Chapter 149: The Enemy Within

Salvatore looked at Felix for a long time before he said anything at all.

Felix had been his closest friend before anything else. But love, when it curdles into obsession, has a way of poisoning everything it touches.

Felix’s love for him had done exactly that. It had turned a friendship into a leash, and when Salvatore had finally pulled away from it, Felix had used the last of his trust, feeding Milo to Nero, letting him suffer for days in that man’s hands, all because some twisted part of Felix believed that if he couldn’t have Salvatore’s heart, he could at least keep control of everyone around it.

Salvatore could not forgive that. Not easily. Maybe not at all.

"Please," Felix said now, standing too close, his voice already cracking at the edges. "I regret it. Trust me. Just once more. I’ll never speak to Nero again."

"You can’t," Salvatore said, and there was no warmth in it. "Not because you don’t want to. Because you can’t. Nero’s in hell now."

Felix flinched at that, but he didn’t step back. "Trust me. Nero and Alben... they tried to betray you. I’m telling you the truth. I don’t want you to die, Sal. Please."

Salvatore tensed right away. But he didn’t react.

Felix looked at him with desperation. Then he dropped to his knees, right there on the floor. He threw away his dignity, everything, just to get Salvatore’s trust again.

He shuffled forward on his knees, closing the distance, and grabbed at the fabric of Salvatore’s trousers. "I will do anything. Everything to get your trust again. Please."

Salvatore looked down at him, something uncomfortable twisting in his chest despite the anger sitting heavier on top of it.

He didn’t believe Felix completely, how could he, after everything, but he also couldn’t fully dismiss what he was saying, not with Alben’s absence over the past several days sitting strangely at the back of his mind.

"Get out of here," Salvatore said finally, stepping back, pulling his leg free of Felix’s grip. "I don’t want to see you again."

Felix lunged forward as Salvatore turned to walk past him, grabbing his leg again, more desperate this time. "Sal, please! Give me one more chance!"

Salvatore looked down at him, his expression gone entirely cold now. "You don’t want to be shot here, I think."

"Sal..."

Salvatore’s eyes lifted past him toward the entrance, where Roderick had just come around the corner, stopping short in visible shock at the sight of Felix on the floor.

"Rod," Salvatore said. "Bring him outside. Whoever brought him inside again, I will not tolerate it."

Teo, still frozen against the wall, flinched hard at the finality in Salvatore’s voice, and looked down at his feet, shame and fear both twisting through him at once.

Roderick crossed the room quickly, grabbed Felix by the arm, and hauled him upright.

"I asked you to go as far as you can," he murmured, low enough that only Felix could hear. "Why are you still here?"

Felix didn’t resist as Roderick dragged him toward the door, but he twisted back toward Salvatore one last time as they crossed the threshold.

"I don’t lie! Please! Alben will kill you! Sal! Listen to me!"

Outside, Roderick shoved him down onto the gravel in front of the mansion, the morning sun bright and unforgiving overhead.

"Rod, please," Felix said, scrambling to stay upright on his knees. "Tell him. I don’t lie."

Roderick crossed his arms, studying him with narrowed eyes. "How do you know about that? You must be part of them."

Felix trembled, looking up at him with something close to pure desperation now.

"He asked me to get Milo and kill him while they got the Hartley assets. And they asked me to join them with Macron. They said they would protect me. Rod, please! Believe me!"

Roderick stared at him for a long, silent moment. He knew Felix well enough, had known him for years before all of this fell apart, and something in the man’s voice, in the sheer terror behind his words, didn’t sound like a lie.

Especially not paired with what Roderick already knew about Alben’s obsession with the Hartley assets.

Roderick sighed heavily. "I can’t do anything," he said. "I will warn him. And I will protect him. I can’t help you right now. Or I’ll have to shoot you. Get out of here, please..."

Felix’s face fell completely, all the desperate energy draining out of him at once.

He pushed himself up off the ground slowly, swaying slightly on his feet.

"I’m really sorry," he said quietly, and turned to walk away, his steps weak and uneven as he made his way toward the gate.

Roderick stood there for a long while, watching until Felix disappeared through the front gate and out of sight, his mind churning through everything he’d just heard, weighing how much of it he could actually bring himself to believe.

Inside, Salvatore had already turned his attention to Teo, who stood pressed against the wall, eyes downcast, shoulders hunched with guilt.

"Didn’t you promise me not to lie to me again?" Salvatore said. "Where did you meet him?"

Teo’s breath hitched, tears already threatening. "I... I didn’t mean to lie to you... I’m sorry..."

"Where did you meet him?"

Teo, thoroughly frightened now, told him about the gap in the vines near the old fence line, the path leading out toward the road.

