Page 135 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby
It feels like we’re holding the silence steady on a string.
“I was thinking,” I say, “you can’t hide forever if there’s a price on your head. Prices invite bidders.”
“That’s true,” he quietly replies. “So we make them bid on someone else.”
He says it like he’s talking about the weather, but I see the muscle in his jaw move.
There’s something about men like him who solve everything in straight lines, and the lines are always written in someone else’s blood.
I stir my coffee and pretend it’s an even trade.
“So, how do we do that?” I ask. “Take it off your back?”
He looks out the window, eyes following nothing I can see.
“We find who’s paying. Marco’s not smart enough to do it alone. He’s burning money somewhere. That leaves a trail.”
The wordtraillands heavy.
I think about receipts, orders, people’s bad habits.
The bakery taught me that every lie leaves handwriting. “You mean like delivery manifests. Courier routes.”
He turns toward me, expression sharpening. “You’ve seen them?”
“Not exactly. I heard about them. Marco used to send his ‘deliveries’ through a fake courier line located three blocks from the bakery. The same men came every Thursday, always paid in cash. They didn’t like change.”
He steps closer, sets his cup down, leans both hands on the table.
“You remember names?”
“One. The one they always called Geno.”
He freezes.
Just that small break, the kind that says more than words.
“Geno Petruzzi’s been dead five years.”
“Then someone’s using his name.” I say it softly, but it’s enough.
He nods once, slowly, like a man measuring a fuse.
Outside, a car door slams.
Somewhere below, a woman calls to her dog.
The world keeps acting normal.
He straightens, already in motion.
“If Marco’s using Geno’s ID, there’s a paper line that proves it. Forgery. Fraud. Treason if it crosses family accounts. That’s what we use.”
“And if it doesn’t cross them?” I ask.
He looks at me properly for the first time that morning.
“Then we make sure it does.”
