Consumed by the Mafia (De Salvo Family #5)

7. Laid Bare

seven

Laid Bare

“So,” Cris began after the two of them had retreated to the small interior sitting room, “what the hell happened?”

Ryōma closed his eyes for a long moment. He wouldn’t deny his friend—he owed the man too damn much—but that didn’t mean he wanted to have this conversation. Stalling’s not gonna make it easier. He stepped up to Cris and placed the purse into the other man’s hands, just in case she hadn’t reset the safety back on her gun. Then he swiveled on his feet and walked up to the nearest wall, letting himself slide down it until his ass was on the floor and his knees were bent high enough that he could lean forward if he wanted. Except instead he dropped his head back against the wall and waited.

Cris moved to one of the two recliners and unzipped the purse. “I’m assuming you aren’t going to get pissy if I dig through this,” he said, already sticking his hand inside. Of course, he found the gun first.

Ryōma looked away, not even wanting to watch. “Dig away,” he grumbled.

A momentary silence followed before Cris growled the words that assured he’d found the problem. “What the goddamn fuck? What the hell is this?”

“It’s worse than it looks is what it is,” Ryōma said. There wasn’t an ounce of inflection in his voice.

“It should be you on this floor!”

Maybe his father had been right. Maybe it was always only a matter of time before he hurt the people he least wanted to.

“Your girlfriend is fucking FBI? Ryōma. I need you to start fucking explaining this to me,” Cris said sharply. “ Tell me you didn’t know. Make it make sense.”

Ryōma’s hands curled into fists but he held back the spark of anger. He had no business having hurt feelings in this situation. Instead he forced himself to straighten, shifting to sit on his knees out of reflex. “Of course I didn’t fucking know,” he said. “I gave you the name I saw on her license, which is also the name she told me. She only came clean about this after I called you today.” He dragged in a rough breath. “The feds are tryin’ to sniff us out, but they don’t seem to have much—no, I don’t know what that really means—so her job was to get that information. She claims she’s been here since shortly after the mess with those fucking deputies last year.”

He watched Cris’s eyes narrow with understanding. It made sense the law would take the disappearance of its own a little more seriously. That was the same reason they’d made sure to make the bodies go all the way away. Once the boss had finished playing with them, at least.

Cris closed his fist around the government ID. “You’re saying she was trying to use you to get to us, and for some reason today’s events compelled her to bare her soul?”

Again, the image of her tearful eyes rose from his memory. Ryōma ground his teeth. “Seems that way. She didn’t expect me to drag her with me after that, thought I’d toss her to Silva’s dogs supposedly. But that wouldn’t have solved a fuckin’ thing.”

Cris grunted. “Killing a fed doesn’t solve too much, either.” He sank back into his chair. “Fuck.”

Ryōma closed his eyes, pushing all images of the woman he’d thought to let in out of his conscious mind, and bent forward in a bow. He kept his forehead on the floor when he spoke. “I’m sorry. I fucked up.”

“Get your ass off the fucking floor,” Cris said sharply. “I can see you’re beating yourself up, but I don’t get off on watching my best friend prostrate himself to me.”

Ryōma obligingly pushed to his feet. “Tell me how I can make this right.” He was almost certain he knew the answer, and in truth he hated it, but this was a time to show loyalty. Not indecision .

He nearly didn’t hear the footfalls entering the room behind him before the boss spoke. “If you can convince me you didn’t know until today, then you’ve already started.”

Cris set the purse and its contents on the table beside the chair and pushed to his feet, stepping out of the way. “Cousin, should you be out right now?”

Ryōma pivoted only enough to get eyes on the other man, but held his tongue for the time being. He hadn’t expected the boss to show up at the house—he wouldn’t have under ordinary circumstances, and it was more surprising given the vulnerability of his family at home. But these aren’t ordinary circumstances, either.

