Page 28 of Traitor
I grinned. “Agree, sign the contract, and then we can hash out details.”
“The details won’t be in the contract?”
I furrowed my brow. “Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
He lifted his head so that he looked down his nose at me. “Very well.”
My eyebrows rose. “Very well, what?”
He took a step back from me and stuck out his hand. “You have forty-eight hours to draw up a contract that my lawyer will take a look at.”
I looked down at his hand. “Is your lawyer employed by your brother?”
“How stupid do you really think I am, Mateo?”
I shook his hand. “Not as stupid as I apparently thought.”
I released his hand and reached for the contract that I had slipped into the breast pocket of my jacket. I withdrew it and unfurled it for him, allowing Lorenzo to take a look at it before I slapped it against his chest.
“I don’t need forty-eight hours. This is the contract I have already signed. Take a look at it, add what you need, I’ll sign off on the addendums, and then we can talk logistics.”
He chuckled as he took it from me. “You really do work ahead, don’t you?”
I slid my hands into my pockets. “I’m nothing, if not efficient.”
He rolled it up and slid it into his back pocket. “I’ll get it to my lawyer tonight, and by tomorrow you’ll have a list of addendums, I’m sure.”
I nodded. “I look forward to reading them over with my lawyer.”
“Already got yourself another one, huh?”
I resisted the urge to kill him with his own gun. “Again, efficiency above all else.”
He held out his arms. “Well, let’s at least have a drink to celebrate this most unlikely reunion. Teresa!”
He clapped his hands and a scantily-clad woman appeared at his side dressed in what I could only assume were the remnants of a once-respectable maid outfit.
“Bring my finest whiskey and two crystal glasses into the book room. Mr. Emiliano and I are going to toast our new alliance.”
And as he ushered me down an expanse of hallways, I got a first-hand look at the intricacy of Lorenzo’s home. The maze-work of the hallways, in and of itself, were dizzying, and I knew Char could be in any one of these rooms. If she wasn’t still in his infamous basement. Everyone knew about Lorenzo’s basement. All of the torturous horrors that went on down there. The amount of blood that had been spilled and hosed down into the sewers that ran below his property. It made me sick to think about Char being down there, but I had to play this right.
Because if I did, I’d betray everyone, be rid of the Luccheses for good, and have Char back at my side.
Right where she belonged.
13
Charlotte
I staredat myself in the mirror, watching as my eyeliner slowly slid down my face. I felt so numb inside that I didn’t feel myself cry anymore. I didn’t feel tears brewing or sliding down my face. I didn’t feel my throat catch or knot up in any way. I had grown so used to crying silently so Lorenzo didn’t hear me and come beat the shit out of me that it had become second nature.
Like cursing, or taking a shit.
“You’re a wreck, pull yourself together.”
I saw my lips moving in the mirror. I heard the rumbling of my voice in my throat. But, my mind wouldn’t process the words. Instead, I cried harder, the tears coming frequently as they slid down my cheeks and found their death upon my ratty shirt.
The shirt Lorenzo had torn open to get to my breasts.