Salvatore crossed the space between them in two strides and reached down, pinching Teo’s ear hard enough to make the boy shriek.

"Aa-aahh! Salvatore... it hurts!"

"I know it hurts," Salvatore said, unmoved. "What did I tell you if I caught you lying again?"

"I didn’t lie!" Teo cried, tears streaming freely now.

Salvatore pulled him by the ear all the way through the back garden, past the row of guards still mid-exercise on the lawn. Teo’s scream made a few of them pause mid-push-up, glancing over curiously.

"What did the kid do now?" one of them asked, before shrugging and continuing his count.

Salvatore finally released him once they reached the old tree near the bakery building, and Teo immediately clutched at his throbbing ear, sniffling.

"Stand here until lunch," Salvatore said. "Think about your mistake. I told you again if you forgot your promise. Never ever meet Felix or talk to him again. Let alone help him."

Teo looked down, wiping at his eyes, and nodded miserably. "Yes... but... but Felix didn’t mean to hurt you. What Felix said about Alben is true..."

"What do you know," Salvatore said sharply. "He will tell you anything to make you help him again. You know, I don’t want to shoot you. So behave."

Teo sobbed harder, but pushed through it anyway. "Alben is evil now. He punched Roderick too. He is cruel. He asked Roderick to kill Milo."

Salvatore went very still. He turned back toward Teo, his expression sharpening. "What?"

"Last time," Teo said, hiccupping slightly through his tears, "Alben came to Roderick’s house. He talked about Milo and asked him to help. Then he punched Roderick. Alben is evil."

Salvatore studied Teo’s face for a long moment, something cold settling behind his eyes. He remembered now, the bruise he’d noticed on Roderick’s face days earlier, the wounded look he’d brushed off with some flimsy excuse.

Salvatore had believed him at the time, hadn’t pushed further. He should have.

He exhaled slowly, forcing his voice back into something steadier. "It’s not your business right now," he told Teo. "I don’t like you meeting Felix. Not now, not in the future. Understand?"

Teo nodded, still sniffling, and turned to face the tree as instructed, resigning himself to the long wait until lunch.

Some small relief crept in beneath the guilt; at least Salvatore hadn’t shot him.

He then watched a line of red ants marching steadily down the bark, distracting himself as best he could. Then he blocked their path with a leaf, making them scatter away. Then he giggled.

***

Salvatore walked back inside without another word, jaw set, and found Joe near the kitchen. "Get Roderick. My office. Now."

A few minutes later, Roderick appeared in the doorway.

Salvatore was already seated behind his desk, arms crossed, watching him with an expression that made it very clear this was going to be a very serious conversation.

"You didn’t say anything about Alben?" Salvatore asked, his voice deceptively calm.

Roderick gulped, the silence stretching long enough that Salvatore’s patience visibly began to fray.

"It’s nothing," Roderick said finally, though his voice lacked its usual conviction. "A misunderstanding. Old business between us. It’s handled."

"Handled," Salvatore repeated flatly. "Teo told me he punched you. Told me he asked you to kill Milo."

Roderick’s jaw tightened, his eyes flicking briefly toward the door, as though some part of him hoped Teo might appear so he could glare the boy into silence retroactively.

"Teo talks too much."

"And?" Salvatore said.

Roderick exhaled slowly, dragging a hand down his face.

"Fine," he said. "Alben came to my house. He’d been drinking, or close enough to it. Started talking about Milo, about the Hartley assets, about how much money was still sitting out there if we just knew where to look."

"And you said no," Salvatore said, watching him closely.

"Of course I said no," Roderick snapped, some heat finally breaking through his careful composure. "You think I’d help him touch Milo? I told him to get out. He didn’t like that."

"So he hit you."

Roderick’s jaw worked silently for a moment before he nodded once, sharply. "Yes. I didn’t think it was worth bothering you with, figured it was just him being drunk and stupid, blowing off steam."

"And you didn’t think," Salvatore said, his voice low and dangerous now, "that a man threatening to kill Milo, behind my back, was worth telling me about?"

Roderick met his gaze evenly, though something tired and guilty flickered behind his eyes. "I thought I could handle it myself. I didn’t want to give you one more thing to worry about, not with Macron, not with everything else piling up. I was wrong. I know that now."

Salvatore sat back slowly in his chair, processing everything. Felix’s warning, Teo’s confession, Roderick’s admission... all of it converging into a picture he didn’t like at all.

Alben, a man who’d served him and his friend for years, trusted enough to move freely through the organization, apparently circling closer to betrayal than Salvatore had ever let himself consider.

"We leave for your hometown as planned," Salvatore said finally, his voice flat and controlled again. "But when we’re back, Alben will explain himself to me. Personally."