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"Where were you on the night of April 12th, 2022, Mr. Valentino?"
"Enough!" Rafe growls, anger snapping in his eyes as he glares at the pair of detectives who have been grilling us for the last few hours. "You've insulted me, my family, and my business again and again, and I've tolerated it in the interest of justice. You insinuated that I burned down my own warehouse with no motive and absolutely nothing to gain, and I entertained every ridiculous question. Now, you've moved on to the same tired fucking questions I've answered for you a dozen times before. I'm not answering them again."
"Is that because you have something to hide?"
Rafe leans across the table, a low growl rumbling in his chest as he pins the younger detective with a menacing look. "No," he says, his voice level. "It's because if you're still asking me about Tommaso Genovese, you clearly have no fucking clue how to do your job, and you're just wasting my time."
"No one said anything about Tommaso Genovese, Mr. Valentino."
"You didn't have to say his name, Detective. A monkey fucking a football is more subtle," Diego Butera mutters, making Luca snort. He's the family lawyer. We called him as soon as it became clear that they were going to make us answer their fucking questions.
Any opportunity they can find to drag us in here to ask about Genovese, the man Rafe killed when he kidnapped Amalia, they're going to take. It's standard operating procedure around here. I'm sure it's probably in their fucking handbook at this point, immortalized in ink right beside their SOPs on only promoting corrupt pieces of shit to the highest ranks and looking the other way when one of their own violates the law.
This entire fucking organization is a cancer on this city. They call us criminals, yet they look in the mirror and think they're any different. It's laughable.
Rafe rises to his feet with a shake of his head. "We're done here. Unless you intend to slap cuffs on me—and let's be real, we all know that's not happening—you can go to hell. I didn't burn down my warehouse. I don't know where Genovese is. And the two of you couldn't detect your heads out of your asses if your lives depended on it."
He glances at me and Luca, jerking his head in a nod. "We're done here."
Diego taps the table, smirking at the detectives. "You heard him. This interview is over."
They scowl at Diego, clearly pissed, but don't bother even trying to convince anyone to continue talking. They know it's not going to happen.
We've been down this road far too many times before. They do everything they can to get someone to say something incriminating. They fail. And the next time something happens, we rinse and repeat. Ad nauseum.
We file out of the interview room and then out of the station, not speaking. No one says a single word until we're in the parking lot.
"Fucking cops," Luca mutters then, shuddering as if just being here makes his skin crawl.
Rafe curses, his jaw clenched. Repressed fury burns in his eyes, glittering like obsidian flames. "Are you heading back to the harbor?" he asks his brother.
Luca glances at his phone to check the time and then nods. "Yeah. Someone should be there with Domani until they get tired of digging through the rubble."
"Call me when you're finished. We'll meet after." He flicks his gaze in my direction, not speaking, and then turns on his heel and strides off.
I sigh, tipping my head back to mutter a curse up at the cloudless blue sky.
It's going to be a long fucking night.
"The house survived," Aurelia says, looking up at me from the sofa when I step through the door an hour later, a tiny smile on her lips. She looks fucking stunning, as usual. Cristo. I never knew a simple set of curves could keep my dick so hard, but here we are. "So did all of your stuff."
"Good girl," I murmur, leaning over the back of the couch to kiss her.
She wrinkles her nose, sniffing the air. "You smell like smoke."
"I've been at a fire." I pinch the bridge of my nose. "And then the police station."
"A fire? What happened?"
"Someone burned down one of the Valentino warehouses."
Her eyes widen, fear shooting through them. "You don't think…"
I fucking hate that her mind immediately goes there. I hate it even more that I can't rule him out as a suspect for her, either. It very well could have been him. He's certainly high on my list right now. In fact, the motherfucker is at the top of it. But I'm not telling her that. She's been afraid of him for long enough.
"I don't know, little mouse." I brush my thumb across her cheek. "It might have been him. It could have been any number of other people, too. We'll figure it out and handle it like we always do."
She nibbles on her bottom lip, staring up at me with wide eyes.
