Usually during these dinners, Luca kept the majority of his focus on his wife and children and only entered into conversation with the rest of us intermittently. Unless there was some sort announcement he wanted to make, the five of us adults tended to split into two camps. Gabriel, Sandro and me on one end of the table and Luca, Molly, Anna and Antonio on the other.
Tonight, however, the patriarch decided to make an exception.
“Yes, it’s nice to see your appetite returning,” Luca said, as serious as Sandro had been facetious.
I paused and glanced up at them. Everyone was staring at me, even my niece.
“And you’ve been busy, barely coming home at all. Whatever you’re doing is working for you, though. You look good,” Molly chipped in, but I knew her concern was as sincere as her husband’s.
“And relaxed,” Sandro pointed out, peeking over his glasses. “Like a man who’s been able to kick back and truly unwind.” He waggled his eyebrows obnoxiously.
Asshole.
“You going to tell us what your secret is?” Gabriel asked.
“Yes, dear brother, do tell. Inquiring minds want to know.”
Note to self: punch Alessandro in the nose at the next available opportunity.
“Things have been going along fine at the bistro. Busy,” I threw out, hoping that would be the end of it. I should’ve known better.
“And by things do you mean a certain waitress turned office manager?” Sandro, of course.
If I could’ve caved his head in right then, I would’ve. But my niece and nephew being exposed to such violence would be unlikely to go over well with either Luca or Molly. Hell, I was actually more scared of Queenie than my eldest brother, anyway.
I had no idea how Alessandro had found out about Kelly, but clearly, he had. And from the interested looks everyone else at the table was giving me, he’d shared his work with the class. Fan-fucking-tastic.
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” I told him through gritted teeth. The only reason I was being this polite was because I wasn’t alone with my youngest brother. If I had been, he wouldn’t have been wearing the smartassed smirk he had plastered to his face.
“We’re not trying to pry,” Molly said, lifting Antonio up to her shoulder since he was starting to fuss. “We’re just excited for you. Especially if this turns into anything more substantial.”
“Well, except for Sandro. He’s being a bit of a J.E.R.K.” Luca had recently taken to spelling out words since Anna had proudly repeated the word “dickhead” after a different family dinner.
Refusing to deal with this right now, I shifted to my feet. “Well, this has been…” I glanced over at Anna’s big blue eyes. “Yeah. But I’ve got to go.”
As I headed out, I could hear Luca ask, “You coming next week?”
Molly’s words followed on his heels. “Because there’s plenty of room if you want to bring someone.”
Then, Alessandro. “Especially your little work fling.”
Hastening my pace to a jog, I hurried away.
Dante Bianchi kept glimpsing over his shoulder as he sat across from me there at the bistro. I’d have to go back and erase the security footage so there’d be no trace of his presence here tonight, just like I already had from his first visit. He acted as if he thought someone would burst in on us at any second.
I laid out everything I had for him across my desk. “A white Buick Century will be by in ten minutes to take you from here to the train station. But instead of taking a train, you’ll walk half a block east and find a guy who’ll ask you if you want a bite to eat. You’ll answer with, ‘A Philly-Cheesesteak sounds good,” and he’ll give you the rest of your instructions from there.”
Dante ruffled through the envelope of cash I’d provided for him. Five thousand in unmarked twenties that would be impossible to track. “I’ve held up my end. What do you have for me?”
“It’s all on here,” he said, pushing a nondescript black flash drive toward me with one finger. “The first thing on here’s a doozy. It’s of one of the judges still on the bench. That’s my dad handing him that brick of cocaine. Apparently, he and all his golfing buddies love to mix it up on the weekends. The murders start at minute twelve, and the prostitution shit at 22:22. Open the file that says ‘zebra’ for the embezzlement files. It’s all there.”
“I know where to find you if it isn’t.”
“But you’ll be the only one, right? I can’t be trackable, Marco. Not by anyone else.”
“This isn’t my first rodeo, Dante, you can rest assured. Your SUV will be found with an unidentifiable body matching your basic weight, height, and description.”
I’d burned the body myself as soon as I’d left the mansion, genuinely regretting eating that meal. Not one bit of it had stayed down. The odor of the dead man’s flesh sizzling and roasting had been too reminiscent of my own experiences, but I’d had to make sure the entire skull and both hands had been destroyed beyond any chance of recognition.