Page 56 of Twisted Throne
“Fuck no! What the hell am I gonna tell her? ‘Oh sorry, your douchebag husband isn’t on a job, he’s locked up somewhere because Angelo thinks he’s a piece of shit traitor?’!” Lucy’s voice was almost verging on hysteria. “And then what?”
“Have you told anybody else about this?” I grabbed her hand and pulled her back down to sit beside me.
“No, I just kept on looking for you. What are we supposed to do now?”
“We need to talk to Paul and figure out exactly what’s going on,” I said. “Then we’ll talk to Elena after that.”
“I passed Paul and Carlos on my way here and they were going to Angelo’s office. Frank’s at the door and they told him not to let anyone in.”
“Damn, okay.” I thought for a minute. “I guess we’ll go to Elena first, then we can all go and talk to Angelo together and find out what’s happening.”
“What’ll happen then?” Lucy asked me. For the first time since I’d met her, she looked unsure of herself.
“I honestly have no idea,” I replied. “But I guess we’re about to find out.”
She took a deep breath, then popped back up off of the couch.
“All right, let’s go ahead and get this shit over with already.” She huffed. “I never did get my damn snack either.”
“We’re looking in on Elena first,” I said without thinking. “Family first, snack later.”
She pulled open the door, and I followed her out.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Paul
“Hello,amico,” I said, the contempt dripping from my words.
I entered the dim room and found Alec sitting in the steel chair he’d been in when I’d last seen him. I took the chair that Angelo had occupied earlier and sat down to face him. Carlo leaned up against the door behind me.
Alec, other than the smudge of bloody hair on his head and the rumple of his normally impeccable suit, looked remarkably more together than more men would have been in his situation.
“Friend? What, you came here to lie to me just like you’re lying to Angelo about me?” Cold anger burned in his eyes and I tensed when he leaned forward in the chair.
“If not you, then who?” I crossed my arms and studied him. “The hit on the warehouse got leaked. How do you explain that?”
“I don’t know where they got their information from but it sure as hell wasn’t me! This family is my life!”
His outburst surprised me. We both tended to keep our emotions under tight control, but at least people knew I had some. If you ever asked someone to describe Alec’s personality, the word “‘cold”’ would pop up every time.
“So how much do you care about your life? Enough to tell me the truth, and keep at least a shred of honor?”
“Go to hell! Angelo won’t let you touch me and you damn well know it!” The cocky look slipped off his face for a moment, and there was a slight quiver in his voice. “He’ll figure out it wasn’t me… he will.”
“Who the fuck else would it have been? The whole setup at the warehouse was to confirm that you’re the leak, and now that it did you’re still just going to sit here and deny it like afigo?”
I spat on the concrete floor at my feet.
“Angelo won’t let us touch you, that’s true. But what will you do when we get the rest of the proof? What then?”
Alec grew paler but raised his chin defiantly.
“There is no goddamn proof,” he stated. “That’s what I keep telling you.”
He was holding his ground. I didn’t know how well he’d hold up once Angelo gave us the okay to get our hands dirty, but his insistence that he was innocent hadn’t wavered.
Could we possibly be wrong?