Page 79 of Ruthless Daddy
It was too much. The not-knowing. The way the silence didn’t even feel like a standoff—just a waiting room.
I said, very quietly, “Pietro. Daddy. Where are we going?”
He didn’t answer right away. He drove past another intersection, then turned left without signaling. He said, “Somewhere I can talk to you properly, sweetheart.”
I watched the city slide by. The buildings got lower, older, pressed in by the warehouses and the chain-link lots where companies stored their white vans and salt bins. It was the part of Chicago that looked like nowhere, like every city’s industrial back end: brick, blacktop, forgotten signage.
“You . . . regret what happened last night?”
Like a flash, he glanced over. His hand shot from the wheel and took mine.
“Baby, no. I don’t regret it. Not for a second. I’m proud. It’s one of the best things I ever did. No, this isn’t about that, you hear?”
I didn’t push. I just watched.
He made a right onto a street I’d never been on, a skinny, dead-end block that terminated at a train overpass. Halfway down, he pulled the car into a diagonal parking space outside a building so nondescript it could have been condemned. Only the hand-painted sign over the window betrayed it as a bakery: Forno di Capri, old letters, the blue faded to white. The windows were steamed up, lights on behind them.
He killed the engine. He didn’t move for a second. Then he turned to me, his eyes fixed hard on mine.
He said, “I am sorry, Angela. For what I am about to tell you. I wish I didn’t have to.”
I didn’t answer. I just nodded, once.
He got out of the car. I followed, boots hitting the salted pavement, the cold burning my nose and making my eyes water. The wind stung my ears, but I barely felt it. My heart was doing something violent in my chest.
He waited at the curb for me, then opened the door to the bakery and held it, a perfect gentleman, like this was just breakfast. Like anything was ever just breakfast.
Wesatinsilencefor almost a minute.
The woman at the counter brought two small coffees in white ceramic, a plate of sugar packets, and a refill of the bread basket. She set it down, smiled at us both, and then disappeared into the back room. Nobody else came in. The city outside the steamed glass felt like it belonged to someone else.
Pietro steepled his fingers. When he spoke, his voice was lower than usual. It didn’t sound like the voice he used on the phone, or with his cousins. It was a voice meant to report something terrible, but also to keep you calm.
He said, “Yesterday, Dante called a meeting. It was at the Carriage House, early. Sal, Tonio, Marco, myself. We had new intelligence—confirmed, not just rumor.”
I watched the coffee swirl. I didn’t touch it.
He said, “Marseilles sent a crew. French, not Italian, not local. They specialize in extractions—taking people alive, not dead.” He paused. “They arrived two days ago. We picked them up at O’Hare, followed to a motel on Mannheim. Sal thinks they made us within the first hour. These men are . . . very, very good.”
His voice stayed calm, even as his hands twisted together on the table.
He said, “They’re not here for a random hit. It’s contracted, expensive, a lot of money for one job. It’s you. We know that because we intercepted a message from Enzo, through Toronto, to the Marseilles cell. The wire money was marked with a number—the case number from your trial.”
He let that hang there.
I thought: this is all exactly what I would have done, if I wanted to disappear a person. Outsource. Use a channel with no ties to Chicago, no traceable history. Move fast, work only in daylight, keep the operation as quiet as possible. If it had been someone else, I might have admired it.
He said, “The plan—Dante’s plan—was to let them make their play. Not to catch them, but to follow. The only way to reach Enzo is to watch how the Frenchmen operate, how they get you out, who they hand you off to. If we intervene too soon, we only get the foot soldiers. If we let it play, we get the chain.”
He looked at me, just a flick up and back, as if afraid of what I’d do with the information.
He said, “It’s a good plan, in theory. In practice . . . it means you are the bait.”
I nodded, just once. I felt ice in my gut.
He said, “Dante asked me, specifically, not to tell you. I argued, of course, but he insisted that if you knew, somehow you would blow it. Give it away.” He sighed a deep sigh. “I said yes. I thought—” and now his voice caught, just a fraction, “—I thought I could shield you from the worst of it. That if you didn’t know, you would be safe.”
He looked at his hands, then back at me. “I made that choice for you. I’m sorry.”
