TWENTY-FOUR

said his name I felt myself bristle. No matter how angry I was, the thought of betraying Arturo cut through me like a knife. Even the prospect of being asked to do so set me on edge; back hunched, I leaned further over the table and scowled.

I could anticipate what came next.

"Would you say that you and Mr Lucchese are...happy?" she asked. Her voice remained flat, but I could see the sharp, probing edge in her dark eyes.

"Irrelevant to the case," I shrugged.

"But you are together?"

"Irrelevant to the case."

"Look, Miss Genovese," she settled her hands on the table and I sighed. "I am not the enemy here."

"Sure you're not," I scoffed. I just wanted this to be over. I didn't care what she had to say; there was no way I would talk. I wouldn't give her what she wanted.

She was the enemy.

But as I stared up at the wall, I wondered at what point I'd started seeing it as them vs us. When had I started classing myself as part of the mafia? Was I a part of it? Sure, I knew more than most. But I'd never participated. I'd never done anything wrong. I was terrified of the mafia, of what it could do to people.

"Let's forget the case for a moment," the detective suggested.

My eyes met hers and I raised a brow. "Why would we do that?"

"Because I know what it's like, Florence." She let her sentence hang in the air, waiting to see if I would take the bait. I kept silent and tried to imagine what sort of witty remark Arturo would make if he was here.

I couldn't think of any.

Finally my curiosity got the better of me. "Know what what is like?"

"Being in love with someone who's bad for you," she said and I scoffed.

"You don't know what's good or bad for me."

"Maybe not," she agreed and silence filled up the room again. I stared down at the table so she couldn't see how terrified I was of this whole situation. Of what my life had become. What I'd got myself into. "You know, Florence, you're not the first woman in this position to sit across from me." She pulled out a manila folder and put it down on the desk. It was thick and weighty. "Most of them are young, just like you." The first page revealed an identity file, a young brunette with wide eyes stared back at me. "This is Scarlet-" the next page was a busty blonde "-Lacey-" jet black hair and piercing green eyes "-Marie-" mousy brown curls and tear stained cheeks "-and Rachel. They all fell in love with a mobster."

It was difficult, removing my gaze from those photographs. I locked eyes with the lawyer instead.

"Of course, there were differences. Most of them were - if you don't mind me saying - a little stupid. Falling in love with a mobster for the money, the thrill. The men were almost always older - a lot older." The next page in the folder revealed a row of photographs of men, most of whom looked over fifty, with names and information underneath. When I saw my Uncle Antonio I felt my stomach bottom out.

I covered my mouth and turned my head away. I could still remember the blade of my knife sliding into his body. The dull thud of his dead weight hitting the ground.

The lawyer tapped his photograph. "A relative of yours, no?"

"Enough," I said but she only continued.

"Rachel was his little plaything, she was only twenty when we found her left for dead in the gutter." The lawyer slid the folder across the table so it sat in front of me. I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes. "Poor girl had been with Antonio since she was seventeen, she swore he loved her right 'till the end as well."

"What does this have to do with me?" I challenged, though I knew the answer was everything.

"Would you like to see how Antonio left Rachel when he was finished with her?" she asked and I shook my head. She flipped the page anyway and I gasped at the mangled body in the photograph. "He thought she'd been passing information to the Russians for a take over. He also thought she'd been sleeping with one of them."

"Arturo trusts me," I said and the lawyer shrugged.

"And Antonio trusted Rachel. Until he didn't anymore." She put a manicured finger on the image in front of me. "He tortured her. Pulled out her fingernails and teeth until she started making things up just to get him to stop. She hadn't done any of the things he accused her of, you see, but it was too late once he realised that. He shot her knee caps so she couldn't get help and left her in a ditch in the middle of nowhere."

"Arturo wouldn't do that." I folded my arms. "He's not like that."

"Come on Florence, you're a smart girl."

"Don't patronise me," I spat and my voice shook.

"I wasn't," she said, holding her hands up. "Antonio was a loose cannon, I'll admit. Let's look at Lacey-"

"No."

"-her case is especially interesting." The lawyer flipped forward a few pages. "Lacey was a hooker before Giovanni Bonanno picked her up. She was twenty five and thought the world of that man, until one day airport security found a kilo of heroin stored in a secret compartment of her suitcase. We brought her to the station and she broke down. It turned out Giovanni had been using her as a drugs mule for years without her knowledge."

