Mafia Legacy

Chapter Twenty Two-Charlotte

"I don't like this one bit." Marco glared, staring around the doorway into the kitchen at Hunter, who was seated at the table.

"I don't either, Marco." I kept my voice low. "But we're kind of running out of options here. And if Luca and Angelo are going to keep us in the dark like they are, we have to do something."

"What if he's full of shit and we go on spot wild goose chase?"

"Is that worse than what we're doing now? We have nothing to go off of. We can't even get in touch with Luca or Angelo right now, and they're not helping much, even when we can. My family is falling apart and they're threatening to put my husband to death for this. You and I are literally running around in circles, and I think we need to hear him out."

"Fine." Marco gritted his teeth. There was no denying I was right. "But I'm not making any promises until we hear what he has to say and we can verify it."

"But it's my decision whether we act on it or not." I reminded him. Technically, I was in charge, but I wasn't naïve enough to think I didn't need Marco. He was much more qualified for the job than I was, but I knew from experience that sometimes he dragged his heels when he was the one making decisions. He didn't want to be wrong and get somebody hurt, but sometimes things were time sensitive.

"No, it'll be our decision." He arched his eyebrow at me. "You and I are partners, always have been. This isn't on either one of us alone. We're in it together. That's the only way we're going to be able to fix it."

I nodded, more thankful than I could even put into words for him. Marco truly was the best friend I'd ever had.

"Let me do the talking, okay?" He said. "I can't have you going all mama bear on him about Layla if he truly has information for us."

I followed him into the kitchen and Hunter glanced up at the both of us.

"You have 3 minutes to tell us your side of things. I don't care if you're a cop, if you're jerking us around, you'll be at the bottom of the lake before sunrise. Especially after what you did to Layla."

I rolled my eyes. And I was the one he was worried about going Mama bear?

"Believe me," he sighed. "I hate myself for the way that things happened with Layla too. I never meant to hurt her and I swear to God I had no idea who she even was when we started dating. I really, really liked her, and I wish I hadn't been dumb enough to let something like this happen."

"What exactly happened?"

"They bugged my apartment without me knowing when they found out who Layla was. They didn't hear much, but she was open with me about you know, you guys and everything." Hunter said.

"I need to know exactly what she said." Marco pressed.

"I mean, she told me what Luca did and what he was involved with. And you and her other uncles. But anything she said is just hearsay. I think they wanted their own clarification to go after Luca."

Damn it, Layla. I was so frustrated she had shared that with him so early on. It wasn't like she could keep it a secret, or even wanted her to, but they had only been dating a few months, tops. That wasn't the kind of information you just gave out.

"Why do you think you can help us now?" Marco asked.

"I'm all for justice, but not like this. They're framing Luca, 100%. The DA is paying people to pretend that they were witnesses. That's not the kind of thing I signed up to be involved in. Whitaker thinks it will win him an election if he brings down a big criminal organization, so he's pulling out all the stops."

"How exactly do you know all of this?"

"He tried to pay me off, too. Wanted me to get more information from Layla. And that was when I realized what it happened."