I wanted this forever.
“I promise we’ll get through this together,” Romeo said
I sighed and nuzzled deeper into his sculpted chest.
“And once we do, we can start building our lives together. You and me and Matteo.”
“Promise?” I asked.
“I promise,” he said.
For once, I allowed myself to fully believe him. To fully take him at his word without any digging on my end. Hope blossomed in my chest as happiness settled in my gut. I closed my eyes and dreamed of our new life, like I used to do when the two of us were teenagers.
All we had to do was bring down the most ruthless psychopath in all of New York City.
CHAPTER 29
ROMEO
“Can you set up a meeting with Stefano?” Conrad asked.
“I can make that happen,” I said. “But Stefano’s smart. It’s going to take more than a wire to get any sort of confession out of him.”
“How did you know we were going to wire you?”
“Is there any other way police do things?” I asked with a grin.
I knew they wanted a meeting. Wanted a recorded confession of Stefano and all his illegal activities. But the man wasn’t an idiot. He knew when he was walking into a trap. It would take more than a wire strapped to my chest to get anything out of that man, and I wasn’t sure if the police had it in them to follow my lead. If they wanted anything from Stefano, they were going to have to be smarter about it.
Because both Julia and I had too much riding on this thing.
“We need him confessing on tape to his crimes. To killing those gun runners,” Conrad said.
That was the other thing. I needed to find a way to pin those killings on Stefano. And if I was wearing a wire of any sort, I risked him exposing me as the man who was on the docks that day. My plan was to use the ring Officer Johnson had planted as circumstantial evidence for Stefano being the man that killed those men on the dock. And meeting with Stefano face-to-face didn’t ensure that.
“I understand, but if he kills me before you get a confession, you’re back at square one,” I said. “I can tell you that he’ll sniff a wire coming from ten miles in either direction, and he’ll search me for one. But, I think I have a better plan.”
“Then I’m all ears,” Conrad said.
“Get Officer Johnson in here and lean on him,” I said. “If you can get him to confess that he’s on Stefano’s payroll, that puts one major step between the killing of the fun runners and Stefano’s want to pin it on someone else.”
“Johnson’s already riled up. He’s agreed to help us. I don’t want to risk that,” he said.
“You have no other choice. I can’t approach Stefano wearing a wire until we’ve got something on him. A blatant confession from Johnson will do that.”
Conrad didn’t like the plan, but he reluctantly agreed. They moved me from the interrogation room to the other side of the mirror. A place I never thought a Martine would stand. Conrad was beside me with his arms crossed with Bradshaw and Langley prepared to lean on Johnson as much as they could. It was the only option we had that kept me away from that wire, so I pursued it with all my might.
“You better be right about this,” Conrad said.
“I have it on good authority that I am,” I said.
Johnson entered the interrogation room with a red face, still angry at being in his current situation. From what I estimated, he had just lost two-thirds of his income in being caught. I folded my arms across my chest and grinned, knowing this man had no way out. I was ready to watch this slimy son of a bitch go down. Protect and serve, my ass.
“Take a seat,” Langley said.
“Why?” Johnson asked.
“Because we have questions and you have answers,” Bradshaw said.