Chapter Twenty-Two
Sayer
Five Years Ago
“We both know you don’t have anything on me,” I taunted the cocky FBI agent that somehow thought he could take down the syndicate with trumped up RICO charges. Fuck that. And fuck him. I had better things to do today. Or tonight. Shit, what time was it? I’d been in this interrogation room for hours. They’d arrested the entire brotherhood from what I could tell. I wondered if they’d let anyone go yet. I was dying to know how Caro was doing, but I couldn’t ask these bozos. “If you’re having trouble remembering that, my lawyer will be here any minute to remind you.”
“He’s lawyering up. I’m shocked.” Jones leaned forward, placing his hands on the metal table. His tone managed to become even drier. “Whatever are we going to do now?”
Mason wasn’t as patient as his partner. Did that make him the bad cop? He leaned over the table, laying his proverbial cards on the table. “We have surveillance footage of you and Luca Rossi leaving Big Fred’s three minutes before it exploded.”
I clenched my teeth together and chose to exercise my right to remain silent. He’d managed to surprise me. I was good at what I did. I had never gotten caught before.
It was unfortunate that was the information they had, because I couldn’t risk anyone finding out about my relationship with Luca. We were “restructuring” his organization and if it got out that either of us were behind the explosion or the fire, there would be war.
“Oh look, Payne. He’s finally shut up. You must have said something he doesn’t like.”
Jones sometimes got a bad rep for being the lazier, lesser version of Mason Payne. He wasn’t always around when Payne was out terrorizing the streets. He wasn’t as pretty so he didn’t go to many functions or fundraisers. People, criminals included, often discounted him—I knew better. He might have been old as dirt, but the man was sharp as a knife. He saw everything. He picked up all the little details I worked so hard to keep hidden.
Mason continued being his partner for all of those reasons and because Jones was a human lie detector.
“We also have the footage from thirty minutes later when Lo Sole Mio caught fire. The city inspector is saying that wind blew the flame over to the restaurant, but I disagree.” Mason paused for dramatic effect. “The wind was blowing the opposite direction that night, telling me someone else started the fire at Lo Sole Mio.”
I met Mason’s glare, unafraid of the suit and his speculations. “It’s a shame. Caro and I ate at Lo Sole Mio two weeks ago. She loves their tiramisu.” I sat forward as if I had just thought of something. “Or loved their tiramisu. I heard they’re permanently shut down now.”
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Mason said, but he wasn’t talking to me, he was addressing his partner. “Our suspect here is poised and primed to take over the Russians. They’ve pegged him for leadership. And yet he’s running around with a scrappy Italian, jeopardizing everything he’s worked his whole life for.”
I wasn’t jeopardizing anything. I was securing my future, setting up my kingdom. He was just too stupid to figure that out.
However, if the brotherhood found out I was with Luca, they would cut off important appendages and crucify me upside down.
It was hard to take over the world when you were dead.
“I’m sorry, was there a question in there somewhere?” I asked.
Mason turned back to me. “We can help you. Give me what you can on your bosses and I’ll get the DA to make a deal. You could be out of super max in three maybe four years tops. You’re young. You could pay for your sins and still have enough time to start a family.” He slid a piece of paper across the table—a plea deal, a confession waiting to be signed, the death of everything in the form of a piece of paper.
I stared at the paper, letting my mind run through the possibilities of a normal life with Caro, the life we would have if I took the deal. “It’s that easy, huh?”
Mason felt the tug of a fish on the line. He leaned in, keeping his expression neutral. “It is, Wesley. All you have to do is work with us. We can help you.”
“Yeah, and what about Caro? Can you help her too while I’m waiting for my life to begin, trapped behind bars?” I let him see the strangled irritation his plea deal made me feel. “And what’s the plan for while I’m doing my time? How are you going to stop the brothers from coming after me when they figure out what I did? Your help will get me and everyone I care about killed, Payne. I don’t want any part of it.”
He leaned forward, bringing our faces level. “This deal isn’t going to be available forever.”
I shrugged. “I’ll get over it.”
