Page 112 of Deadly Obsession
Matt was the one who sent Percy the envelope all those years ago with the proof that Lenetti was behind the kill orders. It turned out that he was spying on the Empire and feeding information to Percy. We just haven’t figured out why yet.
It’s now been two days since Lenetti and Percy were killed, and we need more answers. Lance and I have been beating the shit out of Matt, the double-timing fucker, but he’s held out a lot longer than expected. Typically, I bring targets to my torture room in the basement of Underground Park Slope, but Lance had a different idea.
We brought him to the near abandoned St. Orion’s Cemetery.
“Talk,” Lance orders.
I pick up my brass knuckles from the top of the empty casket inside a decrepit mausoleum. After slipping it on, I cock my arm back.
“Fuck, okay!” Matt growls.
He’s likely already lost sight in one of his eyes. We’ve cut off a few of his toes as well. We bring him to the brink of passing out then stop, giving him reprieve, only to start up again.
He’s had enough.
“Start from the beginning,” I say.
After a few seconds of silence, Matt talks. “I didn’t want to be an Empire soldier, but I had no choice.”
He’s struggling to breathe, and his words are slow. Lance might have broken a rib. It’s fine. We have time.
“My father got sick, and Gio would only let him out if I took his place. Lenetti threatened to harm my family if I refused. So I accepted. As a rookie, I was ignored for the most part. It allowed me to hide in plain sight. Which meant I heard a lot of things I shouldn’t have.
“A few months after the Christmas Eve murders, I overheard Lenetti bragging about it. I was still furious about being forced to join at eighteen, so I thought I could use this information to my advantage. I snooped for physical proof. Lucky for me, I knew how to pick locks and sure enough, Lenetti was dumb enough to keep files on the men he hired in his safe. I made copies, then anonymouslysent them to Percy Carter and Finn O’Connor, and waited for war to break out. Except, it never did.
“Years passed, and my dad got sicker. He had emphysema after being a lifelong smoker. He spent his days gambling, trying to win enough money to pay off hospital bills or buy booze and drugs for the pain. When he spent all our rent money, he went to Lenetti for a loan. But he couldn’t pay Gio back. Lenetti ordered my mother and sister killed as payment. I begged Lenetti to let me pay the debt, but he refused. Instead, he beat me for interfering.”
Matt wheezes and inhales as deeply as his body will allow before having a coughing fit and hawking a bloody loogie on the ground.
“Their deaths were the last straw. I wanted revenge, but Elias had just taken over the QBM, and I knew he wouldn’t get involved. And the Lords were useless. I was ready to give up. I was going to end my life, so I went to a bar to get wasted first. That’s when I met Percy. He was still alive. He’d been following me because he recognized me as an Empire soldier. He knew what Gio had done to my family and used that to his advantage.
“I became Percy’s spy. He already suspected Noemi was still alive, and I confirmed it, but Lenetti hid her well. We never could find her location. Then last year at the end of August, Gio comes to me saying Noemi is moving back, but her name’s Noah now. He tasked me with finding her a place to live after she refused to move into his townhousewith him. I was also keeping tabs on Lance for Percy so I knew I needed Noah to move into his building so I could watch them both.
“Percy found out Lance had become obsessed with Noah—the enemy’s daughter—so he had me hire men to kill you two in an ‘accidental’ building explosion.”
“You sent Finn O’Connor those pictures of me and Noah outside Cillian’s apartment the night Noah killed him, didn’t you?” Lance asks.
Matt coughs up more blood.
“Yeah. After you two survived the explosion, Percy was hoping Finn would take you two out himself.”
“Wasn’t Percy’s plan to use Noah as bait to lure her father out to the Fresh Meadows home to kill him?” I ask. “How would that have worked if Noah died in the explosion or if Finn took her out?”
Matt shrugs. “Fuck if I know. The man claimed to know what he was doing, but I think he’d lost his fucking mind. He got desperate there at the end.”
“I’ve heard enough.” Lance sighs and turns to me. “I’m going to bring Noah back here. She needs to hear all this herself. Maybe she can get more out of him too.”
He clamps my shoulder.
“You good?”
I nod. “I have questions for him, but I’ll keep him alive.”
Once Lance is gone, I face Matt.
“What do you know about a man named Moonlight?”
Matt was more than happy to give up information on Chase.
