“I saw that on the way in.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a business card. “Did wonder. Call me when you get hold of the book.”
I take the card from him, our fingers touching briefly. I breathe in sharply. That touch does something to me, sending a bolt of electricity all the way through me.
I ignore it, managing to nod his way. “Will do.”
“Goodbye, Natalie Mason.”
“Goodbye,” I look down at the business card but there’s no name there, just a number. “Who are you?”
“Call me Angelo.”
He glances out the window and spots Winnie getting into her car. “Got to go,” he says. “I’ll see you real soon.”
With that he’s gone, heading straight out and over to Winnie, talking to her while my fingers still tingle from where he touched me.
She looks terrified of him. Why is that?
His voice, his eyes, they’re very familiar. Then I place it. He sounds like the man I met at my dad’s old house.
It can’t be that guy. If it was him, he’d have reacted more strongly when I mentioned Jasmine. The one time I had sex, I got pregnant. It could only be his child. He’d have done the math, reacted to it, not continued to stare at me in that decidedly strange way.
Angelo Genovese is dead. Killed in a car crash five years ago, not long after I found out I was pregnant. Died fighting my father in the bloody mafia war in Chicago. Winnie saw him die, told me all about it. Watched from the roadside as his car burned up with him inside it.
But he did have a burn on his cheek. Could Winnie have got it wrong?
I stare at the man through the window before turning on my computer and starting the hunt for his first edition.
Maybe I’ll ask him directly if he was at the party that night. At least, that way I’ll know for sure. If it is him, I can get him arrested for killing my mother. Put the past behind me. Get justice for her.
One thing’s for sure, if he is Angelo Genovese, I’ll never tell Jasmine about him.
A member of the evil mafia family that destroyed ours. The Genovese famiglia.
That’s a secret I’ll take with me to the grave.
Chapter Six
Angelo
* * *
“You thought you could just walk away?”
Winnie’s got her hand on the open car door. I can tell she wants nothing more than to get in and drive off, ideally dragging me alongside. She’s too chickenshit to try.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, keeping her voice low, glancing around in case anyone’s watching us. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“Us Genoveses are harder to kill than you think.”
“I saw you die.”
“You saw my car crash and burn. Not the same thing.”
“What do you want from me? I haven’t got any money if that’s what you’re after.”
“You and Derek scuttled off when the shit hit the fan, didn’t you? Thought you’d be safe out here in Buttfuck County when the writing was on the wall. Took a while but we found you and now you’re going to pay, Winnie.”
“The debts were supposed to die with Derek. I’m not responsible for his gambling problem. You can’t do this to me.”