Corrupted Queen - Nicole Fox Page 0,94

of affection from her.

She doesn’t fight me, but she doesn’t respond either. Alexis’ lips remain still, and after a few seconds of trying to stir a reaction from her, I give up.

Perhaps she is just worried about her friend, and tired, and wants to get a good night’s sleep. Perhaps in the morning Alexis will leap into my arms and all of this will be forgotten. But I can’t help thinking something has changed irrevocably, that the silken threads of fiction we were weaving between us have frayed and snapped.

Here it is, I think. Alexis has finally made her decision.

I leave the room, dread swirling in my gut. Something tells me that this coldness is just the beginning, that Alexis is gearing up for something bigger. I try to dismiss those thoughts as nothing but remnants of my distrust, but I didn’t make it this far without learning to heed my instincts.

I hope that I am wrong, that Alexis is simply having a bad night. I doubt that’s the case.

30

Gabriel

My office, on the top floor of the building that houses the artery of Belluci Inc.’s operations, belonged to me long before any of the Family ever called me boss.

I used to sit in this very leather chair and look out at the New York City skyline, imagining what the future held, trying to plan for all the potential pitfalls and discrepancies of a regime that didn’t yet belong to me. It seems fitting that it is here, at the beginning of it all, where I catch my first glimpse of the end.

Alexis’ article is spread across my desk. It takes up two full pages of the newspaper, as well as the teaser on the front page. Impressive. I always knew she was talented, that the world was just waiting to open up for her. And here it is—the fruit of Alexis’ labor and my inevitable downfall.

I wish I could find it in me to be surprised at the scope of her betrayal. Perhaps I’m in shock. I feel calmer than I ought to, given what this will mean for my business—both criminal and legitimate. No doubt the thorny tendrils of fury will reach out to me later, when I have had time to settle into the betrayal, but for now the only indication of the implosion occurring below the surface is the shaking of my hands as I scan the paper.

THE PURPLE HEROIN CRISIS EXPOSED, the title reads. HOW ORGANIZED CRIME SYNDICATES ENGINEERED NEW YORK’S WORST DRUG EPIDEMIC.

Silvano slapped the paper on my desk half an hour ago, and since then I have been dissecting every word, inspecting every photograph, for any signs of the Belluci name or organization. We are only mentioned rather mysteriously as a “third organization,” the middleman ferrying the drug from the Cartel to the Irish. That isn’t exactly how the deal operated, but it keeps the heat away from us. There are no photos of me or of any of our men, no descriptions of us. Alexis focuses on the Cartel, identifying it as a malicious external force that is purposefully flooding the streets with the drug, and which plans to do the same to other cities soon.

There is a photo of Miguel I recognize from our last meeting at the docks a few days ago. Alexis was there. That was where she ran to that day, and that is why she has been cold to me ever since. She has experienced the horrors of purple heroin first-hand through Clara, and now she knows that I am at the center of it.

But if she was spying on us that day, she should know that I don’t have a choice. I guess she doesn’t care. My involvement is enough to condemn me even if the Cartel is dangling an ax over my head. Keeping my name out of the papers was a mercy, but only a small one. I will still suffer for this.

It is of little consolation that nothing the Cartel does to me will hurt as much as Alexis’ betrayal.

She was another Felicity Huffman in disguise and I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. I let her in. I trusted her. She cracked that trust over her knee like a dry branch and I taped it up and gave it back to her.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

My cell phone vibrates on my desk. The number is blocked. I fold the newspaper back up neatly, smoothing out the edges and then settling it