“And Rossi? If word gets out that you’re spending time with the Italian red-headed step-child?”
I snorted. That was actually a funny description of Luca. He was a bastard—like an actual bastard. His dad was the Don and his mom was a call girl that had him in secret. When it became public that Luca was Vincent Giovanni’s bastard, the head of the Italian family brought him into the business and gave him work, but without any of the perks of being a true son. When Vincent died, Luca would be at the mercy of his four half-brothers that hated him. We were on a mission to rearrange the line of succession.
“Prove it. My guess is your surveillance footage shows someone with my build and you’re trying to shove puzzle pieces in places that don’t fit. I don’t associate with Italians. End of story.”
Mason lifted a finger. “It was you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Show it to me. Because I know it wasn’t me on that camera. It was someone trying to frame me, or someone that coincidentally looked like me. I’ll tell you this much, if I ever tried to blow up a restaurant or start one on fire, I wouldn’t run around looking like myself. I’d wear a disguise.”
Jones barked a laugh. “I’ve never seen you wear a disguise.”
I stared at him. “Obviously, because I was wearing a disguise.”
Mason stepped back and I could have sworn I saw doubt flicker across his face. But it only lasted a second. “I don’t have time for this. If you’re not going to take the plea, I’ll offer it to someone else. You can rot for all I care. I wash my hands of you.”
Good.
Finally.
It was my turn to wrestle doubt under control. Was I doing the right thing? Would this really make Caro safe?
Would this really give us the life we wanted?
Mason grabbed the piece of paper off the table and a twinge of something that felt a lot like regret stabbed my gut. He hovered over me, wanting to say more, but a knock on the door kept him from pressing with more questions.
A woman poked her head in the room. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
My lawyer was here. Mason was getting the heads up. I waited with a renewed sense of resolution. It was ridiculous how easily swayed they thought I was. They truly believed if they dangled an easy way out in front of me, I would take it.
They had no idea. The easy way out didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t even know what to do with it.
I had worked for everything in my life. Every damn thing. Against giant odds and every fucking obstacle imaginable.
Frank Josephs of Josephs and Stein walked into the room looking as self-important as always. He was the best defense lawyer in the city and he’d gotten me out of more than a few close calls.
He took a seat next to me without being invited. “I need a few minutes alone with my client,” he told his briefcase as he clicked it open.
Mason and Jones shared a look.
“We have other things to do anyway,” Jones muttered.
Mason waved the plea deal in front of my face. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
I stared him down until he disappeared into the hallway. The door clicked closed, and Frank and I had the illusion of privacy. Neither of us was fooled by the two-way mirror hiding a team of agents or the recording equipment set up in almost every corner of this room.
“What have you told them?” Frank mumbled, his head dipped behind his briefcase.
“Nothing.” That should have been obvious. I had told them nothing. I would never tell them anything. They could torture me and I wouldn’t give anything up. “I’ve told them nothing.” Realizing I had said that louder than I wanted to, I hammered in the point by adding, “There’s nothing to tell.”
Frank looked at me, his beady eyes narrowing. He was trying to sort me out, plotting the best way to proceed. I could also tell he had something to tell me that was making him uncomfortable. He always got squinty when he didn’t want to say what was on his mind. “That has to change.”
I didn’t understand what he meant. “What?”
“You need to start talking,” he clarified, slower.
His words were serious… his expression was grave… but this had to be a joke. It didn’t make any sense. I immediately assumed he was making a plea deal and throwing me under the bus in the process. “I don’t understand.”
Leaning toward me, he picked up a file folder from his briefcase and held it in front of our faces to hide our conversation. “The Volkov want you to take the fall for this. Whatever the charges, they want you to take the blame.”
I pulled back, unable to keep from raising my voice. “That can’t be right. I think you heard them wrong.”
His thin lips pursed in frustration. “I didn’t hear them wrong. This is what they want. They said”—he made air quotes— “prison will do you good.”
Prison. Not jail time. Not an overnighter in the slammer. They wanted me to face the trumped-up RICO charges.
Fuck.