Dante De Salvo strode forward with barely a nod to Cristiano and lowered himself into the vacated chair. “Someone dragged the motherfucking FBI into our circle,” he said roughly. “That’s not something I can delegate.” He reached over and lifted the identification, glancing it over almost casually.

Dread swirled in Ryōma’s stomach. He knew perfectly well what his boss was capable of. He thought he’d known what he was resigning Abby to, and possibly himself, but he hadn’t considered that the Dragon would step from his lair to handle this situation personally. Mikey must have run a background search off the bookstore footage. The false name didn’t change her face, or the real records still stored under digital lock-and-key.

“Ryōma,” Dante said, dropping the ID back to the table and lifting narrowed, ice blue eyes up to him. “Convince me. ”

Ryōma swallowed a useless twist of anxiety and said, “She told me after I got off the phone with Cris, after we were ambushed in the car. I don’t know what exactly made her tell me.” He wasn’t even sure he remembered the entire conversation in the alley, despite that it hadn’t been more than an hour prior. If that. The moment he’d laid eyes on her ID, his brain had screeched to a halt. It had felt like he’d ceased to breathe.

The accident had hurt less.

The beatings he used to take when he disappointed his father had hurt less.

That was a confounding realization. One he couldn’t afford to acknowledge, let alone understand.

Instead he repeated what he’d told Cris, doing his best to include the things he vaguely remembered her saying. Something about wanting to ‘do the right thing’ and how she didn’t see the point. “She thinks sabotaging her mission will buy you time to tie up whatever loose ends they’re trying to exploit,” he added, “but I don’t know exactly what those loose ends are. I don’t even know how she knew my connection.” It wasn’t like he worked a day job at any of the De Salvo owned businesses.

Cris folded his arms across his chest. “Maybe our rat’s been talking to more than one group.”

Dante’s face was unreadable as he studied Ryōma.

Silence hung in the room for several long seconds.

Ryōma willed himself to hold still. There was only so much he could offer. He’d met a woman at a bar, become infatuated, and while he’d peeked at her license and passed her information as he knew it along to Cris, he probably could have done more legwork. He saw that in hindsight. Arguing that he wasn’t behaving any differently than either of the men currently grilling him was less than ineffective. None of their women had proven to be a threat. Felicity had shared blood with the enemy, as had Mikey’s new bride, but both women had themselves been distant at best from their families. Ryōma understood that.

He also understood that Abby was different. She’d chosen to align herself with the people bearing down on all of them, endangering their family as a whole. If the FBI succeeded, every adult of the De Salvo family and at least most of their employees would go away. In many cases for life. She was, essentially, threatening to orphan the newborn Vittorio, soon-to-be eight-year-old Lucia, and even Grace’s unborn daughter.

Killing a federal agent who was actively investigating them would be a much more difficult task to cover up, but there was no way the Dragon would make a different choice. Not with his family’s future on the line.

If Ryōma thought he could talk Abby into quitting, into swinging for the other side after all the years of effort she’d invested, he’d suggest it in a heartbeat. But she hadn’t said anything to indicate that option. She’d only offered to give them some time and recuse herself.

“Where is she now?” Dante asked, finally breaking the silence without any other indication.

“Cleaning up from the accident,” Ryōma replied. He tipped his head toward the hall.

Dante made a flicking gesture. “Go get her. If I decide to let her live, she can finish later. Don’t do anything stupid.”

If…? Ryōma locked his jaw and bowed at the shoulders. “ Ryōkai .”

It was a test, he was sure. Would he do as he was told and walk her back into the room, would he push the boundaries and try to steal another moment with her first, or would he choose her completely and betray the family he’d found? Even as he strode down the hall, Ryōma acknowledged there was still a part of him that wanted to choose her. At least if it meant saving her.

If it didn’t have to mean forsaking Cris, Felicity, and the little children who would be so lost in the end. Maybe then he could do it.

