Page 99 of Caught Up

I blinked at him, fighting back a wave of disbelief, trying to determine if I had heard him correctly. “What do you mean?”

“Your dad cooked the books for a couple of thehigher-ups, including Lorenzo,” he said. “The feds were moving in on him, hoping he was a weak link they could exploit. Tommy went straight to Lorenzo with the news, which is probably why he’s still alive. Instead of Lorenzo putting a hit on him, he decided to get him out of here. He’s back in the old country working for one of Lorenzo’s cousins.”

“Can you prove that?”

He nodded and pulled his phone from his jacket, turning the screen to face me.

It took a second for what I was seeing to sink in: my father, sitting at a table drinking wine, the rolling hills of Tuscany spread out behind him. As far as I knew, he’d never been to Italy before, and he looked decrepit in the photo, even worse than the last time I’d seen him, so it couldn’t have been an old picture.

“I have more proof, if you need it,” Nic said. He tapped the screen a few more times and turned his phone back to me.

This time, a video played, Tommy smiling, his arm around the waist of a much younger woman. “Thank you, Lorenzo!” he said, looking like he was having the time of his life.

The video ended, and Nic slipped the phone back inside his pocket. “We use videos like these to blackmail the people we help, remind them who they owe their lives to and what will happen if they don’t fulfill their end of the agreement.”

“He’s alive,” I said.

“He’s alive,” Nic confirmed.

I shook my head,pissed. Forget it. I no longer needed closure. Tommy Marchetti might have been alive, but he was officially dead to me. “That motherfucker. He didn’t even think to tell us so we didn’t worry?”

Nic tipped his head sideways. “No offense, butwereyou worried?”

“Well, no, not at first. But when I thought he might be dead? Yeah, obviously.”

“I’m sorry for how everything unfolded. At first, I thought this thing between us was only temporary, and it wouldn’t matter in the long run, and then I was distracted with other shit, but that’s not an excuse. I should have been the one to tell you about Tommy.”

“Yes,” I ground out. “You should have.”

He glanced away, looking mollified, and I didn’t know what to believe anymore.

“Tell me now,” I said. “Walk me through everything that happened. I just...” I paused, fighting against a wave of exhaustion and hurt. “I need to know.”

His eyes came back to mine. “It has to stay between us.”

“It will.”

“I mean it,” he said. “Even if you never speak to me after this.”

I clenched my jaw and nodded, bracing myself.

Haltingly, he recounted the night that he and his brothers disappeared my “father” down at the docks, Greg stealing a corpse from the morgue he worked in, and them cutting its head and hands off to keep it from being easily identified if Tommy’s car was ever found.

“But the DNA...” I said.

Nic shook his head. “The DNA backlog in this city is one of the worst in the country, and without dental or fingerprints, it would take forever for the cops to get a positive ID, if they even pursued it. The police don’t really prioritize solving the murders of criminals.”

I frowned, snagging on something he’d mentioned. “And that’s how you spent your birthday?”

His expression hardened. “That’s not even the worst one I’ve had.”

Damn it, I wasnotgoing to feel bad for him.

“Is there a tracker on my phone?” I asked.

He winced. “Yes.”

“Any others?”

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