Sempre: Redemption (Forever Series #2)(47)

Touché. Corrado nodded, motioning toward the briefcase, silently permitting him to prove his worth. Remy eyed the lock for a moment before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small tension wrench and a pick. Corrado watched, fascinated that the boy carried them with him. “Do you make it a habit to keep tools in your pocket?”

“Yes,” he replied. “You never know when you might need to pick a lock or hot-wire a car, so I try to keep what I’d need on me just in case. Same reason you always carry a gun, I’m guessing.”

“Do you carry a gun also?”

“Not always,” he admitted. “I tend to only have it when I think my life might be on the line.”

“Do you have one with you now?”

Remy hesitated. “Yes.”

Corrado smiled at that and relaxed back into his chair, tapping his foot to the beat of the music from the club. Two songs from Sinatra’s Greatest Hits passed before Remy made any progress, a smile lighting the boy’s face as he finally jimmied the lock. The briefcase cracked open, not wide enough to see inside, but enough for Corrado to take over.

Remy returned his tools to his pocket and took a step back. “It’s all yours.”

“You’re not going to ask me what it is?”

“No.”

“You’re not at all curious?”

“Well, of course, but it’s none of my business,” he replied. “If you wanted me to know, you would’ve told me, right?”

“Right.” Corrado stood up, motioning for the boy to follow him as he stepped out of the office and met up with one of the security guards in the hallway, standing watch outside the office door. “Tell the bartender Tarullo’s drinks are on the house. Anything he wants, he gets—no questions asked.”

The guard nodded. “Yes, Boss.”

Corrado stepped back into his office, shutting the door and locking it before strolling over to the desk. He pried the briefcase open and blinked rapidly as he eyed the contents.

A lone VHS tape.

Corrado had considered a lot of things—guns, money, gold, even body parts—but an old movie had never crossed his mind.

The worn carton encasing it crumbled as soon as he picked it up. He tossed that part aside and surveyed the black tape, finding no label. It was seemingly blank, but Corrado knew better. Someone had gone to great lengths to hide that videotape.

Stepping back out of the office, he looked at the security guard again. “Fetch me a VCR.”

The man’s brow furrowed. “A VCR?”

“Yeah.” Corrado waved him off impatiently. “Make it fast.”

Twenty minutes passed, then thirty, and finally forty-five before the guard returned with a used VCR cradled under his arm. He passed it off to Corrado, who took it into the office and closed the door. Plugging it in, he hooked it up to the small television on the corner of his desk that displayed the security feed.

Immediately a movie started playing, a cartoon with a princess and an obnoxiously catchy tune blaring in the background. Corrado grimaced and ejected the tape, throwing it aside before carefully inserting the one from the briefcase.

Nothing happened for a moment; the numbers on the VCR counted away, but the screen remained as black as night. Corrado was about to give up, feeling duped, when the screen flickered and up popped a face he hadn’t seen in years.

Frankie Antonelli.

The footage jumped and rolled. Corrado pushed the tracking button, trying to straighten it out, but nothing helped. He gave up and sat back in his chair as Frankie started to talk, the sound cracking and buzzing when he turned up the volume.

“I, uh . . . I’ve never been a religious man. I come from a religious family, my pop’s a devout Roman Catholic, just like my granddad back in the old country, but me? Naw, I never believed it. I don’t believe in prayer or salvation, don’t believe in Heaven, but I do believe in Hell. I got to. I live in it.”

Frankie ran his hands down his face as he paused. “I don’t believe in confession . . . you know, asking for forgiveness and all that . . . but I get why the guys do it. We ain’t never gonna be forgiven for the shit we do, but it eases the conscience. It’s hard to walk around every day, carrying so many secrets. And I got secrets. I got plenty of sins in my book. And I ain’t asking to be forgiven for them, I ain’t asking to be saved, but I gotta get them out. I can’t carry them around anymore . . . not when I spend every day in this Hell, staring at them in the face.”

Corrado’s stomach dropped, coldness creeping through him. He felt the urge to eject the tape, throw it in the trashcan and set it on fire. What kind of wise guy—what kind of man of honor—breaks his vow of silence on video? He was disgusted, disgruntled, and downright angry.

But another part, deep down inside, rendered him immobile. Maybe it was curiosity, or maybe instinct, but something forced him to keep watching the tape.

For the next thirty minutes, Corrado stared at the screen, stunned speechless as a man he once considered a mentor, a friend, a brother, who turned into a traitor, a coward, a rat, spilled a secret that shocked even him. He had seen it all, he had done it all, but the words Frankie spoke, the horrific truth that spilled from his lips, was something Corrado couldn’t begin to fathom.

Unimaginable. Appalling. He felt sick.

Corrado’s disgust only grew with each word, his contempt now unwavering. Everything he believed, everything he knew, had been put into question by a shaky half hour of spineless confession.