“I would hope so,” I admitted. “It’s my apartment.”
“How do you know Ms. Stevens was killed at your apartment?”
Crap, I hadn’t meant to say that.
This whole situation was getting out of hand and fast. Where the hell was my attorney? And why was I still sitting in this dank room like some criminal? I didn’t kill my best friend. I just happened upon the incident after the fact.
“I came home to find Ms. Stevens lying on my ridiculously expensive rug detective, bleeding all over it. Do you know how much it’s going to cost to get that stain out?”
“So, you admit to being home last night?”
“I just said I was, detective and I left the way I came in. I touched nothing but everything has my prints on it since it is my house where she was murdered.”
“Do you know of any enemies Ms. Stevens may have had?”
“Penny was my personal assistant and friend. She lived to serve me. She had no life that I know of, only to cater to my needs and wishes. God, it will take me forever to find someone to replace her.”
“Mr. Valentinetti, did you kill Penelope Stevens?”
“Don’t answer that, Lorenzo. This interview is over,” said the one person I was happy to see. Dressed in a three-piece Armani suit, tailored to fit him perfectly, my brother Antonio marched in, slamming his briefcase on the metal table. He was expensive from head to toe, from the cut of his hair to the tip of his thousand-dollar shoes. Yep, the Valentinetti family attorney had arrived.
“About bloody time you showed up, Tony. What the hell took you so long?”
“None of your business. Sit there and shut up. God, I can’t even get one night alone without you getting into trouble.”
“It wasn’t me. I swear.”
“I said shut up,” my brother Antonio groaned, then looked at the detective. “My client will not answer any more questions. You don’t have sufficient evidence to hold him, nor did you read him his Miranda rights. Unless you are charging him with a crime, we are leaving now.”
“Actually, we are charging Mr. Valentinetti with resisting arrest, aggravated assault and striking a police officer.”
“It was seven police officers, detective,” I grinned, happy that I could help with something. I mean if they were really going to charge me, they should at least get the facts straight, right? Antonio glared and I quickly shut my mouth. Damn, Antonio could be a bastard when the mood suited him.
“You arrested my client without plausible cause. His prints were not on the murder weapon. So, because the body was found at his residence, you arrested him without even reading him his Miranda rights. Then, you harass my client where he is left with no choice but to defend himself, where you and your department took it upon yourself to use brute force on an innocent man. To make matters worse, you interrogated my client without even offering him a chance to call his attorney. My list can go on and on, detective, so let me be very clear, we are leaving now.”
I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to the pretty detective because when Antonio grabbed my arm, he all but hurled me out of the interrogation room, pushed me through the station and kicked me into the street.
“What the fuck, Tony. That hurt,” I shouted, rubbing my backside.
“Get in the car, now,” he ordered firmly, pointing to the waiting SUV on the curb. Not wanting to piss him off more, I did as he said.
Climbing in, I saw Marko sitting behind the driver’s seat. When our eyes locked, I saw the anger in his eyes. Yeah, he probably wasn’t too happy that I got Paolo involved. Looking back, it was a dick move but Paolo never refused me. My cousin Paolo was a sweet boy. Technically, we were only a year apart but Paolo was always on the slow side, unlike us. Mom said it was because he wasn’t breathing when he was born. It took them a few minutes to get his heart beating. Something about lack of oxygen and all that shit.
As the vehicle pulled away, I leaned back against the seat and waited for the lecture I knew was coming. My brother Antonio never passed up the opportunity to chastise me and all of my wrong decisions. According to Tony, my life was a disaster waiting to happen that was surely going to either have my ass incarcerated for twenty-five to life, an extensive stint in a rehabilitation center or dead. Of course, after the events of the last twenty-four hours, I was sure he was leaning more towards death than anything else.
When Tony or Marko said nothing, I knew I was in big trouble. Taking the bull by the horns, I said, “So, did either of you watch the Bears game?”
Two
Lorenzo
I was very familiar with the office I was currently sitting in. This wasn’t my first rodeo here. Annoyed big brother was making me wait. I spotted something that I hadn’t seen before. I walked over to one of the many bookshelves and picked up a picture frame that wasn’t here the last time I was forced to be here. Smiling, I gently ran my finger over the frame. It was a picture of my cousin Reggie, Catarina and their son Colin smiling happily as they huddled together on the beach in sunny California.
It had been almost two months since the crap that went down with Catarina and Reggie. While I was happy that both were now happy and safe, I missed them. My cousin Reggie was a Golden Skulls Motorcycle Club member in northern California. My brother Giovanni formed an alliance with the club when the shit went down with our cousin and Layla. We all thought Reggie would walk away from that brotherhood and return home after everything that happened.
Color me shocked when he didn’t.
It was hard imagining Reggie in a club like that but he was happy and it looked as if Catarina was too. I was delighted for them, honestly. He had finally found his happily ever after. If anyone deserved happiness, it was Reggie and Catarina. Especially after all the shit they went through, not to mention the knife wound I received protecting the compound the day Layla and my sister Illyria were taken.