Chapter 9 - The Man Leo Refused to Kill
Salvatore survived.
Barely.
The attack happened between the courthouse garage and the detention transport van.
A motorcycle.
Two shots into the rear tire.
Then a man on foot tried to reach the passenger compartment before officers returned fire.
No one died.
The attacker escaped.
Salvatore demanded to speak with Leo.
No prosecutors.
No detectives.
No deal.
Leo refused.
Gemma approved.
“You’re learning.”
“I’m tired of people creating private rooms where truth can be edited.”
She looked at him.
“That was almost profound.”
“Don’t ruin it.”
The investigators eventually permitted a monitored conversation.
Gemma watched from another room with Elena and Sofia.
Salvatore sat behind reinforced glass.
He looked smaller without tailored coats and men standing behind him.
Leo picked up the phone.
Salvatore did too.
“Someone tried to kill me.”
“I heard.”
“You don’t care?”
“I care who ordered it.”
Salvatore smiled weakly.
“Still me.”
Leo said nothing.
“I built half the men you trust.”
“You bought them.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
Salvatore leaned closer.
“There is a man named Anthony Rizzo.”
Arthur, watching beside Gemma, swore.
“Who?” Gemma asked.
“Leo’s operations chief.”
Not security.
Business.
Ports.
Warehouses.
Contracts.
Rizzo had worked for Leo twelve years.
Salvatore told Leo that Rizzo controlled the remnants of Bellwether.
The attack was not rescue.
It was cleanup.
“Why tell me?” Leo asked.
Salvatore laughed.
“Because if he kills you, I become irrelevant.”
“Finally honest.”
“I’m always honest when selfishness is obvious.”
Gemma hated that the line was good.
Rizzo denied everything.
Then financial records from Sofia’s archive showed payments routed through his brother-in-law.
Enough for investigators to obtain warrants.
Not enough to arrest immediately.
Leo could have handled it privately.
Everyone knew that.
Rizzo knew it too.
He requested a meeting at an old Moretti warehouse.
Leo agreed.
Gemma found out twenty minutes before.
“No.”
Leo looked at her.
She pointed at him.
“You do not get to criticize Salvatore’s private rooms and then create one.”
“I’m not planning to kill him.”
“That is the weakest possible reassurance.”
Arthur stood by the window.
“He wants to wear a wire.”
Gemma paused.
“That would have been useful information first.”
Leo looked offended.
“I was getting there.”
“Slowly.”
The meeting proceeded with investigators nearby.
Gemma stayed in the surveillance van.
Her choice.
Elena stayed home with Sofia.
Also their choice.
Rizzo entered the warehouse alone.
He was fifty, neat, balding, ordinary.
Gemma had expected sinister.
Real betrayal was often disappointingly well-groomed.
Leo stood beside a steel worktable.
“You attacked Salvatore.”
Rizzo laughed.
“You believe him?”
“No.”
“Then why am I here?”
“To hear you lie.”
Rizzo’s smile faded.
He paced.
“You’re destroying everything.”
“What?”
“Our leverage. Lending. Port contacts. Judges. Contractors.”
“You mean crimes.”
“I mean power.”
There it was.
Gemma looked at the investigator beside her.
He marked the time.
Rizzo continued.
“Your father understood. Salvatore understood. You did too until a waitress found jewelry.”
Leo’s expression did not change.
“You watched Gemma?”
“No.”
A pause.
Too long.
Gemma felt cold.
Leo noticed.
“Wrong answer.”
Rizzo sighed.
“We all watched things.”
“How long?”
“Six months.”
“Why?”
“Salvatore ordered it.”
“After the diner owner borrowed?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know who she was?”
Rizzo looked away.
Another pause.
“Eventually.”
Gemma’s stomach turned.
He had known.
Maybe before the diner.
Maybe not.
Leo stepped closer.
“Did you tell Salvatore?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t he move sooner?”
“Because Elena kept paying.”
Gemma closed her eyes.
Her mother’s five hundred dollars had bought silence.
Crude.
Cheap.
Effective.
Rizzo continued.
“Then you walked into that diner yourself. Nobody planned that.”
Gemma opened her eyes.
The coincidence was real.
Of all the things that could have been manipulated, the beginning had not been.
Somehow that mattered.
Leo said, “You tried to kill Salvatore.”
“Yes.”
The surveillance van went still.
Rizzo realized what he had admitted.
Too late.
“He would have talked.”
“He did.”
Rizzo reached inside his jacket.
Leo moved.
Not for a gun.
He grabbed Rizzo’s wrist.
The weapon stayed holstered.
They struggled.
Rizzo swung.
Leo blocked it and drove one hard punch into his chest, forcing him backward against the table.
Then stopped.
The old Leo might not have.
Gemma knew that without being told.
Investigators entered.
Rizzo was arrested.
As they cuffed him, he looked at Leo.
“You let cops save me?”
Leo answered.
“No.”
He glanced toward the hidden camera.
“I let evidence keep you alive.”
Gemma smiled.
Later, outside the warehouse, Leo found her beside the van.
“You came.”
“I was in a parking lot with four detectives. Don’t make it romantic.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were thinking it.”
“Maybe.”
He looked tired.
Gemma studied him.
“So what now?”
“Rizzo talks. Others get charged. Some businesses close.”
“And your criminal ones?”
Leo did not dodge.
“Some are already gone.”
“Some?”
“I’m not going to lie to you and say I become a different man in nine days.”
“Good.”
“But I can stop becoming Salvatore.”
Gemma nodded.
That was enough for tonight.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from Elena.
DINNER. BOTH OF YOU. 7 PM. DO NOT BE LATE.
Gemma showed Leo.
He stared at the screen.
“She always typed like that?”
“Yes.”
“I missed a lot.”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt him.
Gemma did not soften it.
Then she added:
“You can start with dinner.”
Leo looked at her.
“Is that an invitation?”
“It is a command.”
“Moretti temper.”
Gemma pointed.
“Careful.”
He smiled.
At seven, Leo knocked on Elena’s apartment door.
He did not bring guards inside.
Did not bring gifts.
Did not bring money.
He brought cannoli from the bakery Elena loved when she was twenty-one.
Elena opened the door.
Saw the box.
Then looked at him.
“You remembered.”
Leo said, “Everything.”
She let him in.
Not as a lover.
May you like
Not yet.
As a man who had finally been given the chance to learn the life that happened without him.
