Sempre: Redemption (Forever Series #2)(90)

Ping, whack, ping, whack, ping, whack

CRACK

The sickening crunch of Corrado’s fist connecting with the guy’s face echoed through the concrete room, bouncing off the metal doors. The guy hit the floor with a thud, stunned, as blood poured from his nose. The crowd was immediately silenced and took a step back, retreating, as whistles and lights went off on the tier.

Corrado stood in place and raised his hands in the air as a horde of correctional officers descended upon them. They ignored his peaceful surrender and grabbed him, violently shoving him against the nearest wall. His hands were forced behind his back, his wrists secured with handcuffs before shackles were attached to his ankles. In a matter of seconds he was led away, taken straight to solitary confinement.

“Dumb move, Moretti,” an officer said as they placed him in the single windowless cell, brightly lit by a flickering fluorescent bulb. “You’ll be lucky if you don’t get an assault charge.”

Corrado laughed dryly. The D.A. wouldn’t waste his time. He had beat four trumped-up murder charges, seven assault charges, three counts of extortion, and a dozen weapons violations, give or take a few. A punch was nothing, no more than a speeding ticket.

The officer shook his head as he released Corrado from his restraints, annoyed by his refusal to react. “You’re not as infallible as you think you are. If you were, you wouldn’t be in prison right now.”

“It’s only temporary,” Corrado said, rubbing his hand. His knuckles were already swelling from the force of the punch.

“That’s probably true,” the officer muttered. “I’ll never understand.”

“I’m not surprised,” Corrado quipped. “Comprehension doesn’t seem to be your strong suit.”

The officer ignored the jab as he locked the cell and walked away. Finally alone, Corrado lay on the hard, thin mattress and once again draped his arm over his eyes. Silence surrounded him, blanketing him in peace as sleep took him away.

When he resurfaced, the pounding in his head had dulled. He sat up and glanced toward the door at the same time the slot in it opened, an officer’s voice carrying through. “Mail call.”

He slid in two envelopes that fell to the floor, both already opened. He wasn’t surprised. His mail was routinely checked, confiscated for days and read countless times in an attempt to find some hidden message they would never find.

Not because there wasn’t one . . . because they weren’t smart enough to decipher their code.

“Heard it’s your birthday,” the officer said. “That true?”

“Yes.”

The officer laughed. “Solitary confinement—hell of a birthday present.”

Corrado stood and grabbed the mail when the slot closed. The first was a simple birthday card from his wife, plain blue with no sappy message inside. He eyed the second envelope curiously before pulling out the sheet of paper. It was short, the message scribbled in messy pen.

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I went to work,

How ‘bout you?

P.S.—I thought violets were purple, not blue. Color me surprised. Thinking I need some tutoring—the hands-on type.

He read it twice, surprised the message made it through security. The note wasn’t signed, the return address sketchy, but he knew exactly who it had come from.

Corrado had no pen and paper, so he couldn’t reply yet, but he knew exactly what he’d say:

Flowers come in every color, but some aren’t meant to be picked. Enjoy the view, but don’t try to plant any of your seeds in my garden. I’d hate to see you piled high with fertilizer.

31

On the first day of spring, March 20, trucks and vans packed the streets surrounding the Dirksen Federal Building in downtown Chicago. The sun shone brightly, the afternoon warm as trees grew lush and flowers bloomed. The way it felt on the twelfth floor of the building, though, you wouldn’t know things flourished outside.

Under the dim lighting of the courtroom, Corrado sat behind the long defendant’s table, hands clasped in front of him, tie hanging sloppily around his neck. His wife hadn’t been there that morning to fix it as he dressed in a room not far from where he sat. The air was frigid in temperature and feeling. Despite having lived in Chicago for decades, he still wasn’t used to the cold.

He didn’t shiver, though. He refused to appear weak.

UNITED STATES V. CORRADO MORETTI

DAY ONE

The courtroom was packed, not an empty seat anywhere to be found. Corrado had surveyed the spectators when he was ushered in, spotting Celia in the back with her nephew, Dominic. Besides them, he saw little in the way of friendly faces. No family, no friends, no La Cosa Nostra . . . victims and their relatives crammed the frozen room, sucking up all of the oxygen.

Corrado could feel their hostility ghosting across his skin.

He didn’t care what they thought, though. The only opinions that mattered to him belonged to the twelve people stuffed into the secluded box along the side. Eight men and four women, housed in a dingy hotel for the duration of the trial, guarded twenty-four hours a day.

It was the first time Corrado had been given a sequestered jury. The judge was afraid he would bribe his way out of trouble or ultimately hurt someone to get his way. If it didn’t annoy him so much, having to rely on a genuine outcome, he might have been flattered by their fear.