is finding it and applying pressure.”

“Well, we know what yours is,” Dante gloats.

“Don’t pretend you don’t have any,” I snap back, trying and failing to push past Cesco. “Stop acting like you’re not human.”

“I’m tired of this.” Papa slams his glass onto the desk. “I hear what you’re saying, Luca. And you’re right. All it takes is knowing enough about a person to know how you can get to them.”

---