Complete Corruption (Corruption #1-3) (12 page)

Running for mayor was an eighty-hour-a-week job. I’d known that from the beginning. “What do I have this afternoon?”

“Staff meeting at one. Procedure and protocols touchbase with Wanda’s team at two.”

Taking an afternoon jaunt downtown was undoubtedly ten times more appealing than either of those events. “Tell him I’ll be there.”

***

The DA’s office was in a 1920s stone-carved edifice a few blocks from my loft, so I parked at home and walked. The heat weighed on me. The streets, though not crowded, were populated.

The DA’s building was set back from the street with an expanse of lawn utilized by birds, squirrels, and urban picnickers. The tweedy grey brickwork matched the flat city sky, and as I got closer, I saw the stonework from a lost era. Like Roman reliefs, granite men carried logs, fished in a pebble sea, built houses from petrified wood, all immortalized with the toil of a sculptor’s sweat.

The lady at the front desk knew me, but I still needed to sign in and get a sticker. I was spared the thumbprint. I saw Gerry, Daniel’s top strategist, in the hall.

He stopped short and put out his hand. “Theresa, thank you for going to Catholic Charities.” When he shook my hand, he also kissed my cheek and patted my back.

“I was afraid I did more harm than good,” I said.

“No. Even a failed tactic can serve an overall strategy. Don’t forget that.”

“So I’m a failed tactic now?” I said with a smile and a lilt. “I thought I meant more to you than that.”

He pressed his lips together. “You’re perfect. You have politics in your blood. If I could, in good conscience, ask you to take that stupid bastard back, I would. He can’t lose with you by him.”

I had a few answers, none of them politic or kind. I chose the most bland. “He can win just fine without me.”

“Maybe, but it’ll be close.”

“Any idea why I’m here?”

“Come,” he said.

I let him lead me down the hall to Daniel’s office. A married couple he used for promotion was just leaving. They greeted me, then suddenly I was alone with my ex-fiancé.

He had a biggish office by 1920s standards. The windows slid up and down with rackety tick
tick
s, and the walls were molded in every place molding could be placed. Over the last ninety years, it had been painted bi-annually, rounding out the edges until the room looked like the inside of a wedding cake.

“Found her wandering the halls,” Gerry said before ducking out.

Daniel had on a thin blue tie and white shirt with the cuffs rolled to the elbows. His wooden chair was dressed in his jacket, and he was every bit the good-looking, hardworking crusader for justice. “Theresa, thank you for coming.”

“After the election, this beck-and-call thing is over,” I said.

He approached a chestnut table that must have come with the building and pulled out a chair for me. I sat. He leaned on his desk and crossed his arms instead of sitting with me. I crossed my legs and faced him.

“It’s been a tough few days here,” he said.

“I have a protocol review I can still make if you don’t have something to say to me.”

“I know how much you love those.” He smiled his big, natural white smile.

“There were threats something would actually get done at this one.”

“Then it’s not really a protocol review.”

I sighed. “This is about Antonio again? Just say it.”

“I need to know what he is to you.”

“Oh, God. Really?” I stood. “Dan, honey, you’re so far out of line.”

“It matters. It matters to my campaign, and it matters to me. I need your help, and in order for me to even ask, I need to know the nature of your relationship with him.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Have you had sex with him?”

“Daniel!”

“I need to know.”

“Is this a deposition? Are you taking notes? Where’s the court reporter?”

He sighed and dropped his arms. “We’ve reached a wonderful pause in a war that’s been going on for a few decades. We have the Carlonis for all manner of shit, and I’ll file charges when everything’s in order. But the other side? The Giraldi family? I have nothing. I have accounting files we got from the NSA, but everything looks clean. I need them looked at by someone with your eye.”

“And you don’t have a team of people?”

“They have skill. You have talent.”

“I think this is about more than my talent.” I couldn’t hold to that line for long because he’d asked me to look at the Carloni files months ago. He’d switched to their rivals, but his ideals about my talents were well known.

