“He isn’t lying,” I assured Lorenzo. “Regardless of who you are or what prior crimes you may have committed, the SDCT has a duty to ensure the safety of its informants. Now that we know that your life is in danger, we can’t just stand back and let the mafia do as it pleases.”
That seemed to pacify Lorenzo somewhat, and the defensive snarl on his face slowly melted away. It wasn’t a lie, either. Even if he was a piece of criminal scum, we couldn’t just look away if we knew that his life was in real danger.
“All right,” he sighed in resignation. “What exactly do you want to know?”
“How about you start by telling us about the death of Senator Alexis Rothschild?” I replied. Now that Nick opened the line of communication, it really made more sense for me to do the bulk of the interrogating.
“She was one of the hits we arranged,” Lorenzo admitted. “I wasn’t involved personally, of course. I hardly knew who she was. All I did was find someone to do the deed.”
“So you admit that you were the one behind this entire chain of hits?” I reiterated. The more clearly we got his confession, the easier it would be to proceed. “Explain to me how this all started.”
“Ah, well, let me see,” Lorenzo mumbled. “I suppose it all started about a year ago, really. I used to be a hitman for the Family. I bought that old motel as a way to launder money. Worst decision of my life. That old pile of crap ended up costing me more than I was making.”
“We noticed that all of your bills were suddenly paid in full about three months ago,” I replied. “Does that have something to do with this?”
“Yeah.” Lorenzo nodded. “I started to do a little extra work on the side, outside of what I was ordered to do by the Family. It was risky, though. Jobs with the mafia are one thing. I have protection if things go wrong. On my own, though, I was taking on all the risks. So I thought: why not get someone else to take the risk for me?”
I could see where this was going, and my stomach churned as I thought about how sick Lorenzo was for even coming up with something like this.
“I see,” I replied curtly. “So you were taking on hit requests but making other clients do them for you?”
“Yeah.” Lorenzo smirked. “Pretty smart, huh? This way, everyone gets what they want, and no one can snitch because they’re all guilty of taking out someone else. Everyone had an alibi because they all made sure to be seen publicly somewhere else at the time of the hit. Best of all, if things did go wrong, none of it could be traced back to me since I never put my hands on anyone.”
“Well, that obviously didn’t work out,” Nick scoffed. “Since you’re sitting here right now.”
Lorenzo tossed him a sour look. It was probably a bad idea to provoke him when we were finally getting somewhere, but I couldn’t blame Nick for wanting to get a dig in. I was having a hard time stomaching the smarmy look on his face as he talked about how smart he was for coming up with this heinous idea.
“Who else were you working with?” Nick suddenly asked suspiciously. There was a look of frustration on his face, and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“What do you mean?” He raised an eyebrow at Nick. “It was just me. Well, and that little snitch Samuel.”
“No.” I frowned. “Anyone could tell what a moron you are after spending just a few minutes speaking with you. You’re not smart or disciplined enough to have come up with this on your own. Not that it’s a particularly well-executed plane or anything, but it’s still more than some second-rate hitman like you could pull off.”
“It was just me,” Lorenzo growled. It was the hint of anger in his response that tipped me off that he was lying. Confusion I could understand, but what reason would he have to be angry about Nick’s accusation?
“Whoever you’re trying to protect, you might as well forget it,” Nick scoffed. “I already told you that the Family turned its back on you. Why are you still being loyal?”
Lorenzo blinked at Nick in surprise before contorting his features into an expression of rage.
“You know what?” He chuckled bitterly. “You’re right. I don’t know why I’m loyal to someone who’s clearly willing to side with some little snitch over a loyal man.”
“What are you talking about?” Nick asked, and my eyes widened as I realized what Lorenzo was saying.
“It was Alessandro,” he sneered. “You’re right. I’m not smart enough to have done this on my own. I came up with the basic idea, but the boss was the one who sorted out all the details. He found out about what I was planning pretty early on. I thought I’d be in trouble, but to my surprise, he was okay with it. All I had to do was hand over a cut of every payment, and he said he’d look the other way. He must have thought it was a pretty sweet deal since the Family got a cut without actually offering me any protection.”
I couldn’t read Nick’s expression, which was a little troubling. Nick tended to wear his heart on his sleeve. When he was happy, he got arrogant and annoying about it, and when he was upset, he sulked or lashed out. The fact that he was just staring at Lorenzo blankly was alarming.
“You’re lying,” Nick hissed, his jaw clenched.
“Ha!” Lorenzo jeered. “You really have no idea what a monster your brother is, do you? He’s twice as ruthless as Marco was. A lot has changed since you left the Family!”
Nick got up and stormed out of the room without another word. My immediate impulse was