That was not part of my plan. That was not part of any plan.
My first thought was paranoia. Mason had shown the pakhan the surveillance videos and they’d agreed with him that it looked like me. This was how they were going to punish me for being in league with the Italians.
No, that couldn’t be right. If they thought I was working with the Italians, I’d already be dead.
If the bratva still trusted me, why the hell did they want me to go to prison? Unless they were telling the truth— unless they really believed prison would be good for me.
Fear rocked through me, zinging to my fingers and toes, making them tingle. I hadn’t felt this afraid in a while. Not since I was kid. It made me want to punch something.
“Your brothers are counting on you,” he added.
My hands clenched into fists to keep from strangling this asshole. “That’s it? That’s all you have for me?”
“I’ll try to keep your sentence under ten.”
My poker face dropped. “Ten years?”
“It has to be long enough to give you credibility,” he added. “The pakhan feel strongly about this.”
Then they should have talked to me before now. I was going to murder them. When I took over, I was going to kill them slowly and enjoy every single second.
No, that was too good. Too kind.
They were taking away my freedom. They were taking away my youth. I would be thirty-three when I got out, if that was enough time for them. They could always order me to stay in there longer.
Or I could never make it out thanks to all of the enemies I’d racked up along the way.
Who the hell knew how long they would keep me in there? Ten years was a guess. It could easily be twenty. It could just as easily be fifty. I had no clue what Mason had on the bosses.
And I was supposed to take it all, be their fucking martyr.
Goddamn, this was a mess.
And apparently it was my mess.
Caro. That was the only clear thought in my spinning head.
Caro. Caro. Caro.
My heart beat her name. My body tensed at even the thought of leaving her for an extended period of time. And my soul fought against this plan in its entirety.
I didn’t need prison time to make myself credible. I had done enough for this syndicate. They’d taken enough from me. They’d demanded enough. It was time they gave me something in return.
When Mason and Jones returned, I realized I had a rare opportunity to turn this thing around in a way that would keep Caroline safe.
The only way to keep Caroline safe.
Tucking my trembling hands under the table, I inclined my head toward the door. I wasn’t afraid, I was enraged. And if Frank Josephs didn’t get out of here soon, I was likely going to strangle him.
And that would do nothing to help my case right now.
“I’ll take it from here,” I told Frank.
“Take what from here?” He had turned to me in his chair.
“This. I don’t need you anymore.”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
Hadn’t I said the exact same thing? “The meeting,” I said in a slower, calmer voice, similar to the way he had explained the pakhan’s request to me. “I can handle the interview from here. You can leave.”
He still didn’t get it. “You can’t do that.”
I smiled at him. “I can. And I am. I need my lawyer working for me, not against me. So that means it’s time for you to get the fuck out of here before I get sent away for murder.”
He gathered his papers in a huff, mumbling under his breath the entire time. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he snarled at me as he left the room.
I didn’t. I didn’t have a fucking clue.
I was also out of options. My world was crashing down on me from every angle. I needed to stop the destruction before it swallowed me whole, before I became a sinkhole that dragged Caro down with me.
Mason sat next to Jones, amused by the whole show. After the door closed, he looked at me, both eyebrows raised.
“I want the deal,” I told him plainly, unembarrassed that I had turned it down only minutes ago.
“Oh, now he wants the deal,” Jones mumbled.
“I’m not sure the deal is still available,” Mason added, a smarmy smile on his face. The schmuck couldn’t contain his excitement. I was embarrassed at his inability to hold a poker face.
“The game has changed,” I told him simply. “We’re playing with new rules.”
“What changed?” Mason asked.
“They didn’t offer to protect Caro.”
Mason leaned forward, cupping his hand to his ear. “I’m sorry, what? I’m going to need an explanation.”
I flicked a glance at the two-way mirrors. “I don’t trust anybody.”
Mason snorted. “Me neither.”
That made me respect him more than before.
I waited for Mason to get a clue. It took longer than I had patience for, but eventually he stood up and walked to the door. “Let’s get this show on the road then.” He inclined his head toward the hallway.
