Page 110 of Broken Pieces
“Dude!Not cool,” Matteo scolds.
I can't believe it as I watch them. “Are you for real?”
“I never joke about a man’s fingers, Red.” Enzo winks.
“I'm not signing up to be part of some potential murder scenario, so you guys need to shut the fuck up!” Isabella chimes in.
With a grin, Matteo tells her, “Relax,Sunshine, no one's six feet under.”
Lorenzo rolls his eyes, looking completely uninterested as he says, “Yet.”
I have so many questions right now. I don't even know where to start untangling this whole messed-up situation. I'm clueless about what they're accusing Damian of, and now he’s being framed?
“I'm seriously confused. Somebody needs to step back and clue me in on what's happening,” I comment.
“You better sit down, Red. This story is long and wild,” Matteo chimes in.
Oh, boy.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Sophia questions once I bring her up to speed.
I nod. “I’m more than sure.”
Matteo and I had a talk, and he spilled the beans on everything. The email threats, the tailing—Matteo, being a tech genius, traced it all back to Alex. Not exactly directly to him, but to a questionable company he cooked up with more than shady connections. It's a lot worse than any of us anticipated, and Alex orchestrated the whole thing right under our noses. There are so many holes in the story, though.
Like, how did the painting get into our basement in the first place? Or Damian’s prints for that matter?
The gallery has a state-of-the-art security system that only the employees that have the app on their phone can access without causing any suspicion. Only me, Isabella, and Damian have that app. Also, the fucking keys. Per the FBI, there was no forced entry into the gallery, hence why it looks even worse for Damian. Whoever did it, walked right in with a key and deactivated the alarm.
“Oh my God,” I say as the realization hits me.
“What?” Sophia asks, confused.
“I think Alex stole my keys the day we had lunch to go over the painting I needed. He pretended he didn’t know I was working for Damian. We got into an altercation and he…” I get up, walking back and forth, fuming. “The asshole dropped my purse by accident and helped me pick up the things. I couldn’t find my keys since then, but I didn’t pay much attention. Thought I had lost them.”
A hint of guilt floods through me. I’m partly at fault here. I can’t believe Alex manipulated me like that. With the fight, acting all offended and worried. Insulting me because he knew I was going to storm away.
I’m fuming with so much rage, it’s not even funny. First thing I want to do when we finish talking is go to Alex and kill him. Like, full on stabbing until he’s nothing but dead flesh.
He just did all of this and for what, exactly? A big tantrum over the fact Damian’s father didn’t leave him the gallery? Big fucking deal. He’s big enough in the industry now that he could have gone to do his own thing. Instead, he made Damian miserable and made him hide everything from me, playing some shining armor hero. I’m so fucking pissed at Damian too that I was ready to rip him a new one. But Matteo has a way with words, and was able to talk me down and propose a plan.
It's frustrating because I blame myself too. I should have insisted more, pushed harder when he was clearly pushing me away. I missed the signs, and now we're knee-deep in this shit. Matteo proposed a plan to confront this chaos head-on and put an end to it, and without a second thought, I agreed.
“I swear I’m going to chop off Alex’s dick for this,” Sophia seethes.
“Nope. Grab a ticket and wait your turn, because I want tokill him.”
Of course, I won’t. But it’s a nice thought, that’s for sure.
I take a deep breath as I stand in front of Alex’s apartment door. This plan took us about a week to cook up, and it’s insane.
Matteo's voice startles me as he speaks in my left ear, “You ready?”
I’m wearing the tiniest Bluetooth known to man in my left ear, so Matteo can hear everything that’s about to go down. I hope this insane idea pans out and we can catch Alex red-handed.
“Yup,” I whisper as I knock on the door.
My heart beats erratically as I hear steps getting closer to the door. I’ve never been a good actress, but for Damian? I’ll put on the best goddamn show. Oscar-worthy.
