AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I sit in silence as our car speeds away from Rinella's mansion. Elio and Matteo are equally quiet. Our fragile alliance with the Rinellas hangs by a thread now. We've made our point, but at what cost?
When we get home, I head to the kitchen, where Anna and Diana are working. I’m sure Piper and Elysse had dinner without us. Elio and Matteo will likely have dinner in Elio’s office. I should probably join them, but I’m so tired.
“Can I have my dinner brought up to my room?” I ask.
“Of course,” Diana says in her usual perky manner. Does she ever feel down? “I’ll bring a bottle of wine up too.”
“A woman who knows what I need.” I exit and head up to my room. I have my dinner and take a long bath, drinking half the bottle of wine.
As I get into bed, my phone pings with a notification.
How are you?
I can’t stop the smile on my lips at Henry’s text. Yep, I’ve got it bad for a man I shouldn’t want.
I type out my reply,Tired, but fine.
Good. Will you dream of me tonight?
My cheeks flush.Maybe. Will you dream of me?
You’ve featured in my dreams since I met you.
I have mixed feelings about statements like this. I mean, yes, the woman in me loves it when Henry talks like this. But we both know there’s no use in developing this relationship into something more. There’s no future in it unless Henry wants to join the dark side. He’s too good for that. And I couldn’t leave my family even if I wanted to.
It’s official. I’m part of a tragic love story.
24
HENRY
It’s disturbing how difficult it was not to ask Lana to come over last night. Texting her was the compromise. As predicted, she haunted me in my sleep. After jerking off in the shower this morning, I head to work, on to the next disturbing issue in my life—the possibility that dirty cops are behind Lazaro’s disappearance.
After grappling with the possibilities and implications all night, I enter work today thinking I must have just missed the information in the reports. The tapes are probably misfiled. It’s not that I don’t believe there are dirty cops. I don’t want to believe I’m working with them, helping them in an agenda to bring down the D’Amato family. That thought is disturbing too. The D’Amatos are criminals. I shouldn’t be worried about them. But I also believe that two wrongs don’t make a right. We can’t break the law to bring criminals to justice.
Peter is off on some other case, so I spend all my time going through everything I can find on Lazaro with a fine-toothed comb. There’s nothing, not a single mention of the shop owner’s statement or the tapes. No recording of a call from Lana about the shopkeeper.
The pit of my stomach turns as I head to evidence storage in search of misplaced tapes. Of course, I can’t look everywhere, but I search all the evidence around where Lazaro’s evidence was stored before I took it. I go through other boxes from the same time frame. I search boxes of other organized crime investigations and missing persons. No tapes.
Eventually, I have to let the search go as I have other cases to deal with. But my mind is never far from Lazaro’s case and the implications of what happened to him.
Lana and I agreed that we need to keep things on the down-low between us. But I also know that I need to tell her what I’ve learned. At least some of it. Or maybe it’s just that I’m dying to see her.
Before I can second-guess myself, I dial her number.
"Henry?" Her voice is guarded, but there's a hint of curiosity.
"Hey. Any chance you could come over?" I try to keep my tone steady, but urgency seeps through.
There's a pause on the other end. "Is this about Lazaro?"
"Yes.”
Another pause. I can almost hear her weighing her options. She knows as I do that we’re playing a risky game. A game made more dangerous yesterday with the search of her office.
"Alright," she says finally. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."
As I hang up, relief washes over me, quickly followed by a fresh wave of anxiety. What I'm about to tell her could change everything. Not just for the case, but for us. She’ll be pissed. She’ll demand I do something. Hell, she might think I’m part of it. Or part of covering it up.