"Are you trying to accuse me of something?"

The lawyer ploughed on and ignored me. "Once we discovered that, all sorts of things started pouring out of Lacey's mouth. She was scared of Giovanni and wanted an out. He controlled every aspect of her life." She gave me a pointed look. "She'd lost all her friends, she hadn't spoken to her family in years. She didn't go anywhere Giovanni didn't want her to; she lived with him, relied on him for money and support. Even when she went shopping his men followed her. She lost all freedom, she became isolated and scared and the more she complained the tighter the restrictions got. The longer she was with him the worse his violent outbursts became, too."

"Arturo wouldn't hurt me," I denied and the lawyer pursed her lips. I knew he wouldn't hurt me. Not anymore, we had no secrets from each other.

"The day before we busted Lacey for possession of class a substances, do you want to know what Giovanni did to her, Florence?"

"I don't care," I said through gritted teeth. Of course I cared about the atrocities the mafia carried out. I cared about these poor women, but I couldn't stand this any longer. I was terrified that if she continued, something she told me would hit too close to home.

Did Arturo have a past like this? How many women had he been with before me? I didn't know. And that realisation scared me.

I didn't know at all.

"You're a lawyer, I know you care."

"You're trying to scare me into ratting on the Luccheses."

"I'm not trying to scare you, Florence," she denied. "I'm telling you what happens to women in your position. I'm telling you what the mafia are like, what they're really like. Not whatever fantasy Arturo has filled your head up with, not the softened down, neat-at-the-edges version. You deserve to know."

"I know what they're like," I spat. I could feel tears burning behind my eyes because the words coming out of my mouth weren't the truth.

I didn't know.

"The day before we busted Lacey, Giovanni had been in a particularly bad mood." I could already feel bile rising in my throat. I couldn't look away from the images of broken bodies in the folder. I couldn't look away from the women's faces, wide with hope for the world.

The mafia had broken them. It had broken all of them.

"Lacey said she was thinking of cancelling her flight out to Italy and getting a new one to Miami to visit her parents who she hadn't seen in years. Giovanni had always been a belligerent drunk, but that night was an exceptional case. And he took her request badly. They got into a fight, she screamed at him that she felt trapped and alone, that she hated him and wanted to leave."

"Please don't," I whispered.

The lawyer shot me an apologetic glance but continued. "He tied her hands up, took her to the private bar where his men worked and let them have her-"

"Don't," I begged.

"-she was raped at least five times."

I slammed the folder closed and shoved it away, unable to bear looking at it any longer. "You didn't need to tell me that."

"Yes, I did." She grabbed the folder and slid it back into the brief case by her feet. "I'm on your side, Florence. Not theirs. Not the mafia's. Yours." I couldn't even muster a response, I was so horrified by the images in the folder. I couldn't stop seeing the women's faces transposed on those of the men. The men Arturo worked alongside.

Was it foolish of me to believe we had no secrets from one another? I kept running through different scenarios in my head. Ones where Arturo was going to come clean about following me. Where he would tell me, off his own back, that he got me my job through manipulation and corruption.

The problem was that I couldn't imagine any of them happening in real life. He wasn't going to tell me. So what else had he kept hidden? What other secrets did he have?

"I understand that Arturo is much younger than the men I've told you about," the lawyer began again once I'd had sufficient time to mull things over. "He's twenty seven, and you're..."

"Twenty three."

"I can see how that might alter the situation," she mused. "You're both young. Maybe he does love you-"

"He does."

"-for now," she corrected, settling her hands on the table. Her face softened a little. "Florence, I want you to know that if you ever feel unsafe, if he ever gets violent with you, there are other options. There are ways out."

"He wouldn't do that," I muttered but all I could hear in my head was wouldn't he? "I don't want or need a way out." And that was the truth. So why was my voice shaking? "Are you going to interrogate me about shooting someone?" I tried to change the subject but the detective just deflected me.

"Florence," she said, voice low as she leaned forward, "if I ask you some questions, will you answer them honestly?"

"If you're asking me to rat on Arturo, no."

"Nothing like that," she promised. "I want to know if you have any friends, any family you can fall back on for support. People not associated with the mafia."