“We got Donna Maria Carloni on embezzlement thanks to a mole. Good mole. I got nothing with Spinelli,” he said.

“Who you can’t even prove is the head of any kind of crime organization, much less the Giraldis.”

“He’s committed a few murders to get to where he is, Tink. Just because I can’t prove it doesn’t make it any less true. And yes, I’m terrified of you being anywhere near him, and yes, this is two birds with one stone. I get your eyes on his books, and I get
you
to tell
me
where his malfeasance is. But if you’re sleeping with him, I can’t use you. I’ll have to fly a guy in from Quantico, and that’ll alert everyone that I have the NSA docs. They’ll be questioned and possibly yanked.”

“This is a hot mess.”

“I know.”

“The only way for me to avoid drama is to walk out right now,” I said. “But you have me curious. And you know I think you’re the best man for the mayor’s mansion.”

“So will you?”

“I had sex with him twice. But it’s over.”

He looked down to hide his expression, but I saw his fingers tighten. My first reaction was to tell him tough crap. He threw me away. It was my right to sleep with anyone I wanted. My second reaction was subtler.

“Do you have time for a personal question?” I asked.

He looked at me. I’d hurt him. I loved him, and I’d hurt him. I knew how he felt when he did it to me.

“I need it answered completely and honestly,” I said. “I have no energy for beating around the bush or confidence boosts right now.”

“Okay.”

“Is something about me just not enough? I mean, is there something inherently unsatisfying?”

He took a long time answering. “I always wondered if you really enjoyed it.”

I picked up my bag and slung it over my shoulder. “I did. A lot.”

He rushed to open the door for me. “I’m avoiding asking for another chance.”

“Well done, Mister Mayor.”

***

I got back to WDE in time for the protocol review, which was marginally productive. When I got back to my office, another vase of red roses stood on Pam’s desk.

I don’t give up so easy

Yeah. He’d chase me, catch me, and continue with Marina or whoever else made him feel good. An inaccessible little heiress would quickly become boring.

After seven years, Daniel didn’t know if I’d enjoyed sex. What was wrong with me? Was I empty inside? I’d thought I’d imagined every horrifying answer he could have given me, but I hadn’t even scratched the surface.

At least I knew what the problem was. Maybe if I went back to Daniel with the assurance that I did like sex, he wouldn’t look elsewhere. Maybe. But the thought of going back to him just depressed me.

 woke to the smell of bacon. I’d somehow crawled into bed during the middle of the night. Katrina had been known to put breakfast together when she felt chipper, and I was very grateful for her mood and her hospitality, especially on a work day. I showered and put up my hair, masking the circles under my eyes with some very expensive stage makeup. I was mid-stairwell when I heard a man’s voice coming from the open kitchen. Katrina said something I couldn’t hear above the crackle of pork belly. Then the man laughed.

“Antonio?” I bent around the iron bannister.

“He said I have to call him Spin,” Katrina called.

“
Buongiorno
! I brought you breakfast.”

I stepped into the kitchen. “I smelled the bacon.”

“It’s pancetta,” Katrina said, picking a few squares out of the pan and putting them on toast. “He’s corrected me, like, seven times already. He’s cute but annoying.”

“Mostly annoying,” he said, shifting scrambled eggs across the pan.

“Annoy me any time.” She folded up her sandwich and slipped it into a bag.

“This is a little presumptuous considering the way we left it last time,” I said.

“Gotta go!” Katrina gave Antonio the one-kiss-per-cheek exit and bounced out with a wink to me.

I crossed my arms, but I was hungry. The pancetta smelled delicious.

Antonio pointed the fork at me. “This suit? It’s nice for a funeral.”

I sucked in my cheeks. I’d chosen a black below-the-knee wool skirt and matching jacket, and he was trying to throw me off in my own house. He looked perfect in a light blue sweater and collar shirt.

