Chapter 107

I was late to Eli Marcello’s party. But I was also on the hunt, and as a cop, one of those things definitely took precedent. Eli’s party would go on for another several hours. And he’d be ten for an entire year after that.

But I’d found a clue, and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to follow it.

I was a cop, after all.

My investigation had been going … well, interestingly, to say the very least. I’d slowly but surely, little by little, been piecing together truths about Vanessa’s past.

She had a lot of hidden secrets. I just wasn’t sure what they all meant. It was like having a puzzle dumped out over a table and no clue what the final picture was supposed to look like.

I had ideas. I had guesses.

And now, I was on a path to hopefully find the final missing piece. Put the whole thing together and take a step back to analyze what I’d created. Hopefully, anyway.

This latest clue was just an address. An apartment number, to be more exact. And either I was going to find nothing, or I was going to find answers.

I owed it to myself, to Layla, to chase this lead. So, I did.

Hell, if I found something good, it would be a pretty decent birthday present for Eli, right? Or at least, that was how I’d justify this absence. For now, anyway.

I was going to be decently late; the apartment was pretty far outside the city proper. On the outskirts, in a neighborhood of narrow pothole-riddled roads lined in half-rusted cars, dented trash cans, and run-down houses.

The apartment building I was after wasn’t in any better condition. The brick had grown soft around the edges, but its blocky design and narrow windows suggested it had been built for function more than style.

I parked my car along the road, paced up the short walk to the front door. The call box on the side didn’t seem to work, and when I pressed on the door, it swung open. Unlocked.

So I strode right inside. The dim hall that stretched out in front of me smelled of mildew and stale cigarettes. The overhead lights flickered intermittently as I climbed the stairs to the third floor. The door I was after sat at the end of a long, narrow hall.

I knocked. No answer. I knocked again.

The door across the hall cracked open, and I turned to find an older woman regarding me from beneath the door’s chain. She couldn’t have been much more than four feet tall. “You’re wasting your time.”

“You know who lives here?” I asked, keeping my voice soft, upbeat. Friendly. I even offered her my most disarming smile. Just ask Vanessa; I could be charming.

“Some younger man.” She sniffed. “Hasn’t been here in years, but nobody else has moved in. Like he’s still paying rent.”

Well, that was certainly curious. “Can you tell me about him?”

For a moment, I thought she might sniff again and close the door in my face. And close the door she did—but it was only to remove the chain and swing the door open all the way.

She stepped out into the hall, tilted her head up to meet my gaze. I had a good two feet on her, but she didn’t seem intimidated or bothered by the height difference.

“His name was Alexander,” she said, her words slow. Pensive. “I forget his last name. He was young. Handsome. Beautiful green eyes.”

My heart beat a little too fast, but my fingers stayed steady as I slipped my phone from my pocket. Only took me a second to pull up a photo. “Was this him?”

She peered through narrowed eyes at the photo. “Yes, that’s him.”

My heart crawled into my throat. The final pieces were sliding into place … and the picture it was forming was not going to be pretty, I didn’t think.

Still, I had to press further. “Do you know … Did he have a sister?”

“A sister.” Her soft brown eyes tilted towards the ceiling as she considered this. “I don’t know about a sister. But there was a woman who came by once, after he disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

The woman shrugged. “That’s what they say. One day he was here, the next, gone. People like that don’t just walk away.”

Amen to that. But I wasn’t about to let her know how right I suspected she might have been. Besides, I had bigger fish to fry.

“What did the woman look like?” I pulled up another photo, this one on my phone. “Like this?”

Once again, I watched with bated breath as the older woman peered down at the photo. This was my moment of truth here, my big reveal.

“Yes,” she said finally. “That’s her.”

The final piece had clicked into place. And the final picture … the final picture was nothing short of terrifying. And I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it.

“Thank you for your time,” I told the woman, pressing my suddenly clammy hands against my jeans. My gut twisted as I hurried down the hall. If I was putting these pieces together right …

Hell.

The attack on Aldo hadn’t been just carefully gleaned information … it had been inside information. Someone deep within the ranks of the Marcello family.

A traitor.

Which meant the Marcello family had bigger problems than the suddenly quiet Rossetti.

I flipped my hand over to check my wristwatch. The party would be well underway. My timing, truly, was awful. But I had no other choice. This absolutely could not wait.

I hopped down the final steps and pushed through the apartment’s front doors into the bright afternoon sunlight. After the dim, dingy building, it was nearly blinding.

My fingers shook as I lifted my phone to my cheek. It rang. Rang and rang and rang.

Layla’s tinny voice met my ears as the recording advised me to leave a message. I sighed, hung up without saying anything. This was far too sensitive for voicemail.

I dialed Aldo instead.

Ring, ring, ring.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, I supposed. The party was the one bit of normalcy either of them had had—that Eli had had—in a very, very long time. I couldn’t blame them for not answering.

Truly, my timing was terrible.

I hung up, tried a third number. Expectations even lower this time, I listened to the ring before Vanessa’s recorded voice picked up and demurely requested that I leave my name and number.

I slid behind the driver’s seat of my car and tried the fourth number.

Ring, ring, ring. Nothing. Not even voicemail—because when did Carlo ever not answer his damned phone? He was second in command of a Mafia family.

A knot of unease tightened in my gut. Something was wrong. Very, very fucking wrong. And since nobody was answering, there was only one way I’d be able to figure out what.

I slammed my foot down onto the gas and whipped the car out into the road. My hands tightened on the wheel.

I had spent his whole career drawing lines between right and wrong, between law and crime. But as I sped toward the Marcello estate, I realized those lines had blurred into something I no longer recognized.

And for the first time, I wasn’t sure which side I was on.