Luciano noticed that the interrogation room had been prepared with a level of care usually reserved for petty revenge.

The chair wobbled enough to irritate. Just enough to keep the body from settling properly and the mind from relaxing. The room was too warm. The fluorescent light overhead hummed with a faint, constant annoyance. Even the table had a slight tilt to one side, as if the entire room had been assembled by someone who took personal satisfaction in discomfort.

His wrists were cuffed to the metal ring bolted into the table. He had been sitting there for over an hour.

Luca had counted the minutes by boredom first, then by sound—the footsteps in the hall, the opening and shutting of distant doors.

Voss was making a point. Fine. Luca had points of his own. When the door finally opened, he already knew who it would be from the pace alone—too self-satisfied to be a junior officer. Voss stepped in. "Luciano Genovese..." he said, drawing the name out with annoying pleasure. "It’s nice to have you here."

Luca lifted his eyes at last. Voss smiled.

"Comfy?" Voss asked.

"Very much," Luca said dryly, shifting just enough in the miserable chair to make it wobble again. "You have limited time to tell me what is going on, Voss, because you will be losing your badge soon."

Voss remained standing for a beat, enjoying the posture of control before finally taking the seat opposite him. The metal legs scraped faintly against the floor. "Where is Cassidy Grant?"

For one second, Luca just stared at him. Then his mouth twitched. Then it broke wider. And then, to Voss’s immediate irritation, Luca laughed.

Full, genuine laughter.

He tipped his head back against the chair and laughed like the question itself had personally insulted him with mediocrity.

Voss’s jaw tightened. "It’s funny, uhn?"

Luca dragged in a breath, still smiling. "You went to all this trouble for Cassidy." He shook his head once, still not over it. "Right."

There were a hundred possibilities Luca had considered the moment he saw Voss waiting at the airport. But Cassidy?

The gnat had not even made the list.

"I have no idea, Detective Voss," Luca said.

Voss leaned forward slightly, both forearms on the table now, trying to force weight into the room. "He was last seen in Commissioned."

"Commissioned is my club," Luca said. "Do you have any idea how many people come into that place on a daily basis?"

"It’s the last place Cassidy would go to to have fun. Unless," Voss continued, "he had a reason to be there." Voss had that hungry look now but also tired. A little frayed.

"You know what I think?" Luca asked smiling faintly, enjoying this far more than he should have. "You’ve spent months failing to pin anything useful on me, you dragged me in the second I landed and built yourself a little fantasy around Cassidy Grant. I don’t know where Cassidy is," he said. "If he was in Commissioned, then he was one drunk idiot among many. You, however, seem very determined to turn his disappearance into my business."

Voss held his gaze. "Because it is."

"You are terrible at your job, really," Luca said, sounding thoughtful about it. "Or maybe it’s not that. Maybe your obsession with me is keeping you from doing your job." He shifted slightly, and the chair wobbled again beneath. "If anyone sneezes," he continued, "will you accuse me?"

Voss’s mouth tightened. "You ruin people’s lives, Luca," he said. "You kill people."

Luca lifted one brow. "Do you have any evidence to back these claims," he asked, "or do I need to pull out my American genes and sue you for defamation?"

"I told you," Voss said, "that you would make a mistake someday. Your mistake is Cassidy. Right now, I have warrants being drawn," Voss continued, "to search every single property you own. Starting," Voss said, "with every single room and basement in Commissioned."

That earned the faintest smile from Luca.

"Please," Luca murmured. "Go ahead. It will not be the first time."

And it wouldn’t. Commissioned had been searched before, poked at, pushed through, sniffed around. The place was too visible, too public, too often under suspicion not to be cleaned like a church before every storm. But Luca wasn’t a fool.

"But this," Voss said, "will be my first time. This is the nail in your coffin, Luciano," Voss said. "And I will drive it in myself."

"You should be careful with that level of confidence, Voss," he said quietly. "It makes the fall very humiliating. Search everything. Kick down walls. Dig up floors. Tear through every basement and every bottle of liquor if it helps you sleep." His smile thinned. "But when you find nothing that keeps me here, I want you to remember this moment."

"In all my years as detective, I have never seen any criminal as arrogant as you are."

"I noticed something," Luca said lazily. "When you got to the airport, you came with an air of satisfaction. Like you already had me. But now," he continued, "that satisfaction is gone. What I see now is anger," Luca said. "Rage." A faint smile touched his mouth. "Things not exactly working out there for you, uhn?"

Voss stared at him with hatred. And yes—Luca was right. After the grand airport arrest, after the smug walk into custody, Voss had gone to his captain expecting support, momentum, the click of institutional power finally falling into place behind him.

Instead, he had been told no. Not enough. No evidence. No hold. No solid ground. Not legally, anyway.

And that had burned.

While there, his captain was getting several calls to quit the witch hunt. Even though Luca had tortured Cassidy once before.

Even though he had threatened him more times than Voss could count. Even though every cop with ears, eyes, and basic sense knew Luciano Genovese was the devil of New York despite not looking one inch like it.

(Brought to you by Janelle Fox 2/2)