Jones moved to stand next to me and together we walked out of the interrogation room and down the hall. We were in a police precinct, not FBI headquarters and I got the distinct impression that Mason had no idea where he was going.
Eventually, we found an empty, dark office. Mason turned on the light and shut us inside.
“You have ten minutes,” Mason barked.
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I launched into my pitch, knowing I had to spin this exactly right. It wasn’t an easy task to play both the Volkov and the FBI simultaneously, but it was my only option at this point. “You can have whatever you want. I’ll give you whatever you want.”
Mason lost his giddy expression and turned skeptical. This was a payout that was too good to be true. And in our world if it sounded too good to be true, it always was. Mason was a smarter man than I gave him credit for. “Just like that?”
“They want me to go away,” I explained. “I’ll go away. But on my terms.”
“And what are those? We can move you to a secure location tonight. Caro is still in holding. We can move you both together. You won’t even have to be separated.”
“I’m not going into fucking WITSEC.”
“The Volkov are not going to react well to this, Wesley. I would think about—”
“I don’t need WITSEC because I’m going to prison. I’m taking the fall.”
Mason looked around the office as if he suddenly didn’t know why we were here or what the hell we were doing. He sat down behind the desk and looked utterly exhausted.
I leaned forward and leveled Mason with an intense look. This wasn’t a joke. He needed to understand that I would do anything to keep Caro safe. Anything. If that meant taking out the Volkov and giving up my dream of leading the syndicate, that was fine. Done. Easy. If that meant burning the FBI to the ground and doing this without them, also fine. Maybe it wouldn’t be as easy, but I could get it done. I didn’t need them. I would use them, but I didn’t need them for any of it.
Mason threw a pen on the desk and said, “What are we doing here, Wesley? What is this?”
Here it was. The build-up.
I was running two scams simultaneously. The Volkov were one mark. Payne was the other. This was the biggest confidence game of my life and I would have to execute it perfectly. From prison. Nothing else mattered but protecting Caro.
Nothing mattered more than our future together.
“I’m not going to testify, Payne,” I told him. “We both know that would end in the worst possible way. I’m going to take the fall for the Volkov. And while I’m rotting in prison, I’m going to give you everything you need to take them out permanently.”
He leaned forward, suddenly alert and attentive. “You won’t know what they’re doing though. You’ll be behind bars.”
“I know how they work. I know how they think. Prison is another step in their grooming process. They want me to lead, but they need me to have credibility.”
“You want me to charge you? You want to go to trial? I can’t stop them from sentencing you. I have no control over that.”
“Yeah, but you can get me out early. Give me a few years to give you what you need and then I’ll sign your plea deal.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Fucking change it then. I’m offering the Volkov on a silver platter and you’re arguing semantics.”
Jones sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “This could work, Mason. He goes away. We act like he’s the big bad. And the whole time he’s working with us to gather what we need to end them permanently.”
“No RICO,” I added. “Real charges. Life in prison kind of charges.”
Mason cleared his throat and stared at me. “What about Caro?”
“If I still have the appearance of bratva, they’ll leave her alone. That’s why none of this can come out until after. This is only between us. No one else can know. If they get even a sniff of something fishy, it’s over for her. And it’s over for you. She’s left alone, that’s my one stipulation.”
“You can’t tell her, then,” Mason ordered. “Nobody but us knows. If she slips up on accident even once, it would ruin the entire thing. This is between us and nobody else.”
I ground my teeth together. Obviously, Mason would have stipulations, demands. He wouldn’t be a good agent if he didn’t. And I never expected to like his demands. That was the nature of this game. I hadn’t been expecting this specific demand though.
“She’s the best liar in the business. She would never slip up.”
He blinked at me. “I’m not taking the fucking risk. I’m giving you everything else you want when what I should do is force the plea deal now and make you testify. You’re dragging this case out for an indeterminate length of time and getting everything else you want. I’m asking you to keep your mouth shut until the deal is done, until they’re locked up, then tell her whatever you want.”
“She won’t understand.”
