Marco

 

My heart thudded as I stepped out of the cab and approached the front door of The Downtown Room. I’d never been important enough to make it into a place like this, but now I had the right connection. I could only hope that it would continue to be a good one for me. Even though the walls of the building, I could hear the music thumping. A long line strung down the sidewalk and around the corner, numerous beautiful people waiting for their chance to get in. I cut straight to the front of the line.

 

I heard about Dino’s death the same way everybody else did: the newspaper. I should have known there was a reason he hadn’t called to check on Alexis and Lorenzo. I’d been tailing those two for weeks, and Dino had been relentless about getting updates. Still, I knew it was going to come to an end sometime, and for all I knew he was avoiding me to try to get out of his last payment.

 

But he was dead, and I had the information I’d never been able to pass on. Lorenzo had killed him; I knew that much without even reading the small bit in the police section of the newspaper. He was a fool to try to trick a man like that in the first place.

 

“You on the list?” The big bouncer was more than a head taller than me, and I’m not exactly short. His shoulders were so wide I doubted he fit into a normal car. Probably had to have a truck.

 

“Yes, sir. Marco Rossi.” My nerves were on fire. This was a big shot for me.

 

He pulled out a tablet and scrolled his finger down the screen. “You sure? I don’t see you on here.”

 

“I’m a special guest of Piero Moretti. He’s expecting me.” My heart thudded a little harder, worried that Piero had either forgotten about our meeting or decided that he no longer cared what I had to say. But he had seemed so eager over the phone …

 

“Oh, yeah. Right down here. Just added a few hours ago.” He thumbed over his shoulder at the door. “You can go in. You’ll probably find Piero on the balcony in the far-right corner. But behave yourself; you don’t want to get booted out of this place.” He unclipped the velvet rope that kept the crowd from surging in.

 

“No problem.” I had no doubt that Piero and the rest of the Moretti family had plenty of manpower, should they decide I wasn’t worth the trouble. But I knew he would want to hear what I had to say.

 

It was difficult to work my way through the throng, but I found Piero right where the bouncer promised he would be. He saw me coming as soon as I stepped onto the balcony and waved me over. “You’re the man I talked to on the phone?” He was a dark-haired man with thin lips and narrow shoulders. There were men all around him, probably other members of the mob. They largely ignored me, but I knew they were ready to take me out should they feel the need.

 

“I am. Is this a good place to talk?”

 

He smiled. It was a wicked smile, one that made his eyes glimmer with malice. “I wouldn’t have invited you here if it wasn’t. You say you have some interesting information.”

 

I nodded. “I do. I think you’ll want to hear—”

 

“Hold on, hold on,” Piero interrupted. “I just want you to understand first that one of my pet peeves is wasting time. If you’re wasting my time, you won’t like how I repay you.”

 

“No worries there. You see, I’ve spent the last ten years as a private investigator. I know a lot of things about a lot of people and I’m good at my job. Sometimes it’s boring. I get hired to find cheating wives and husbands or guys who try to skip out on their debts to loan sharks. But sometimes I run across some little gems and I tuck them away for a rainy day.” I had honed my skills as a P.I. in order to make money, but once Dino got me involved in this whole thing with Lorenzo and the Moretti family, I saw a brand new opportunity for myself. Piero could mean regular work for me, or maybe some other position within the family. No more waiting for the next client to show up.

 

“Okay, then. But it better be good. I’ve got plenty on my plate right now without having to deal with you.”

 

A bubble of excitement rose up in my throat. “Oh, trust me. You’ll want to deal with me.”

 

“Spit it out already.” His voice was a warning as he sipped his beer.

 

“I’ve been following this girl for a client. It’s a pretty typical case of a jealous ex-boyfriend, and it wasn’t anything too notable. But this girl has hooked up with a guy you work very closely with, by the name of Lorenzo.”

 

Piero leaned forward, his drink suddenly forgotten. “Lorenzo Rizzo?”

 

“That’s the one,” I replied with a grin. I had him. It only took that name and he was hooked. I knew he would be. I’d done a little bit of detective work on my own once I knew I was getting tangled with the mafia, and it didn’t take much to figure out there was no love lost between Matteo Moretti’s son and his adopted hitman.

 

He shook his head suddenly. “No, that’s not really that exciting. I already know about his girlfriend and that she’s running from some nut job. She said that much herself and so did Lorenzo.”

 

“Did he tell you that she was working as a stripper?”

 

Piero shrugged. Strippers and whores were probably a normal part of his life.

 

“Or that she has a connection to the Calzoni family?”

 

“What?” The rest of the club might as well have faded into nothingness around us. His focus was entirely on me now. “What did you say?”

 

“She was working at this place out on the edge of the town called The Corral. That’s nothing significant, but I found an email exchange between her and a guy who worked for Calzoni, named Vick. It’s not hard to hack an email address if you know what you’re doing. Turns out, he booked her for Frank’s birthday party and she was working at his mansion on the same night Lorenzo took Calzoni out.”

 

Piero rubbed his lips together like a lizard about to eat its breakfast. “How do you know all this? I mean, I get that you watch people and hack emails, but some of this seems too good to be true.”

 

I spread my fingers wide in a helpless gesture. “Like I said, I’ve been doing this for a long time. I don’t go anywhere without paying attention to the actions and conversations around me, even if I’m nowhere near one of my targets. I could tell things were getting good, and I just kept digging.”

 

Moretti’s fingers tapped against the edge of the table. “So what you’re telling me is that Alexis was there when Lorenzo killed Calzoni, and he’s—what? Safeguarding her from the family?”

 

“That’s how it appears.”

 

“Hmm.” He thought for a moment, his eyes distant. “Tell me something, Rossi. If you knew I would be interested in this, then why haven’t you asked for anything in return? What’s your agenda here?”

 

I wanted to laugh. Of course I wanted something. “I wouldn’t mind if you and your relations kept me in mind for any future needs.” I flipped my business card onto the table in front of him. “If nothing else, sometimes it just pleases me to stir the pot a little.”

 

Piero tucked the card away into his jacket pocket. “You’re an odd character, Rossi, but a handy one. You’ll be hearing from me soon, I’m sure.”