Twisted Fate (Dark Heart 2)

I squint, blinking over at my wall-mounted flat screen, which apparently I paused while watching The Fall.

“You gotta give me just a second.” I rub my eyes. “Are you talking about…” I think of how to say Queens. “Like…it could be on a chess board?”

“Yes! That was where! He has it—that rat bastard Figaro! Your bastard!”

How the fuck is Figaro mine? “That dude’s from Portugal. Well, he’s from America,” I correct. “I think his family came from Portugal, though, not Italy.” Figaro—a Brooklyn cop—is not in any way “mine.” I don’t even know the guy except on paper.

“Is this the phone you use for everything?” I mutter. Aren’s usually in the pink phone as Nine.

“Do not be asking about my phone! You think I would use a bad phone? What you have is a bad man there in Georgia! You said the place was safe, it wasn’t. What am I to think? That the camera was yours!”

I frown. I think he’s referring to Queens as Georgia because it’s technically north of Brooklyn, as Georgia is north of his ancestral country, Armenia.

“Listen, Aren. Like I said already, Figaro’s not one of mine. I’ve only got a few up there” —meaning a few friendly cops— “but not that guy. I think Figaro is a rule guy.”

“I hope he likes the rule of no more Figaro. And what about this warehouse? You say this warehouse is safe for what we do! Someone put an eye there. Captured things we don’t want being seen.”

I blow a breath out…rub my fucking forehead. “So let me get this straight. You’re saying you heard Figaro has some sort of footage of…what exactly? Why don’t you back up and tell me what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“I should never be selling to you! This is what’s the problem with this. You, your second, there’s some sloppy actions from you—sloppy or deliberate. Your D.A. cunt has something on mine. That’s what I’ve been hearing. You turncoat to help her nail the nails into the coffin for me. That’s what is bringing all of it down!”

My pulse picks up at what I think he’s saying—about Elise. But I don’t hone in on that. “What do they have, Aren? What are you saying Figaro has, exactly what?” Is this the same shit Max told me about?

“They have my people and your one…on the film. As they are doing the exchange!”

Okay, so maybe it’s the shit Max told me about. There’s only one thing we’ve been doing recently at a warehouse that’s mine that’s in Queens, with my “second”—Alesso—present. This must have been before I changed the route on moving the acquisitions I get from Aren and Co.

“They have the thing that happened there…you’re saying someone has it on film? Someone from the precinct where Figaro works?”

“Your warehouse, it had the camera! I sent someone tonight! We found it, we beat it with the hammer. Dusted for fingerprints, and I will find whose fingers there are! No more fingers for that person, Luca Arnoldi. And I hope he isn’t you.”

I roll my eyes. Aren has been calling me Luca Arnoldi for years.

“There is only one solution,” he says grandly. “You go to your girl—see, I will not be calling her cunt,” he says, like I should be grateful. “You get…what we need. Exemption,” he says, like he’s trying that word on for size. “I do this for you—I find the assets because you ask me for assets. None of my ones are going down because of your assets.”

I roll my aching eyes again, cause that’s a bunch of bullshit. Aren has been doing this since I was in my twenties. I’m not arguing, though. Instead, I focus on the only detail that matters.

“She’s not my girl.”

“I heard she is your cunt, your girl…I heard it from good source. You and she were lovers. You love her?”

I swallow. “I think you mean loved.”

“You loved the cunt O’Hara? Because that’s the cunt I hate.”

I suck air in through my nose. “What are you hoping I can do about this, Aren?”

“You know what I hope for. I am hoping you make it go away. You should make it disappear. I then will be happy again with you.”

“As far as you know, have the cops in Queens already passed this up the line?” I ask him.

“I don’t know about that. I know not so much about it right now. It’s up to you—for your second.” He means Alesso. “You will fight against it.”

I snort. “Have you even seen it?”

“No, I only heard of it. What I see, though, is your camera! At your warehouse! I didn’t see film, but I would like to see it. You locate it, then I see it.”

That sounds like a pretty damn good deal—for Aren.

“I’ll take a look, but I’m not promising you shit. I didn’t cause this problem, and it’s not my job to fix it.”