“What does it matter? Either you take this deal and go to prison or don’t take it and you’ll still go to prison. Either way, you’re going to prison. She doesn’t need to know more than that.”
This didn’t sit well with me. Leaving Caro in the dark was an awful betrayal. She wouldn’t understand my decision or why I let the Volkov push me around. She wouldn’t understand why I would leave her.
I put a hand to my stomach, thinking I would be sick. Closing my eyes, I breathed through my nose and thought about the future. About my future with Caro.
It had never been a short con with her. I was all about the long game. I wanted her forever. If leaving her in the dark now kept her safe, I would pay the consequences to have the rest of my life with her.
“Okay,” I finally agreed after the nausea passed. “Okay, she won’t know. Nobody will know but us. We keep it between us.” I leveled him with a glare. “You better not fucking cross me.”
“I can trust you?” Mason wasn’t ready to seal the deal yet.
“No,” I told him honestly. “The only thing you can trust is that I will do anything to keep Caroline safe and with me. Anything. As long as we align on that, I will do whatever it takes to make it happen.”
He nodded. “Then she’s free, Wesley. Keep your promise and you can consider her freedom for a sure thing.”
I didn’t need another reason to do what I was doing, but that was a damn good one anyway. Mason stuck out his hand and I took it, feeling the permanency of our deal. Nothing would be put on paper, nothing would be said publicly, but we had a deal that was as binding as anything.
“This is all for her then?” Jones asked, skeptical and paranoid all at once.
“It didn’t start that way, but that’s what it has become,” I admitted.
Mason leaned forward. “What did it start as?”
“Dismantling the families.”
Both men stared at me in disbelief.
“The Russians?” Jones asked, picking the easiest answer.
“The Russians, the Italians, the fucking Irish.” My confession plowed into the air like a bull rushing a red cape. I had never spoken these words out loud before, never admitted them to anyone. I thought of my dad and the way his corruption had strangled every good and moral thing inside of him, how it had turned him into a monster. I thought of Leon Valero and the worthless scum he was to Caro. It wasn’t about saving the city from injustice. It was about saving the kids that were like us, that didn’t get a chance to get out. “I want to destroy all of them.”
Mason blinked, struggling to believe me. “Holy shit, Wesley, you’re one of the good guys.”
I shook my head, denying his words immediately. “I’m not a hero, Payne. Don’t think I wouldn’t have built my kingdom and enjoyed the throne.” But I would have run it differently. I would have done it all better. I would have put men in leadership that would have been better. It had been my dream since before I ever met Caro, before the bratva ever became part of my life. I was trading that for her now. I was giving everything up for her.
And I knew I was making the right decision.
“We’ll get you through this,” Mason promised, a new respect reflecting in his hard stare. “And we’ll keep her safe while you’re inside.”
“You better.” I struggled to swallow against the rising tide of nausea inside me. “And Mason?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want any of this to come back on me. I’m anonymous during this entire thing. This is yours. You take the credit. Leave me out of it completely.”
“Done,” he promised and for some reason I believed him.
We shook hands again before he led me back to the interrogation room where I officially confessed to the charges brought against me. It was the hardest few hours of my life, knowing I was putting my life, Caro’s life, in the hands of two men I did not trust.
But it was my only option. It was the only way to keep my plan from derailing.
Mason would take credit for decommissioning the Russians. And I kept Caro. A more perfect deal had never been made.
Until three and a half months later when I learned how cruel the universe could be. Caroline disappeared with Frankie. It wasn’t the Russians. It wasn’t the feds. Caroline ran away.
A lesser man would have taken the hint, but I was well into my deal with Mason and eternally in love with Caro. No stone would go unturned, no corner of the planet would be left unchecked. I would find her. I would make her mine again. I’d explain this entire fucking mess. And then we’d spend the rest of our lives living out the consequences of this great love between us.
It was us against the world. Caro and me. And nobody would get between us. Nothing would keep me from protecting her. Nothing would prevent us from the rest of our life together.
I would find her. And then I would spend the rest of my life giving her the life she wanted.