“Insulting me?” I stood next to him and bumped him with my hip. “This is how you seduce me?” I snapped a wooden spoon from the canister and poked at the eggs.

“If I wanted to seduce you, the suit would be on the floor already.”

“You don’t want to seduce me?”

He took a piece of egg on a fork and blew on it. “I do, but as you know, we left on poor terms last time.” He held the fork to my lips, holding his palm under it to catch if it dripped.

“And tell me, Mister Spinelli, how do you intend to improve the terms?” I let him feed me.

“By explaining.” He divided the eggs onto two plates.

“What? I can’t hear you over this explosion of delicious.”

He looked genuinely pleased that I liked his cooking, and he counted the ingredients on his fingers. “Salt, milk,
parmigiano
, rosemary, and pancetta, of course. You have all my secrets now.” He put the plates on the center island and pulled a stool out for me. He’d already set out coffee, juice, and toast.

“You’ve buttered me up quite thoroughly.”

He sat and poured me coffee. “A compliment for a job well done?”

“Yes.”

“I appreciate that. But I want to give you the explanation part now, if the taste of the eggs won’t interfere with your hearing?”

“Okay, go ahead.”

He cleared his throat and sipped his juice. “Marina and I were a regular thing until a few weeks ago. She claimed I was distracted, and she was right. So we ended it. Or I thought we did. The other night, I found out that I’d ended it and she’d paused it.” He took a couple of bites of his breakfast then continued. “She comes from the same place I do. A little town outside Napoli. This was a connection between us. She’s a nice girl. I won’t speak evil of her. She took our thing more seriously than I did, and it didn’t break as easily as I’d expected. I’ve spent the past few days making sure she understands. I don’t want any crossover, or however you call it.”

I sighed and put down my fork. “I’m going to be honest. I like you. And I love this breakfast. But if I end up believing you’re telling me the whole truth, it’ll be a conscious decision I’m making. And with my history, that decision takes some effort. I don’t expect or want a commitment, but I don’t like crossover, as you say.”

“I don’t either.”

“And the questions thing? It bothers me.”

“I can’t negotiate that.”

“Then what are we doing?”

“We are enjoying ourselves. Do you object to that?”

“I guess I can live with it for now. It’ll come to bite us, though.”

“Maybe.” He leaned in to kiss me, much of his hardness and cocky arrogance gone. His lips looked soft and sweet as opposed to inaccessibly beautiful. His tongue was warm, slick, moving in harmony with his tender mouth. The smell of a pine forest in the morning, all dew and smoldering campfires, swelling my senses.

I wanted him. His neck, his jaw, his legs between mine. I wanted to suck on his fingers and thumbs. I reached between his legs, and he stopped me.

“This was only breakfast.”

I groaned. “Please?”

“Tempting, Contessa. But it’s been twice, and too hurried both times. The next time we fuck, it’s going to be for a few hours, and you’re going to need to be wheeled out. I’m not cheating you again.” He reached for the dishes. “I’ll clean up. Go get ready for work.”

By the time I’d brushed my teeth and put my hair and makeup in order, he’d finished clearing the island. We walked out the door kissing. I didn’t think I’d ever been so happy. Then I remembered what I’d promised Daniel, and by the time Antonio closed my car door and stepped away, my happiness had been worn away by the friction of reality.

I’d told Daniel it was over, and that had just changed, and I didn’t even know how. I was curious about Antonio’s alleged corruption. I couldn’t be with a criminal, much less a murderer. Not since my first experience at thirteen, which left me scarred and the boy dead, had I encountered a dangerous man. I’d kept clear of all manner of worthless street punk—until Antonio, who could still back off any question he didn’t feel like answering.

We were together. We weren’t. It didn’t matter. I was looking at those books.

y expertise was in accounting, but really, it was in the movement and flow of money. I looked at ledgers with a broad eye, finding patterns and flow. Like rivers on a map that fell into lakes, disappeared into mountains, and got spit into the ocean, the shifts of money were seen best from far away, with the finer details removed.