But it does. He needed to remember that. He was a soldier. A tool. Tools didn’t get asked their wants and desires, or whether it hurt sometimes to be wielded. They were either useful and kept around or they were discarded. All he could hope was to stand as a shield for those who had provided him a purpose when he’d had none.

He paused at the threshold of the bedroom door, fingers on the knob. Whatever was said between them in the next few minutes, presuming he was allowed to live through this mess, he could never make a mistake like this again.

Abby had to be his last.

He wasn’t prepared to see her perched on the foot of the bed, drowning in oversized men’s clothes with her arms wrapped around her knees and fresh tear stains smeared across her cheeks. Her hair had been retied into a bun, and though it mostly looked dry, steam still wafted out of the adjoining bathroom. She couldn’t have been out of the shower for more than a couple minutes. She hadn’t wasted any time. That was smart.

She blinked bleary eyes up at him, her expression sad. Resigned. “It’s time?” Her voice was choked and echoed the dull look in her eyes.

Ryōma grunted and strode up to her, pulling her to her feet with his hands on her arms. He hauled her straight up, into his chest. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

Her eyelids drooped. “I guess I wasn’t.”

He exhaled harshly and moved a hand to tip her chin up. “No, you weren’t. You aren’t cut out for this kind of assignment, baby girl.” He swept his thumb through the tear tracks on one cheek. They shouldn’t even be talking. “Come on. I can’t save you this time. All you can do for yourself is speak honestly, and curtail any sarcastic urges.” He took her hand and turned for the door without waiting for her response.

“Speak?” she repeated, following him without resistance. “He’s not just going to … shoot me, or whatever?”

“I can’t say what’s about to happen.” He also couldn’t warn her. Not more than he had.

She lowered her voice as they traveled down the hall. “I’m sorry, Ryōma. I put you in a bad position and I just want you to know, I am sorry for that.”

His hand tightened around hers. “I don’t want your fucking apology, Abigail. You’re sorry? Then fucking prove it. Don’t just wallow in your guilt or sit back and let what happens happen. Open those beautiful eyes of yours and recognize that you aren’t just threatening a few grown men. You’re talking about destroying the lives of actual innocent people, of dozens or more people who never did anything other than accept help. Kinda like you did today when you called me.” He stopped walking and angled around enough to scowl down into her widened eyes. “Did you set out to rip apart families? Orphan children, dump elders into overcrowded and underfunded nursing homes? Because that’s the simplest part of what’ll happen if your mission succeeds, with or without you. So don’t give me ‘sorry.’ Sorry doesn’t fix fucking shit. I don’t have anyone. You could kill me and it won’t make a goddamn difference. But I’m the rare case, do you understand?”

Her mouth opened, but she didn’t really look like she was going to say anything. She looked stunned. Possibly even horrified.

“ Ryōma !” Cristiano’s bellow startled Ryōma into whipping forward, making him realize they were closer to their destination than he’d noticed. “Get your ass in here.”

Fuck.

He resumed his trek forward, Abby in tow. He couldn’t say he was surprised when she tensed, finally offering likely instinctive resistance at the sight of Dante sitting back in the armchair on the far side of the room. Still, Ryōma dragged her several more feet into the room before letting go.

Cris stomped up, glaring straight at him. “How many times have you been the reason I made it home?” He paused for only a heartbeat. “Are you or are you not the reason my wife survived being abducted by her motherfucking half-brother last year? How often do we have you over for dinner?”

Ryōma winced. He’d let his mouth get away from him. “Cris—”

“Are your ribs broken?”

Well, shit. “Just bruised, I think.”

“Good.” Cris offered no other warning before hauling back and punching him hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. “Now sit your ass down and shut up.”

Abigail’s heart lurched as Cristiano threw his fist into Ryōma’s sternum. “Ryo—”

“He’s not your concern right now, Agent Fitzgerald.” The cool, controlled voice sent a frigid chill down her spine and Abigail forced herself to look forward.

