Mafia Queen

Chapter Twenty Nine

Angelo

"Fuck!" I hissed, slamming the test results down on the table. This was unbelievable. The test was supposed to settle any lingering doubts, not leave us with more questions.

I fully expected it to come back and tell me that the body they found was 100% Luca, case closed, no more arguing. Instead, I was looking at a piece of paper that told me the tissue was partially degraded by the fire, so the best they could tell me was that they were 76% sure it was not Luca. What the fuck did that even mean? If I was going to act on this, I needed certainty, not this wishy-washy, maybe it is, maybe it isn't bullshit.

"What are we going to do?" Marco scratched his chin, fidgeting in the seat in front of me.

"There has to be another way, right? What about dental records? You and I could identify him by his tattoos." I suggested. I had a sinking feeling in my chest that Charlotte was right about this, and we'd spent the last several days twiddling our thumbs instead of out there searching for Luca. In most cases, I didn't want to admit I was wrong, but if it meant my best friend was still alive somewhere, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

"Well," Marco shook his head. "That's the other strange thing. I talked to the coroner when I picked the test up. Whoever the guy with Luca's ring on was, all of his teeth were knocked out. He said there was no way all of that damage could've happened from the beam falling, no matter how hard it hit."

I chewed on the inside of my cheek. "And the only reason to knock someone's teeth clean out like that would be so they couldn't be used to identify him."

Marco nodded. "I think we got fooled, Angelo. Niko must have made a switch. I think Charlotte might be right."

Fuck Niko, fuck Axel, fuck both Marco and I for falling for it all.

Niko kicked us when we were down, thinking we'd never be the wiser. He wiped out a huge group of our force and had us in a complete state of chaos, and probably thought he was in the clear and his plan worked. If we hadn't been reeling from the loss he dealt us, I probably would have put this all together sooner. I just hoped we weren't too late.

There was a soft knock at the office door before it opened slowly and Charlotte peaked her head in.

"Hey!" Marco smiled. "Come on in."

It has been nearly a week since the sleeping pill incident and Char seemed to be much better overall. She was finally settling into things and now we were going to drop this bombshell on her.

"I'm sorry to bother you guys." She was nervous, as if she felt uncomfortable to be here, sitting on the edge of her chair and holding her purse in front of her as some sort of makeshift shield. "I had something I wanted to run by you."

"Good timing." I sighed. "We had something we wanted to talk to you about, too."

"Oh, yeah?" She acted surprised, although I couldn't blame her. For the last few days, Marco and I kept her at an arm's length. She needed time and space to heal without the constant reminder of what was going on—that was our job — and she certainly couldn't get that if we were informing her of every little thing that happened.

"Char, we got the test results back from the coroner." Marco's voice was strained as he searched for the right words.

"You did?" Her eyes widened. "What did it say?"

"Well, the sample was pretty degraded, but they could tell us that there is a really good chance that whoever we found in the warehouse wearing Luca's ring wasn't him. That he made it out of that explosion somehow, and Niko took him." I explained, walking around the front of the desk to sit on the edge of it. This was Luca's office, and it still felt weird being on this side of the table.