Chapter 5:She Has Something I Need
1326 Words
[Antonio's POV]
The moment I showed her the woman on the iPad all the confidence she'd been wearing faltered..
She'd been all talk since I found her in the woods, spitting, swinging, mouthing off like the word ‘no’ was the only currency she had left to spend. I'd let her keep spending it ’cause it caused me nothing, it only told me everything I needed to know about how to break her.
I knew she wouldn't be easy to convince so I had to use the alternative
“I believe we were discussing the contract.” I tapped the desk twice, slowly, like the way you'd tap a glass to call a room to order.
She sank back into the chair, her fingers gripping the armrest, her eyes locked on the folder like it might bite her. For the first time since I'd dragged her out of that storm, she wasn't talking. Good. This suited her better.
“You have five seconds to decide.” I said nudging the contract towards her.
She didn't look at me, her eyes were fixed on the elderly lady on the screen tied to the chair and something in her broke.
“Wait…I'll sign it.” The words came out on the last count barely above a whisper.
“Good girl.”
“Please” Her voice broke on the word, small in a way I hadn't expected from her. "Don't hurt her. She's done nothing to you. This is between both of us. Leave her out of this…please.”
Oh wow, she knew how to beg. Interesting. People who break for others, not themselves, are the easiest ones to keep in line.
"Sign it, and she walks out unharmed."
She looked at the screen one more time before she picked up the pen.
Her hands shook, just slightly as she pressed the pen on the page anyway…… Sloane Ashford, jagged and rushed, nothing like the careful signature on the bottom of her father's old shipping contracts I'd studied for weeks before any of this started.
"Good job, little bird." I took the folder from her, and the satisfaction that moved through me was quiet and complete, the kind that doesn't need to announce itself.
"Get up."
She didn't move. She just stared at the spot on the desk where the contract had been, like the absence of it might still mean something.
"Sloane." Her name came out sharper than I meant it.
"Get up."
She got up. Swayed once, but caught herself on the edge of the desk, and didn't ask for help.
I almost respected that.
“Enzo.” I didn't look away from her. “Call Mrs. Rosa. Tell her the bride needs to be ready by tomorrow evening.”
Her head snapped toward me, hair still damp and tangled from the rain, dark circles already forming under her eyes. “Tomorrow…?”
“You signed the contract.” I held her gaze. "You didn't read the timeline? There wasn't one to negotiate."
She said nothing else. There was nothing left to say, and for the first time all night, she seemed to understand that fully… not just hear it, but feel the weight of it settle.
I had one of the men walk her upstairs. She didn't fight it this time. Just went, one hand trailing along the wall like she needed something solid to keep her steady.
********************
Enzo didn't wait for the door to fully close before he dropped into the chair across from me, boots up on the edge of the desk like he hadn't just watched a woman get blackmailed into a wedding.
He'd earned the right to that kind of comfort in my house a long time ago. Enzo wasn't just the man who ran my security or carried out the jobs I didn't want my name attached to, he was closer to a brother than anyone left alive. His father had been my father's right hand before he was mine, and the two of us had grown up the same way, in the same rooms, learning the same lessons about what it cost to survive in this family. He was the only person breathing who I trusted with anything that mattered. The only one who got to push.
I gave him a look. He grinned through it, which was the entire problem with Enzo… nothing rattled him enough to keep his mouth shut, not even me.
“Seriously?” He kicked the desk lightly with his heel. "You told Vance you wanted his daughter to clear a debt. A debt you orchestrated, months ago, before any of this started. Make it make sense man ”
He wasn't wrong, and that was the problem with Enzo too…he'd known me long enough to spot the seams in a plan even when I'd sewn them tight.
"Nothing to explain." I crossed to the cabinet, pulled the whiskey, and didn't bother with ice.
"I'm not taking 'nothing' from you tonight." He sat up straighter, all the loose humor draining out of his face at once. "Wait." He paused a little. "This isn't about the debt at all, is it? Don't tell me this is about Alessia."
I froze with the bottle still in my hand.
I'd spent two years trying not to hear her scream my name the night Vance killed her. I still heard it most nights anyway.
“That's exactly what this is about.” I poured two glasses and sat, letting the whiskey burn its way down before I said anything else
"So why not just put a bullet in him?" Enzo leaned in, elbows on his knees now, all business. "You had him on his knees. Just One pull of the trigger. Why marry his daughter instead of just ending it?"
"She has something I need."
"Then take it out of her the way you take everything else out of people who don't want to give it up." He studied me, the way he'd done since we were fourteen and he was the only person who could tell when I was lying without me saying a word.
"Why go through a wedding for it?"
‘You think she'd hand it to me if I simply asked?”
"No. She'd rather watch you burn." He almost smiled at that. "She hates you. Genuinely. It's almost impressive."
"And there are others looking for the same thing. I need her close enough to protect, not just close enough to question her"
"What exactly is it? This thing half the underworld is suddenly digging for."
"A key."
He stared at me for a long second like he was waiting for the rest of the sentence.
"A key?" He was on his feet now, the chair scraping back. "That's……no. No, if she's actually carrying it, we need it secured before someone else gets it first."
"Relax. That's the entire reason she's here. She'll be watched around the clock……every hallway, every door."
"If there's even a chance she doesn't know she has it……"
A knock cut him off, two short raps against the door.
"Come in."
The two men from the cellar stepped in, one of them still pulling his sleeves back down over bloodied knuckles.
"Boss. He's confessed."
"Who sent him?"
“He doesn't know the name or his face. He says he always were mask and people refer to him as “The Butcher” but he gives orders to his right-hand man Matteo Bellucci”
"Enzo. Find out everything on Bellucci. Tonight."
"On it." He already had the iPad in hand, thumb moving fast across the screen.
"Found him."
"And."
“Our guy lives in…Calabria.” He said placing the iPad on the table.
The glass in my hand went still against the desk.
"Calabria?"
"Yes, Boss."
I set the whiskey down without finishing it.
"Good." I stood, already reaching for my coat. "We're taking a trip to Calabria.”
- Writer