She really hadn’t expected to come face-to-face with the Dragon himself. But there he sat, black designer button-up undone enough to reveal the full head of the dragon tattoo on his chest and sleeves pushed up to his elbows, one ankle resting on his knee. His blue eyes seemed to burn and leave her frozen in place simultaneously. This was the man she’d least wanted to run into unprepared. This was the man who seemed to have both sides of the world in the palm of his hand.

“I trust you understand the mess you’ve entangled us all in,” he said after a moment.

Abigail swallowed her nerves as best she could. She understood now why Ryōma had warned her not to snark. “I understand that there’s more going on than I had imagined,” she said, “and that my presence is unwanted. As is the meaning behind it.”

The Dragon hummed, the sound low and intimidating. He tapped his fingers only once against the armrest of the chair. “Do you want to live?”

Her eyes widened. She wasn’t sure if she was surprised by the audacity of the question or the implicit offer within it, or both. It was a bizarre mix of offensive and tantalizingly hopeful and she hated it. “Of course I want to live.”

“Tell me everything,” he said. “How many agents are involved in this investigation? Who are they? What do they know? Where did that information come from? How long have you been working to destroy my family, and why did you choose to use Ryōma as your in?”

Indignation surged inside her at the deluge of questions. “Is this normally how you interrogate people?” Abigail countered. He couldn’t possibly think she was so weak-willed that she would just roll over on everyone and everything she had invested her life into up to that point.

“No,” he said. “Normally they’re wrapped in chains and the questions are punctuated with infliction of pain. And when someone refuses to answer me, they burn.”

Her next retort died in her chest at the calm, straightforward declaration. Holy crap. She’d actually hoped those stories had been exaggerated. As much for the victims’ sakes as for her own sanity. She’d hoped that the whole rumor of him calling himself the Dragon because he liked fire was some kind of twisted joke, or that perhaps he’d set a building aflame once and it actually stemmed from that .

Abigail sucked in a hard breath. This man would absolutely kill her. She didn’t see how she was getting out of that. If I’m gonna die, I should just shut up and let it play out. Her eyes widened at her own thoughts.

“You’re sorry? Then fucking prove it. Don’t just wallow in your guilt or sit back and let what happens happen. Open those beautiful eyes of yours and recognize that you aren’t just threatening a few grown men.” It had only been a few minutes since Ryōma had said those words, and so many more. She’d already almost forgotten.

Abigail closed her eyes for a moment and did her best to stomp down her pride.

She wasn’t just sorry for dragging him down with her and possibly endangering him. She was sorry for her own illicit behavior. She was sorry for her ignorance. She was sorry about the chaos she felt like she’d played a large hand in that day. And she was sorry, she realized, for the threat she currently posed to innocent children who didn’t even know she existed. Children like she had once been, whose worlds would be ripped apart if she only did her job.

That was never what she’d wanted.

Abigail exhaled and forced herself to meet the Dragon’s cold stare again. “I don’t know if I can answer all of that,” she said honestly. “There aren’t a lot of agents assigned to the case right now, because we haven’t collected enough actionable information to justify the manpower. Special Agent Albert isn’t even convinced that the De Salvos are really the ones behind the criminal organization he wants to uncover. He’s been pushing me to look harder at Silva and Silva’s associates. ”

“Julian Albert?” Cristiano asked from his position behind and to the side of the armchair.

Abigail flicked her gaze to him for a single second and nodded. “Yes.”

“Go on,” the Dragon said.

“I have one supervisor between myself and Albert,” she admitted. “The bulk of the mission has been mine to run, since I’m new to the area and no one would know me. It’s been my job to gather intelligence on whoever proved to be connected to the rumored organization. The entire mission stemmed from a report about two missing sheriff’s deputies from West Virginia last—”

The Dragon propelled himself up and out of his chair in the blink of an eye. Suddenly he was in her face, one hand twisted in the collar of her borrowed clothes and hauling her up until only her toes remained on the floor. Where his face had been a mask of careful, cold neutral before, now he burned with rage. She was almost surprised his eyes were still blue. “I will not have my entire family destroyed over those two motherfucking pieces of shit. The fact that those abusive scumbags carried a badge is more than enough proof that your law isn’t as clean and righteous as you claim.”

