[Aldo]
Luca sits back down. “Potentially. Leandro began asking around through his people after you dropped the van off. He was looking for any current contracts out on anyone. In the process he discovered the abandoned car that had been crashed when it tried to take you out.
The men, rather than get it towed, set that on fire too. He had the plates traced with his connections and expected it to head back to Kumarin, he is a cautious man after all, but it went somewhere else upstate. It went to a fish packing facility that led to somewhere else.
A rabbit den of trouble later, it eventually wound up linked to a laundromat business that belonged to someone that Kumarin knew of. Alexei’s first son.”
All the while I’d been hearing this I was sinking lower in the chair. I was reeling from Andre’ death, and yet pissed off that he’d attempted to do what he’d done.
Had he always been like this? Had Dawn always been right about him and I’d been blind? And why the fuck was the room so fuckung hot? Cazzo!
“So what really happened then?”
Luca shrugs. “I can only guess that once he tried to settle it with Petrov’s men that they killed him and took the drugs. It’s the only evidence to make things the way they are.
But the offers were put through to Leandro and Kumarin’s men in separate phone calls an hour before his death. I couldn’t tell you how he had contacts.”
I’m so pissed off that I could break the damn chair. The room is too hot and humid. Luca is burning me up with this stuffy dark office.
I need air. I need to escape from this chair and room. So I do. I head for the door in a quick bound. “I need air-”
“You need to stop,” Luca commands.
I stop. I turn back to him grim faced and pissed off. He gestures to sit in the chair and I return and slump back into the whipping post.
“He put offers in just before he met with Petrov’s men,” Luca says. “We know this from phone records and-”
“Let me guess,” I say. “He was hoping they’d jump at the chance to get such a steal?” I have to talk about the whole thing as if it were someone else’s. If I picture Andre’ face on the body and in the burned van it just breaks my heart too much.
“He wasn’t so forthcoming,” Luca says.
My head snaps up. “You spoke with him?”
“Not with Andre. Petrov.”
My eyes go wide. “Petrov called personally to say that he’d killed Andre?”
Luca shakes his head. “You know we’re a much more subtle bunch than that. No, Alexei Petrov was calling about something else.”
Now it’s Luca who looks slightly unsettled. Not nervous, I doubt only Sophie has seen him nervous, he appears to look more pissed off, if it were possible. “He was calling to humiliate me firstly.”
I suck my lips in.
“But secondly, he was calling on behalf of Andre. Alexei Petrov said that Andre’ death makes it hard for him to pay his debt.”
“No shit,” I utter under my breath.
“The debt however needs to be paid…”
I begin grinding my teeth. I try to keep the fear and anxiety at bay by being more and more pissed off.
“Which means it still stands,” Luca adds.
“And he expects you to pay?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head only once.
“He expects-” My dumbass brain finally gets it. I sit up and my eyes snap open. “He expects Dawn to pay?”
Luca nods. “He says the debt has been transferred to her. And if not her, her mother.”
“That fucker!” I yell.
“I of course said that wouldn’t be happening. Dawn wouldn’t be paying a cent. Nor would her mother. That didn’t go too well.”
“Thank you,” I say, reaching over to shake Luca’s hand. But he keeps it out of distance.
“Alexei was still insistent that the debt had to be paid though,” Luca goes on. “He kept mentioning honor and order. The debt must be covered. So I’ve deemed that he means to get payback.”
“Let him try,” I growl.
“No, let him not.” Luca rises. “There’re ways to work about these things. Payback is not one of them. I will offer to take Dawn in though, to protect her. Her and her mother.
I doubt if Alexei will send men all this way, being that he’s killed Andre and taken my drugs. But then I don’t know. Until then, I mean to keep her safe.”
“I’m already thankful, Luca. Really. Dawn and I-”
“But only Dawn.”
I retract my hand from the table now. This was why he wouldn’t shake my hand.
“Your trust in me has been shaken, Aldo. While I know it’s mostly out of your control, I can’t let that be the case as seen by the family. I will figure out what your fate is, but until then you’re suspended from everything and your pay accounts cease. As far as you’re concerned, you don’t work for the Colombino’s anymore.”
He intertwines his fingers again, staring over his desk at me. I feel tiny.
“I know it isn’t pleasant what has happened, but it is our life. There are rules we all adhere to in an attempt to keep some sort of order. But Andre felt he could be above it. He felt he could make and break those rules himself.”
I nod and look down at the floor. “I understand,” I say. “As long as Dawn is taken care of.”
“Good,” Luca says.
“That’s all that matters to me, keeping her safe.”
“She will have the best care.”
I rise. “If she is hurt on your watch, Luca, I will come for you too. I’m gonna try and figure all this shit out, but if anything happens to her.” I point directly at his heart. “I will come for you.”
Luca stares at me for a long time. “Good.”
I turn and leave, I grasp the door handle and pull it open.
“Aldo?” Luca calls.
I turn back.
“Do not let Andre’ death consume you. Blind rage can only achieve so much.”
I nod and leave, letting the door swing shut behind me. He knows nothing of my blind rage building inside. I’ve been penalized for my best-friend’s stupidity and death.
But, those bratva have threatened Dawn and her mother.
As well as my unborn child.