He lifts his folder and opens it, displaying the documents within.
“Both have been agreed upon by each party prior to this meeting, and while it may seem ‘foolish,’ I think we shouldn’t hunt for blame in a rush to point fingers—” His charming grin erases the sting from the insult. “I suggest we move past old slights and focus on the future. Speaking of which—”
“Yes, let’s focus on the future,” Donatello says over him, “rather than dig up the body of a dead woman and her child.”
Color floods Fabio’s cheeks. “I don’t think now is the time to—”
“Is there a reason you wouldn’t want a routine test done?”
I cringe at Mischa’s tone. It’s cruel. His words from the other day were uttered with the same harshness. “Do you even know why the bastard sold you?”
“Don’t fuck around,” Donatello bellows, lurching to his feet. “Though playing with the blood of innocents is nothing new for you. Your wife still sports the scars, doesn’t she?”
“My wife is alive,” Mischa says, matching his icy, level tone. “But what about yours?”
“Oh, dear.” Fabio’s quiet utterance punctuates the tension.
It’s as if a storm rolls in across Donatello’s face. Recognition shoots through me—the same instinctive warning I felt the very first day I entered his office.
“First, you want to toy with her dead body,” he snarls. “Now you want to slander her memory?”
Mischa shrugs. “I may have hurt my wife. I never killed her—”
“Enough!” A fist connects with the table hard enough to jolt it, but I’m surprised to realize Fabio is the culprit. “Olivia was my sister,” he says hoarsely. “My sister. I won’t hear any sick rumors implied. Understood?”
He glances angrily from Donatello to Mischa. When no one interjects, he snatches a handful of documents and shuffles them.
“Out of the three of us seated at this table, I am quite confident in assuming that I am the only one who can claim without a doubt that he hasn’t killed or maimed anyone. So, can Vincenzo. It is time to stop this game. In fact, have you stopped to wonder who might prefer that two of the most powerful men in the city be at each other’s throats rather than focused on the impending threat?”
He withdraws a page from his stack and shoves it to the center of the table.
“There is a new venture taking root in the city’s Western harbor front. Its origins are shrouded in mystery and so many layers of paperwork that even I have yet to unravel them all—but the primary investor’s aim is clear—to infiltrate the political system and forge contact with the biggest players of the underground networks. Our dear friends, the Saleris have been contacted, a fact I doubt either of you will find comforting. Well?”
He waits for confirmation.
Donatello remains hunched over the table while Mischa finally shifts his gaze away from me—but their silence serves as the closest they might ever come to an agreement.
“Go at each other’s throats if you want,” Fabio warns. “But I don’t think whoever was smart enough to pull off this attack will lurk in the shadows much longer.”
“So why this sham alliance? It’s better if we each turn our resources to finding the snake,” Mischa suggests.
Fabio’s smile betrays a chilling edge that robs all warmth from it. Instantly, I get a hint of the man who managed to rise to such a position, able to command two crime lords as though they were naughty children.
“That would be a decent plan, if I trusted either of you. You want to know my motive in forging this ‘alliance’? Self-preservation. I’m a peace-loving man, but I’m also shrewd,” he says. “Shrewd enough to know that nothing gets two beasts to work in unison better than being tethered to the same cart.”
“Those are bold words,” Mischa warns.
“Very bold.” Fabio’s grin returns, dazzling and full. “But if my opinion meant nothing, I assume you both wouldn’t be sitting at this table right now. So, if you would rather squabble and fight, by all means. I won’t waste my resources on a solution that is doomed to fail.”
Mischa stands. “Business and family are two separate notions. You want to discuss business? Let’s do it without my daughter being held captive—”
“Captive,” Donatello counters in that eerily calm tone. “I didn’t drag her here, Mischa. I never have. In fact, you should ask her why the hell does she keep coming back?”
“Watch yourself.”
Donatello laughs. “Or what? You’ll kill me? Do it, like you should have done day one, rather than aim at Vincenzo. I’m the monster? I don’t cloak my actions under the guise of being a protective father.”
“So, what would you describe your ‘actions’ in selling a child to a known trafficker?” Mischa counters. “Or are you still pretending that she died?”
Silence falls with a startling impact. Donatello holds Mischa’s gaze for so long my lower back begins to throb; I’ve been sitting so stiffly. Finally, he inclines his head, gazing from the window. “I never hid who I am. I can admit what I’ve done.”
“All of it?” Mischa prods. “Like your uncanny luck with wives.”
More confusion flits across Donatello’s face, drawing an irritated scoff from Mischa. He’s hinting heavily at something—something to deal with Olivia—but for whatever reason, Donatello doesn’t seem to be in on the joke.
Or he’s refusing to be.
“If we are done with the schoolyard tactics, I’d like to discuss business,” Fabio says. He opens his folder again, withdrawing two sets of documents. He hands one to Donatello and the other to Mischa. “Our terms, as agreed upon. Unless anyone would like to make any last-minute adjustments...”
We both look at Donatello, who says nothing.
“Then are we agreed?” Fabio asks. “Peace, in exchange for coordination on pinpointing the threat?”
Mischa remains silent, turning his gaze on me. “Is this what you want?” It’s the tone he used when we first spoke about Donatello, heavy and restrained. As though there is so much he wants to say.
For whatever reason, he doesn’t.
“I suggest we take