I immediately thought of Lucas, but he and I were in a bad place at the moment and besides, he was a Genovese associate. Amber also ran through my mind, but with her position underground she had mafia ties too. There was Kelsie. I hadn't seen her since I moved out of my old flat and in with Arturo. Would she still pick up the phone if I called? I thought it was unlikely.

Shamefully, I shook my head. I tried to say "no" but I couldn't find my voice.

"No distant relatives?" she clarified and again I shook my head. My mum died when I was born, my father was a mob boss and everyone else was dead too.

I was alone.

"Do you have any of your own income? A bank account with money that isn't tied to Arturo?" She wasn't making notes which I was grateful for. The concern on her face was clear, which made me feel ten times worse.

"I have a bank account," I said and she nodded.

"That's good."

"And I have...had a job. But all the money from that came from Arturo...it was his law firm..."

"So you rely on him for money?" she asked.

"No," I denied instantly. And then it hit me. I did rely on him. For everything. I didn't even have any of my own possessions; they'd all been bought by Arturo for me, or by me using money he supplied indirectly. "Yes. Yeah I do. But we're both adults, we live together. There's nothing wrong with that."

Of course there's something wrong with that. You have no control.

"That's true," she agreed. "I'm not trying to tell you otherwise, Florence, but I want to be honest with you. I need to know that you feel like you're safe." There was a pause as if she was waiting for me to say I do feel safe but I couldn't bring myself to do it. It didn't make any sense. I'd never felt unsafe with Arturo since we'd found each other again. Now I was being forced to question everything.

"Tell me, Florence, does Arturo follow you when you're on your own?"

"He doesn't, but his men do. I think he has a tracker in my phone," I admitted.

"And you're okay with that?"

"He's just worried about me," I shrugged and she let out a deep breath.

"And I worry about my kids when they play out, so I phone or text them. I don't track their every move."

"What you're saying is that you don't agree with it." I folded my arms.

"Do you? Really? Are you honestly okay with him doing that?" I couldn't answer her because hot tears were pricking behind my eyes. All I could think was no no no no. "Do you get to know where he is when he goes out?" I still couldn't answer but I didn't need to; she already knew what I'd say. "The thing is, Florence - and I'm not trying to scare you - but you don't know who that man is when he's not with you."

"Stop it," I said frustratedly, rubbing my eyes. "Stop."

"Do you know how many disappearances of young women there were in the last year that have been linked to the New York mafias?" She didn't wait for my reply. "Over a thousand."

"I don't care-"

"And do you know how many of those were found again? Two hundred and fifty, each one dead, usually brutally murdered with evidence of sexual abuse."

"Shut up!" I smacked my hand down on to the table but the detective didn't care, she ploughed on regardless.

"The rest of them still haven't been found. Human trafficking is just one aspect of the problem. The drugs trade-"

"I don't. Want. To. Know," I growled. If I wasn't handcuffed to the table I would have stormed away. I didn't want to hear any of this because it was true. All of it was true.

"If you were to go...missing-" I didn't need her to put it in air quotes to know the implication of what missing meant "-would anybody even notice?"

"No," I sobbed as my body finally caved and I began to cry.

"Would anybody care? Is there anybody looking out for you if Arturo turns against you?" She reached for my uncuffed hand on the table and held it. "Florence, he has isolated you. He controls every part of your life: your car, your job, your money, where you go and what you know. We can help you. We've helped others like you before."

"Wh-what do you want? Who's we?" I stammered.

"The FBI, the police force, we're working together on this. All you would have to do is give us some information, testify in court - if you feel up to it - nothing too serious. You wouldn't have to go back to him, you wouldn't have to wear a wire. Any information you already have will help immensely in our investigations. We'd drop all charges against you, put you into witness protection, move you back to England maybe, help you start a whole new life free from the mafia."

"Testify?" I gulped. I loved Arturo. I didn't think I could look him in the eye while stabbing him in the heart. I didn't think I could stab him in the heart, period.

"Only if you felt you could. You wouldn't be forced into anything, Florence. But doing this is right. For all of the women in that folder, for all the others who have never been found. For the people on the streets dying from overdoses of mafia peddled drugs. For all the innocent victims, this is right, this is justice. This is what you believe in, as a lawyer; doing what's right, defending the law. Putting bad people away."

"I-"

I was cut off by the door swinging open admitting Pedro into the room. "Florence, you're free to go. All charges against you have been dropped."