The breath stuttered from her as Abigail scrambled to process his words and not drown in a fresh surge of raw, visceral fear. She had always considered herself a strong woman. She’d worked hard to train and make herself capable, with and without a weapon. But this man could kill her with a single hand. And in this moment, she suspected he wanted to. The thought was terrifying .

Cristiano laid a hand on his shoulder. “Cousin. I know your rage. But you asked the question. At least listen to the answer first. We would benefit from the information she’s giving us.”

The Dragon’s lip curled in distaste and for a second Abigail was sure smoke would billow from his mouth in some kind of warning. None did. Instead, he released her shirt without setting her down, letting her stumble backward. “The sheriff’s deputies aren’t missing, Agent Fitzgerald,” he said, the cold tone taking over his voice again. “They’re dead. You won’t find them. The entire fucking state of West Virginia owes my wife an apology for empowering those bastards. I only did the world a favor. Move on.” He turned and reclaimed his chair as if he hadn’t just lost his head.

Abigail raised a shaky hand to her chest. Owes his wife…? It clicked with her next breath. He’d called them abusive. She didn’t know much about Iris De Salvo’s history—someone with expert skills had taken care to hide most of it—but she knew Iris was from out of state. And she knew, as much thanks to her informant as because she’d been trying to keep a partial eye on the De Salvo men for the last few months, that they were all rather protective of their women. It stood to reason, then, that his words meant those particular deputies had laid hands on Iris in the past. She would never know the details, but that wasn’t what mattered.

Weirdly, stupidly, what mattered was the next thing she landed on. More dirty cops. She knew, first-hand, that there were lots of good, upright officers of the law throughout the country. She’d met several. Shaken their hands, worked alongside them, shared meals with them. They existed .

But she kept getting smacked in the face with the ones who dragged the rest down. And she was tired of it.

“What else can you tell me?” the Dragon asked when she was quiet for too long.

Abigail drew a breath. “Most of what I’ve learned is hearsay. Non-provable on its own. I do have an informant, just one, but I can’t tell you who. The only thing that person has asked for from me is protection, not even immunity, when everything is done. But I can tell you they’re not overly high in the pecking order, by their own definition.” She knew the answer wasn’t going to be satisfactory, but it had to be the line she drew. The one thing she maintained.

Both De Salvos narrowed their eyes at her.

Cristiano spoke first. “Fucking rats.”

The Dragon drummed his fingers again. “Let’s not jump to conclusions.” His frown remained. “We’ll shelve that topic for the moment. Continue.”

Abigail couldn’t stop her gaze from sliding in Ryōma’s direction. She could only barely see him out of the corner of her eye, sitting, slumped back, on the sofa. It was hard to tell without turning to stare directly whether or not he was even conscious. She couldn’t afford to stare. “I thought Ryōma might be an approachable way in … because everything I had learned so far indicated he was a loner, but also that he was comparably closer to the top. The case has been moving too slowly for the FBI to keep funding and I’ve been told I have until I hit the one-year mark—the end of September—to find something useful, otherwise we’re pulling off. So I decided to insert myself. ”

Dark amusement lifted the corner of the Dragon’s lips for a split-second. “So you seduced him.”

The indignation returned in a flash. “That’s not—That wasn’t actually the plan.” Admitting that probably wasn’t necessary. But maybe it would keep Ryōma alive, if nothing else.

The Dragon made another low, vibrating humming sound. “I have one final question for you, Agent Fitzgerald.” He narrowed his eyes at her and the breath froze in her lungs. “How badly do you want to live?”