“What?” I say.
“There’s nothing romantic between Dante and me.”
“I never said there was.”
She rolls her eyes.
I’m driving us up Lakeshore Drive, the water spooling away beside us on our right. Riona looks out at the lake, which is flat and gray today, almost the exact same color as the cloudy sky.
“I know he was carrying a torch for Simone all along,” I say.
“That’s not why!” Riona snaps. “I mean, I knew he was in love with her. He said he wasn’t, but it was obvious. All I thought was that I hoped it worked out someday. It made me sad to see him hurting like that. There wasn’t anything romantic between us either way. We were just friends. We still are.”
“Alright,” I say. “I believe you.”
“I don’t care if you believe me or not. That’s the truth.” Riona is quiet a moment. Then she says softly, “He respected me. So often men act like you have to prove yourself to them. When I showed up at the jail after they arrested him—you know about that?”
I nod. When the Griffins and the Gallos were fighting with the Polish Mafia, the Polish boss Mikolaj Wilk framed Dante for murder. Riona got the charges dropped.
“Dante trusted me to help him. Even though we barely knew each other. And our families had been enemies not long before.” Riona links her fingers gently on her lap. She has lovely hands—pale and slim with clear polish over the shell-pink nails. “We’re alike in a lot of ways. Disciplined. Hard-working. Unemotional. People respect that in a man. But with a woman, they say you’re cold or harsh.”
“People say that about Deuce, too.”
“They don’t hold it against him, though.”
I think about that. How attributes are viewed in men versus women. How women are criticized for behaviors that might be seen as virtues in men. You see plenty of that in the military—guys getting complimented for their “leadership skills,” and gals getting called “ball-busting bitches” when they give the same orders.
“You’re right,” I say, after a moment. “And you’re right that I shouldn’t have assumed that you and Dante couldn’t just be friends.”
Riona glances over at me, surprised that I actually agreed with her for once.
“People are always telling me what I should want, or what I should feel,” she says.
“Is Dean one of those people?”
That was the wrong thing to say. I can almost see her barriers coming up again.
“You were lying when you said you didn’t like art,” Riona says. “You were laying a trap for him, so you could make him look stupid.”
“For a smart guy, it was awfully easy to make him look dumb.”
“You didn’t like him as soon as he made that comment about the military.”
“Everybody thinks they know what’s it like to be in the army ‘cause they watched Saving Private Ryan.”
Riona nods slowly. “Right. And everyone’s a lawyer because they watched Suits.”
I laugh. “Well . . . that was a pretty good show.”
Riona smiles just a little. “I watched it for the clothes. Donna knew how to dress. Joan from Mad Men, too. They don’t always do the redheads right on TV, but with those two . . . ”
I’m sorry that we’re already pulling up in front of Callum’s place. Right when Riona was actually starting to relax a little. It takes me a minute to be sure we’ve got the right place, because the building looks like an old church, not an apartment complex. But Riona assures me this is the spot.
I never met Callum on my last visit—he was busy watching the birth of his son. I know all about him, though. He’s married to Dante’s little sister Aida. He’s the oldest Griffin child and heir to the empire.
I can tell straight off how much he cares about Riona. He brings us up to his cozy kitchen, which is small but warm, with exposed brick walls and butcher block counters. Plenty of the original church remains, including the long roof beams, and several stained-glass windows.
Despite how late it is, Callum’s still dressed in slacks and a white button-up shirt, the sleeves rolled up. He keeps his voice low as he pours us all a drink, mindful of Aida and the baby asleep in the next room.
“How’s Miles?” Riona whispers.
“Getting more stubborn by the day.” Callum smiles.
He pours us each a glass of red wine.
“To family,” he says simply.
This time, I take a sip. The wine seems especially good after the ribeye. It’s funny eating and drinking like this. The two months before I hardly had a single good meal. Now I’m in the lap of luxury. I’ll have to be careful not to let it go to my head. Hunger gives you an edge.
“Alright,” I say, setting down the wine. “What do we know about the diver?”
Callum opens his laptop and plays the security video for me.
Even though I can see that it upsets Riona, she watches the whole thing over again without taking her eyes off the screen.
“How did you get away from him under the water?” I ask.
She explains about the hairpin.
“That was lucky,” I say. “And smart.”
As the diver climbs out of the pool I say, “He looks about six-two, two hundred pounds. Does that sound right, Riona?”
She nods. “He was strong. Young, probably—less than forty. Dark eyes.” She pauses for a moment, remembering. “I think he was left-handed,” she adds.
“Why do you say that?”
“When I was laying on my back, his arm came over my neck this way . . . ” she mimes it crossing her throat from left to right. “I think that was his dominant arm.”
“Good.” I nod.
“Not much of a description,” Riona says skeptically.
“It’s better than nothing,” I say.
We all watch the diver pick up her phone after he gets out of the pool.
“Have you tried tracking the phone?” I ask Callum.
“Yes,” he says. “It turned on briefly in Greektown. Then it disappeared again.”
“What kind of info is on that phone?”
“A lot of things,” Riona says. “Personal and banking info. All my work emails . . . it’s password-protected, but you know that doesn’t mean shit to somebody who knows what they’re doing.”
“Could the phone have been the target?”
Riona shrugs. “Seems like there are easier ways to steal it.”
I turn to Callum again. “Do you know who brokers hits in Chicago? If this guy was hired locally, a broker could tell us who the diver was. And maybe who hired him.”
“I know someone.” Callum nods.
I want to go along with Callum for that. So I say to Riona, “Can I take you over to your parents’ place tomorrow? Just for a couple hours.”
“Sure,” she says, without much enthusiasm.
“Alright,” I say. “Now what about enemies. Who has a grudge against you at the moment?”
“Against Riona specifically—nobody,” Callum says. “Against the Griffins—a whole fuck of a lot of people. Top of the list are the Russians. My father killed their last boss, Kolya Kristoff. The new one is an old-school gangster out of Moscow. His name is Alexei Yenin. He worked as an interrogator for the KGB, so as you can imagine, he’s as vicious as they come.”