CHAPTER FORTY: WINTER
“Shottwiceina matter of months, seems you have bad luck, Bianchi,” Maximo says as he peers over at Vito.
Vito ignores the jab, focusing on Giovanni who’s sitting behind his desk.
“The Ramos are neutralized and that’s all that matters,” Giovanni says but his tone is dry and there’s a fire in his eyes.
It’s been a week since the shooting and for once I’ve been glad to stay in the compound. My body and mind are tired. And my nightmares have started to feature more than my mother’s dead body. I don’t know how Giovanni managed to get the whole scene cleaned up before the cops got to the scene, but somehow he’d made it happen.
And I haven’t been privy to all the details of what happened with the police, but I know that I’d overheard him telling Maximo to handle it. My first thought was that somehow he was going to get Maximo to murder the whole department, but then I realized that wasn’t logical. Nor does it concern me, so I’ve tried not to think about it.
“What about Cressida?” Vito asks and I can’t help but to notice that he’s slightly slumped over in his seat.
“Lucia is already taking care of her,” Giovanni says stiffly.
Okay, that definitely means that she’s going to murder the woman.
Which confirms my suspicion that she was the reason for the police department switching up on Giovanni. Sure, she’s with the FBI but I have no doubt that she has, or had, a lot of sway over the department as well. And it seemed as if the police were only to inconvenience Giovanni if nothing else. They hadn’t arrested him, just held him up and forced us to split off.
“Do you have a replacement for her?” Maximo asks. He’s standing along the wall next to Enzo who’s been quiet since he entered the room.
“I’m looking into it,” Giovanni says. “The department is overwhelmed with the Rossi case right now, so we have time. They’re not actually looking at us, especially not with Cressida gone.”
Rossi? Another mafia family if I remember correctly.
“Where do we go from here then?” Vito asks.
Giovanni’s gaze moves over to me and he watches me for so long that I have to shift in my seat. Finally, his gaze moves away from me. “We’re going to keep an eye on Dox and that damn son of his. They were a little too eager to help when Maximo called them while we were being detained.”
Vito sits up a little straighter, “You think they’re up to something?”
“I know they are.” He opens his mouth to say something else, but he pauses, his eyes narrowing as he looks over at me. “You’ve been off long enough,” he says, the change in subject catching me off guard. He switches his gaze to Enzo, “Take her to work.”
Everyone else in the room seems to be caught off guard by the switch as well, but I rise to my feet. For the last week, I’ve been mostly left alone, and as far as I’m concerned there’s no reason for that to change now.
So, despite the fact that I have a feeling whatever Giovanni was about to say revolves around me, I let Enzo lead me out of the office.
***
“What have you gotten up to now?” Amarie asks as she leans on the bar next to me.
I’ve been back at work for a couple of days now, but Amarie has been off so this my first time seeing her.
I turn, my brows furrowing together. “What?”
“You’ve been gone again,” she says as she steals a cherry off of one of the cups on the bar. She pops the cherry into her mouth. “You must have gotten hurt again,” she states.
I press my lips together and I look to the side but there’s no one else around us. “Speaking on being hurt, you know we’re going to have to talk about… that night.” Neither of us have brought it up since it happened but while I was out it kept playing in my mind.
The number one thing that stuck out was the fact that she put so much emphasis on it being important that I not tell the Costas about it. I can’t imagine them being pissed at her for saving me, but her wanting to make sure that attention stays off of her… in combination with all the other little weird things that don’t add up.
It has my mind spinning.
She tenses up. “We’re not going to talk about that. Don’t bring it up again, Winter.” She’s turning around before I can even get another word in.
My eyes continue to watch Amarie as she moves across the room, so many questions still in the air. Her eyes only meet mine briefly but it’s almost as if she’s looking right through me. She flips a hand through her hair, her heels clicking against the floor and the short bottom of her dress riding up her thighs. I squint as I get a glimpse of a tattoo, but she pulls the dress back down before I can see too much, but I believe I see a tail.
She moves to one of the booths and I don’t take my gaze off of her.