Sweet Pain (Amatucci Family #3) - Sadie Jacks Page 0,96
needs to marry my daughter if he wants to be family. And he needs to marry my daughter if he wants to continue to live.” She glared at Foster. “Keep that in mind, ragazzo.”
Tali sank down into her chair, her head in her hands, as Foster laughed.
My girl took pity on her sister. “So the gala. I’m all for the public humiliation we’re going to bring them. How do we keep them from rabbiting? Or are we going to do a firing squad line?” she asked, rubbing her hands together as her sage green eyes gleamed.
Turo chuckled. “Easy, sorella. We will have to get the NTPD involved. There will be no public executions or firing squads, more's the pity.”
“Oh!” Nik jumped back up. “I also found this…well, the collective found this.” She rushed back to her computer, slapped the lights again. “You mentioned that you didn’t know anything about psych evals or sessions?”
Willow nodded.
“I found them. On Winslow’s secure server. Apparently in addition to one each of a criminal and civil court judge, he’s got a double handful of dirty cops, and a whole slew of other civil servants, Winslow had two doctors on his list. One psychiatrist, one medical examiner.”
My brow furrowed. “Why did he have a psychiatrist on his payroll? Outside of trashing Willow’s name and credibility, I can’t imagine that it was very useful for him to have one pulling cash on a regular basis.”
“Because he was pulling from New Trenadie as his initial feeding ground. He was using the hospital’s community mental health clinic.”
Jessa sucked in a breath. “Jasmine?”
Nik shook her head. “No, J. I’m sorry.”
Jessa nodded. “It would have been too easy.”
Nico reached forward, put his hand on Jessa’s shoulder. She reached up and grabbed it.
“So the psychiatrist who supposedly treated me for mental illness is the same doctor who was trading humans for money to my fa—Winslow?” Willow asked.
Nik nodded. “And we’ve also got answers as to why that bitch cop was trying to blame you.”
“She’s on the list as well?” I asked.
Nik nodded. I could barely make her out in the glow of the TV. “Her, two of her subordinates, one guy in evidence, one in recovery, three beat officers, and a captain of a neighboring police department.”
“We definitely need to get Wright involved,” Nico said. “There’s no possible way we could solve that many problems without someone coming to ask questions.”
I nodded as Nik hit the lights again. Winced. “Damn, Nik. Some warning next time?” I rubbed my eyes.
She snorted.
“With the information Cricket found, can we trust Wright? Will he let us take the lead with this at the gala?” Turo asked.
I shrugged, looked at Nico. “You obviously know him better. What do you think?”
Nico grimaced. “The best we can do is present it to him. He’s not power hungry. But he is a rule follower. He’ll want everything above board. Triple checked. He might not be ready by the time the night of the gala rolls around.”
“Then we’ll just have to help him,” Willow said. Her voice was fierce. “We will take them down at that gala, with or without Jerrod’s help.”
“Si, figlia, si. We will make sure Beverly and Winslow pay publicly for their crimes,” Papa said softly.
I blinked at the promise inherent in those words. Two short sentences and he’d etched it with his blood in stone.
Momma looked at Papa. “Papa has spoken. We make it so.” She clapped her hands together once.
All the kids nodded.
Nico looked at me. “Looks like we’re making it happen on the night of the gala.”
The rest of the night wrapped up pretty quickly after that. There wasn’t much more to discuss without the District Attorney present.
Mas and Rafe helped hang the table on the wall. It was such an intricately designed piece of art, that had I not known it was also a table, I wouldn’t have even guessed at the dual function. Everyone carried his or her chair to one of the spare bedrooms down the hall by office.
They all lined up and gave hugs and cheek kisses as they left. Momma pulled me down, squeezed an arm around my neck. “Do not dawdle with the ring, ragazzo. Momma is serious,” she whispered in my ear.
My skin crawled at the sneak attack, but I quickly nodded so she would let go of me. Willow interceded, pulling her adopted mother off me. I stepped back, tried to get my breathing under control. I waved at Tali and Jessa as they passed by.