Page 23 of The Italian Reckoning
“Hi, baby, hi! Hi! You have a good day—oof!” She leaps up from the floor, claws out, and lands in my arms, giving me a face full of fur. She purrs so deeply that stress immediately melts away from my shoulders and I head into the kitchen to deposit the parcel. Iris remains in my arms by climbing up onto my shoulders and shoving her gigantic fluffy tail under my nose, then she leaps up onto the top of the fridge as I pass.
“Did you eat all your dinner? Oh, you did! Good girl, good girl. I’m sorry I’m home so late. Bad day. You know how it is.”
Iris chirrups in reply and purrs deeper when I grab some of her cat treats out of the bottom cupboard. As she eats her fill on top of the fridge, I stab into the parcel and rip it open with a sharp knife. If I’ve ordered another DVD boxset, I’m in trouble. I have no more room for another copy of the thirteenth season of NCIS—my favorite. Cardboard and tape crumble under my hands but when I open the lid, my heart stops dead in my chest.
Inside, nestled in some bubble wrap and paper, sits an unopened makeup palette and some very neatly folded Saran Wrap.
Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no!
The room begins to spin as thin, weak breaths fight to get past the overwhelming tension flooding my chest.
I can’t breathe.
Fuck.
I lose my balance and stumble back into the fridge, much to Iris’s complaints, and my entire world clouds with darkness. Nothing exists but that box and the contents glaring at me like a beacon in the dim light of my kitchen.
I was right.
It’s him.
The Painter.
He’sback.
9
ROCKY
“Ithought I told you to shut this shit down?” My father storms into the gym with paper scrunched up in one hand and a look of thunder on his face. For a man who usually needs a cane to walk, he moves pretty fast without it.
I grunt, screwing up my eyes as all my focus goes into making sure I can get the bar back onto the supports before my father makes me lose complete concentration. Metal clangs against metal while my shoulders and arms burn from the wait. Matteo gives me a few seconds to catch my breath, then as I’m sitting up, he tosses the paper onto my sweaty lap.
“What’s this?”
“What do you think it is?” Matteo snaps, pointing at the paper as if he has some kind of ability that will make it unfurl from the ball he’s created. “I told you to take care of this mess and now look!”
Wiping the sweat from my brow with my towel, the paper opens to reveal an arrest warrant request for Gio. My racing heart skips a beat. “For Gio?”
No. There’s no way he had anything to do with Belle’s death. “Who?—”
“Sarah Gogs, that’s who.” My father begins to pace back and forth in front of me, flexing his fingers against his jaw as if trying to ease some unseen pain. “She was told to wrap this case up last week after she arrested you. She wasorderedto. And you assured me that it would be taken care of!”
“I thought it was! I called her captain and he assured methe case would be closed within a few days. I had no reason not to believe him.”
“You’re making me look like I’ve lost control.” Matteo’s eyes flash with annoyance. “Rocky, you’re supposed to be on my side. When I tell you to take care of something, I expect you to do it.”
“And I have.”
“Then why the hell is she applying for arrest warrants?” Matteo snatches the paper out of my hand. “This has gone on long enough. Belle died. We’re moving on. I don’t have time to waste giving a shit about this or some bratty cop that doesn’t know her place. She’s too stupid to understand how things really work around here.”
An unexpected pulse of irritation warms my blood as I stand up from the exercise bench. “Dad, it’s not like that. She just has some pretty strong morals. Besides, it’s not like we pay every single cop in that precinct.”
“No, we pay the ones that stick their noses where they don’t belong and that’s what she’s doing. I trusted you to take care of this, Rocky.”
“And I am?—”
“Bullshit.” He stops pacing and narrows his eyes. “She’s had her chance. I want her gone.”
