Chapter 169: Spill the Mafia Tea

I pressed a kiss to his forehead. "Of course."

He seemed satisfied with that answer and leaned against me again, clutching a small fold of my shirt as though he wanted to make certain I wouldn’t disappear.

I held him a little closer.

Whatever happened between Lorenzo and Dante, the little boy deserved to feel safe, and I had no intention of allowing him to believe that the adults’ problems were somehow his responsibility.

Later that morning, I found Lorenzo in his office reviewing several reports spread across his desk.

Timothy stood near the window with a tablet in his hand, looking as though he had been awake for considerably longer than any reasonable human being should be.

Lorenzo glanced up when I entered.

"How is Emil?"

"Negotiating breakfast like a tiny businessman. I think we should be concerned about his future."

"He’s four."

"Exactly. Imagine what he’ll be like at eighteen."

Timothy’s mouth twitched, but he wisely kept his attention on the tablet.

I walked toward the desk, noticing that Lorenzo had already changed the bandage around one of his knuckles.

"Are you still planning to question Dante today?" I asked.

"I am."

"Do you think he’ll cooperate?"

"Not particularly."

I leaned against the edge of his desk. "He cannot keep accusing you of murdering Elizabeth while refusing to answer questions about the people he has been meeting. If he wants the truth, he should be willing to help you find it."

"I agree, but Dante has never been particularly receptive to being questioned by me."

"Well, perhaps you should remind him that being your older brother does not grant him immunity from answering simple questions."

Lorenzo looked at me with mild amusement. "You make it sound very easy, love."

"It is easy. You ask a question, he answers it, and nobody gets shot at. I understand this may be an unfamiliar concept in your family, but I believe it is worth attempting."

He was about to respond when Timothy’s tablet vibrated.

The older man glanced at the screen, and whatever amusement had been lingering in his expression disappeared.

"Don," he said, looking toward Lorenzo. "We have an update from the prisoners."

Lorenzo straightened slightly.

"What happened?"

"We’ve been questioning Dante’s men separately. Most of them have refused to speak, even after we made it clear that cooperation would be in their best interests."

"Which means they are either extremely loyal or extremely stupid," I muttered.

Timothy ignored that comment with the impressive discipline of someone who had probably spent years working for the Castelli family.

"But one of the guards has changed his position. He asked to speak with you personally."

Lorenzo’s expression sharpened.

"Me?"

"Yes, Don. He refused to speak to the men conducting the questioning and specifically requested that you be brought to him."

"Did he explain why?"

"No. But his behaviour changed considerably during the last interrogation. He was initially defiant, then became increasingly agitated when we mentioned the Paris incident. Eventually, he asked whether you were going to be present."

I glanced at Lorenzo. "That sounds promising."

"Or suspicious," he replied.

Timothy nodded. "I agree. He appeared frightened, Don. Not simply reluctant to cooperate. He was visibly shaking, and he kept asking whether anyone outside the estate knew he was being held here."

A faint chill moved through me.

"Why would he be worried about someone outside the estate?" I asked.

Timothy hesitated before answering.

"He said something about being unable to protect his family if certain people discovered he had spoken."

Lorenzo’s expression turned cold.

"Certain people?"

"He wouldn’t elaborate. He only repeated that he wanted to speak to you, and that he wouldn’t discuss anything until he was certain you would hear him yourself."

I exchanged a look with Lorenzo.

The prisoner was one of Dante’s men. He had been captured during an armed confrontation, brought into the Castelli estate, and given every reason to fear what Lorenzo might do to him.

Yet he seemed more frightened of someone who wasn’t even here.

Someone who might not know he had been captured.

Someone he believed could reach his family.

"Do you think he knows something about Volpe?" I asked quietly.

"Possibly," Lorenzo replied, his attention still fixed on Timothy. "Or he knows who has been communicating with Dante."

"Either way, he seems considerably more interested in surviving whoever is behind this than he is in surviving you."

Lorenzo’s eyes met mine.

"That is what concerns me."

He pushed his chair back and rose, his expression shifting into the controlled, serious look I had come to recognize.

Whatever exhaustion he had been carrying seemed to disappear beneath the weight of his attention, and the man standing before me was once again the Don who commanded an entire organization.

"Bring him to the interrogation room," he instructed Timothy. "Keep him separate from the others, and make certain nobody knows he has agreed to speak with me."

"Understood, Don."

Timothy turned and left the office, closing the door behind him.

I watched Lorenzo reach for his jacket.

