Chapter Ten
Angelo
* * *
“Luigi,” I say, dumping myself in the chair opposite his. “It’s been a long time.”
“Sir, you can’t be back here,” one deputy says. I ignore him.
Luigi looks up at me, and I can see the exact moment he recognizes me. All the color drains from his face even as his smile remains fixed in place.
“Angelo,” he says, his voice strained as he looks around at the deputies, all watching this encounter closely. “I thought you were dead.”
“Winnie said the same thing.”
His smile falters as he leans toward me. “Are you here to kill me?” he whispers. “Please, let me say goodbye to my son first.”
“I’m going to forget what you did at the party. For now. I’m going to forget the fact that you’re stalking Natalie to see when she uses the box, working with Winnie Mason to bleed this little town dry while you wait. I’m going to ignore the fact you’ve got your son working in the bank where the vault is located, so you know when she goes in. All of that, I’ll let go.”
He swallows hard, pulling at his collar. “Derek’s dead. The town’s unaffiliated. It’s not a Genovese town, is it? It’s open, right? I’ll cut you in when she uses it. There’s only a few days to go. She’s got to go to the vault soon, right?”
“Mason picked the bank here to deposit it all and came out here when the shit hit the fan. He grew up out here. Don’t make it a Mason town. That makes it open territory and we’re taking it. I’ve bought Winnie Mason out and she’s gone. You do everything I say or you’re gone too, you got that you little fucking weasel?”
He swallows hard. “I got it,” he says, his voice weak.
“Winnie’s a Mason. You been working with her means you’ve been working with a Mason. We don’t take kindly to that kind of shit in our town.”
“I swear, Angelo. I never knew it was your town. If I’d have known, I’d have never done a thing.”
“You’re going to get rid of all those speed traps. The kickbacks you get off the fines are gone. You’re going to be the most upstanding sheriff this country’s ever seen. You’re going to make Mr. Rogers look like a fucking serial killer, you’re going to be that pure. Your son stops picking and choosing who to lend to. We choose from now on. We make the decisions.” I lean over the desk. “You got that, sheriff?”
“I got it,” he replies, wincing like he thinks I might slap him. “I won’t do nothing, I swear it.”
“Good to hear. Natalie never gets a ticket again. She never gets in trouble with you. She smashes the windows on this place and burns your car and you just get a new one with a smile on your face, got it?”
“I got it.”
“She ever goes to the bank for money again, your boy asks her how much she wants, you got it?”
“I got it.”
“Good. I’ll be checking in on you, sheriff. Make sure you don’t do anything that might make me angry.” I get to my feet. “No more corruption. No more kickbacks. Otherwise the famiglia will come in here and burn your fucking town to the ground.” I say it loud enough for the whole place to here. “This is a Genovese town now. You’d all do good to remember that.”
He’s no idea that he’s a dead man walking. First chance I get, he’s toast. He hurt Natalie. She’s no idea her sheriff is the Capo who attacked her, killed her mother, been watching her all this time to see if she used the box to get her fortune.
I walk out of the sheriff’s station and take a deep breath of cold air. I want to kill him but not yet. No bringing more heat down here until this issue is resolved for good. Then I can make him pay for what he did to Natalie.
* * *
The restaurant’s got Prohibition era warning signs all over the walls. It’s decorated like a speakeasy and the server’s wearing a dress that would have been fashionable in the 1930s. She takes our order and then leaves me looking across at Natalie. “What was it you wanted to talk about?” she asks.
She looks beautiful, her hair tied up on top of her head, her make up understated, like her. She’s got a black dress on and it clings to her curves, makes it hard to focus on looking at her face. I want to fuck her over the table right now, leave her screaming and moaning like that one night we had together.
“Where’s the book?”
She slides it across the table to me. “First edition, as you requested.”
“Something I got to tell you,” I say, flicking through the pages. My eye stops at a paragraph that sparks a thought in my head. It couldn’t be that simple, could it?