Chương 14
“Take it back.”
Rizzo did not.
At the hospital, two officers remained outside Nico’s room. Keller allowed Matteo ten minutes after checking with Sofia.
He entered alone.
Nico lay in bed with one hand splinted and purple bruising around his eye. A plate containing the remains of pancakes sat on the tray.
Sofia slept in a chair near the window.
She wore the same black sweater from the social club. A blanket covered her legs. Without makeup, with her hair tangled and her face bruised from Marco’s slap, she looked exhausted rather than fragile.
Nico followed Matteo’s gaze.
“She bites,” he said.
“I’ve noticed.”
“She told me you unzipped the dress.”
Matteo looked at him.
Nico winced. “Not details. Jesus. I meant she told me you saw.”
“What else did she tell you?”
“That you stopped.”
Matteo set the coffee on the counter.
Nico studied him with his one good eye. “Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Right away?”
The question came without politeness.
Matteo answered it the same way.
“No.”
Nico’s jaw tightened.
“She said don’t,” Matteo continued. “Then I stopped.”
“That’s a low standard.”
“Yes.”
The agreement seemed to unsettle Nico more than an excuse would have.
He looked toward his sister. “She’ll defend people who hurt her if she thinks they’re less bad than someone else.”
“I don’t want her defense.”
“What do you want?”
Matteo glanced at Sofia.
He had no useful answer.
Nico picked at the edge of his hospital bracelet. “She likes terrible old movies. The ones where everyone talks too fast. She steals fries. She hates lilies because our mother had them at her funeral. She wanted to study architecture.”
Matteo looked at him.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because everybody knows what happened to her. Nobody knows her.”
Sofia stirred.
Nico closed his eyes and pretended to sleep with insulting obviousness.
She blinked at Matteo. For a second, fear crossed her face before recognition replaced it.
“You’re out.”
“For now.”
“Are you going to prison?”
“Possibly.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Not today,” he added.
She looked at the coffee on the counter. “Is that yours?”
“Rizzo ruined it.”
She tasted it and made a face. “It’s disgusting.”
“He put sugar in it.”
“How much?”
“All of it.”
She drank again anyway.
Matteo sat in the empty chair beside the wall, leaving space between them.
“The hotel sent your things to my apartment,” he said. “I had them place everything in a separate guest suite.”
“Your apartment.”
“Yes.”
“That sounds separate to you?”
“No.”
She waited.
“There’s another apartment in the building,” he said. “Different floor. Private entrance. It belongs to the company, but you can use it. Or Hall has a secure place outside the city. Or you can choose somewhere else.”
“My father knows every friend I have.”
“Then choose someone he doesn’t know.”
“I don’t have anyone he doesn’t know.”
The statement carried no self-pity. That made it more painful.
Matteo removed an envelope from inside his coat.
“Annulment papers.”
She did not take them.
“My attorney prepared them this morning,” he said. “Signing doesn’t affect your protection or Nico’s.”
“You’re still offering protection.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Marco will have people outside prison. Enzo may make bail. Because the files turned you into a witness. Because I helped create the situation.”
“You didn’t beat me.”
“No.”
“You didn’t arrange the marriage.”
“I accepted it.”
She looked at the envelope.
Matteo set it on the table beside the ruined coffee.
“You don’t have to decide today.”
“I thought you liked decisions.”
“I like other people making them quickly.”
The corner of her mouth moved.
He stood to leave.
“Matteo.”
He turned.
Sofia looked down at her hands. “I want the apartment.”
“All right.”
“Not because I trust you.”
“I know.”
“And I want my own key.”
“You’ll have it.”
“No guards inside.”
“Outside the building.”
“On the street.”
“In the lobby.”
She raised her eyes.
Matteo gave in. “On the street.”
“One woman I choose.”
“For what?”
“Security.”
He considered the risk.
Sofia waited without lowering her gaze.
“You choose,” he said.
Nico opened one eye. “This is beautiful. I may vomit.”
Sofia threw a folded napkin at him.
It missed by three feet.
For the first time since the wedding, she laughed without immediately stopping herself.
The months after Marco’s arrest were not peaceful.
Peace had never been a single event.
It was a series of mornings in which no one was killed, contracts held, witnesses remained alive, and people decided not to answer old insults with new funerals.
The Moretti organization fractured around Enzo’s betrayal. Captains who had profited from his deals denied knowing him. Others accused Matteo of exposing family business to protect his wife. Two crews left. One tried to seize the North River terminals and failed. Federal investigators continued asking questions about the explosives and the structure that had allowed them onto Moretti property.
Matteo lost Pier Nine.
He also lost three companies, access to several bank accounts, and the unquestioned loyalty he had once considered permanent.
He did not lose sleep over the companies.
The loyalty bothered him more than he admitted.
Sofia moved into the apartment twelve floors below his.
She chose a security guard named Denise Carter, a former police officer who disliked Matteo immediately and made no attempt to hide it.
“Good,” Sofia said when he complained. “She has judgment.”
Nico moved in after leaving the hospital. Within a week, he filled the refrigerator with energy drinks, damaged a kitchen cabinet, and invited two college friends over without warning.
Matteo found him one afternoon attempting to repair the cabinet with a butter knife.
“You’re making it worse,” Matteo said.
Nico looked up from the floor. “I’m creating options.”
“You’ve removed the hinge.”
“It was judgmental.”
May you like
Matteo took the butter knife away and returned later with tools.
Sofia watched from the doorway while he fixed the cabinet. She had begun physical therapy and could move without holding her ribs, though sudden sounds still made her shoulders rise. She slept with lights on. Some nights, Denise found her sitting in the lobby at three in the morning because the walls upstairs felt too close.
