Before she could say anything, he struck her again, this time on the left cheek. “And that's for using my name over and over, like you're in some stupid FBI course on hostage negotiation. That psychobabble ain't gonna work on me, understand? From now on, you keep my name out of your fucking mouth. You lost the right to address me directly.”
Gio reached out and grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her head back. She cried out, her eyes glassy with fright. He remembered the unsatisfying encounter with that girl Katie after his party and felt true happiness bloom in the pit of his stomach. At last, he was feared again, an inflictor of pain, and all was right in his world.
“Now let's get a few things straight,” Gio hissed into her ear. “First of all, you ain't smarter than me, so if you're thinking you're gonna figure a way out of this, you can put that out of your empty little head right now. From this point forward, you belong to me. Get used to it.
“Second,” he continued, “how I'm gonna play the whole picture thing is my problem. Your only problem is showing up at my place tomorrow at eleven, or else your whole career's gonna go down the toilet. You're gonna be clickbait, understand? You're gonna be the world's most embarrassing federal agent. And it won't matter where you move, or how far. Any time you go to the grocery store, any time you get gas for your car, any time you so much as walk outta your house to grab the paper from your front lawn...that's a day you're gonna have to ask yourself if someone's gonna recognize you, and if that someone's gonna be a gangster who wants to make his bones that day by whacking Carla the Topless Fed. Nod if you fucking understand me.”
Carla nodded, tears glistening in her eyes.
“Good.” Gio let go of her hair. “Tomorrow. Eleven o'clock. Wear a suit and don't be late. Oh, and no more guns, understand? I'm gonna start frisking you randomly when we're together, and if I ever find so much as a sharp nail file in your purse, I'm gonna use it on you and you ain't gonna like how I do it.”
Gio got up and left the room. As he headed for the kitchen door, he heard Carla sobbing behind him. Smiling, he picked up the tool kit and walked out, letting the back door slam.
He strolled back to his car, whistling to himself. He felt exhilarated, as though he'd boarded a rollercoaster he'd never been on before and it was making its first ascent. He knew it would be tricky and dangerous to blackmail her like this, and part of his mind insisted that he was being foolish, that he should just walk back in and shoot her twice in the head before this went any further. But instead, he kept moving forward until he reached the block where he'd parked his 'Vette.
Bandana and his friends were still hanging out on the street corner.
“Don't you have a home to go to?” Gio called out.
Bandana gestured to the corner. “You're lookin' at it, homie.” He saw that Gio was carrying the tool kit, but nothing else. “What, you didn't find nothin' worth takin' in that house? No TV, stereo, nothin' like that?”
“I found something much more valuable than any of that shit,” Gio smirked.
“Oh yeah? Feel like sharin'?”
“No fucking way,” Gio replied, unlocking his car and getting in.
“Yo, hold up!” Bandana said, trotting over to the Corvette. “I figure maybe a guy like you might wanna party, right? Check it, I got rock, I got weed, I got H, whatever you need, man. Competitive prices an' shit, too.”
Gio laughed. “Hey, can't you tell? I'm high on life!”
He put the car in drive and pulled away. He was still laughing when he pulled onto Lake Shore Drive, thinking of the fun that awaited him the next night.
Chapter 14
Carla
Carla sat up in bed for the rest of the night, hugging her knees to her chest. Her thoughts whirled and flapped inside her skull in a frantic cloud, like a flock of trapped sparrows.
Don was right. She'd been foolish to think of Gio as anything other than what his actions had proven him to be—a savage, black-hearted predator. She'd thought that trying to understand and even empathize with her target would make her a better and more effective undercover agent.
Instead, all it had made her was a bigger sucker. And now she was about to pay a horrible price for it.
She thought about Don's offer to pull her out. Earlier tonight, she'd refused without a moment's hesitation, but now that everything seemed to have blown up in her face, it seemed like the only decision that made sense. She'd been compromised in the clearest and most absolute sense of the word, and when agents got compromised, they got extracted, period.
It would represent a major setback in the case, certainly, and it might take months or even years for another agent to get this close to the Mancinis again after they'd uncovered two agents hiding in their ranks in one year. But the FBI valued its people too much to leave them in danger once they were at risk of discovery.