"You’re going personally?"

"Yes."

"Then I’m coming with you."

He glanced at me. "Alex—"

"Don’t even start, Dracula. I’m not going to interfere with your questioning, but if this man has information about the people who attacked us in Paris or what happened to Elizabeth, I want to hear it."

Lorenzo studied my face for a moment before giving a small nod. "Stay beside me."

"That was the plan."

He offered me his hand, and I took it as we left the office together.

The corridors seemed quieter than they had earlier, with the guards standing a little straighter as Lorenzo passed.

Somewhere beyond the estate, someone was apparently frightened enough to make a captured bodyguard believe that speaking to the Castelli Don was the safer option.

Considering the events of the previous evening, I wasn’t sure whether that was reassuring or deeply concerning.

Perhaps we had finally found someone willing to tell us what was happening.

Or perhaps we were about to discover that the person behind all this was considerably more dangerous than we had imagined.

Lorenzo stopped outside the secured corridor leading to the interrogation rooms, his hand still holding mine as Timothy appeared at the far end.

"He’s ready, Don," Timothy reported.

Lorenzo’s expression hardened.

"Let’s see what he knows."

The interrogation room was considerably less welcoming than the rest of the estate, which was probably intentional, considering nobody had ever walked into it expecting to have a pleasant conversation.

The walls were bare concrete, the overhead light was unnecessarily bright, and the long metal table in the middle of the room looked as though it had been purchased specifically to discourage people from getting comfortable.

There was a faint smell of antiseptic beneath the lingering scent of sweat, and the single chair on the opposite side of the table seemed particularly lonely.

Our prisoner was already seated when we arrived.

He looked considerably worse than he had in the photographs Timothy had shown Lorenzo earlier.

His skin was pale, his shirt clung to his back with perspiration, and his fingers kept moving restlessly against the edge of the table.

Every few seconds, his gaze drifted toward the door, as though he were considering whether he could make a run for it.

I almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

I mean...he did chose this line of work.

After all, he had been one of Dante’s bodyguards, which meant he had spent the previous evening standing in a room where his employer had pointed a gun at the head of the Castelli family and announced that he wanted revenge.

It wasn’t exactly the sort of employment history one included on a résumé.

Unless he had no other choice then, I did feel sorry for him.

Lorenzo entered without saying anything, followed by Timothy and me.

The prisoner immediately straightened, his eyes moving toward Lorenzo’s hands before quickly dropping to the floor.

Interesting.

Apparently, my husband had developed a reputation that extended beyond his ability to ruin someone’s day with a single sentence.

Lorenzo took the chair opposite the man and settled into it with an almost casual composure.

Timothy remained standing beside the wall, while I chose a spot near the table where I could observe the prisoner without getting in anyone’s way.

"Your name," Lorenzo said.

"Marco, Don. M–Marco Bellini."

"How long have you worked for my brother?"

"Uh...almost six years."

"And why did you request to speak with me?"

Marco swallowed, glancing briefly at Timothy before looking back at Lorenzo.

"I have s–something to tell you, Don."

"I assumed as much. You requested this meeting."

The man’s fingers tightened against the table.

"I thought it would be better if you heard it from me."

"Then speak."

Lorenzo didn’t raise his voice, and somehow that made the silence considerably more uncomfortable.

He wasn’t leaning forward or threatening the man, nor was he displaying any of the anger that had been simmering beneath his skin since Dante’s accusations the previous evening.

He simply sat there, waiting, as though he had all the time in the world.

Marco looked at him, then at me, and finally back at Lorenzo.

"But...b–before I say anything, I need to know what will happen to my family."

I tilted my head. "Well, that depends on what you’re about to tell us. If you confess to secretly running an international criminal organization, I imagine the conversation will become rather complicated."

Marco stared at me.

Lorenzo’s eyes briefly shifted in my direction.

"What?" I asked innocently. "I’m trying to make him comfortable."

"You are doing an excellent job, dear." Lorenzo replied dryly.

"Wow, thanks, hubby!" I gave him a small smile before turning back to the prisoner.

Marco looked even more confused at us.

Lorenzo rested his hands on the table.

"Your family will not be harmed because you choose to speak. However, I expect the truth. If you lie to me, I will find out, and that will change the circumstances considerably. Do you understand?"

Marco nodded, although his expression suggested he was still trying to calculate the likelihood of surviving the conversation.

"Good. Now tell me what you know about Dante’s dealings with DeLuca."