‘Just visiting the grave,’ said Annie, indicating Constantine’s last resting place. ‘You?’
‘Yeah. I come here to see them every week.’
Alberto walked forward and laid one of the bouquets in front of his father’s headstone. He placed the other one on another of the graves there. Away in the distance, Annie saw a priest walking, hurrying between the headstones.
‘It’s been a long time,’ she said.
‘Yeah.’
Sandor and the others were scanning the graveyard. They watched the priest vanish from sight, then cast around for any other movement. Dangerous men, she thought. Her life had been full of them. If there was one thing she hoped for, it was that Layla would one of these days – soon, with luck – fall for some nice straight guy. That the lure of bad boys wouldn’t affect her life as it had her mother’s.
‘You look tired,’ she said to Alberto as he straightened up.
‘Do I?’
‘Everything OK?’
‘As OK as it ever is,’ he said.
‘Alberto, what is it?’
He gave a smile. ‘I’ve been thinking, that’s all.’
‘About what?’
‘That this whole house of cards is about to come crashing down.’
Annie looked at him in alarm.
He shrugged lightly. ‘Sometime soon, I might have to take off somewhere.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
Alberto’s eyes were smiling into hers. ‘Stepmom, I’m a very bad man. The Feds have levelled a lot of accusations against me. And my attorneys are working hard at batting them away, as usual. But I get the feeling, the strong feeling, that before long the game’s gonna be up.’
Annie stared at him, worried. ‘And these accusations are…?’
‘How long you got? Money laundering, evading tax, sale of stolen goods, conspiracy, racketeering… oh, and maybe murder. If they can make it stick.’
‘They can’t – can they?’
‘They move slow. We move faster. But some day, the axe is gonna fall. Regan wants a clean sheet, and that means taking care of outstanding business. And that’s people like me.’
‘The murder charge…’
‘It’s not a charge. Not yet.’
‘Is that… would that be Lucco?’
‘And others,’ said Alberto.
Lucco was Alberto’s older brother, Constantine’s eldest son. He had vanished years ago, presumed dead. After that, Alberto had taken over the reins of the family firm. Annie hated Lucco, but nonetheless she had always wondered what happened to him.
Alberto’s eyes grew colder. ‘Lucco had no respect for anyone, living or dead. Everything our father had worked for, slaved for, he would have run straight into the ground.’
And you couldn’t let that happen, thought Annie.
‘You know, once I thought you and Daniella…’ she started.