Page 131 of Jude

Had I placed her on a pedestal, holding her to a higher, impossible standard?

Again, I was overthinking it.

When it came down to it, I was livid that she omitted her history and furious that she lied to my face about the photos.

Or had she?

The look of utter, unscripted horror and dismay in her eyes at the images gave me a niggling warning flare.

What if she had been speaking the truth?

The thought twisted me up.

The morning after Sofia walked out, my heart was still torn apart.

Our suite at the Soho was redolent with her lingering vanilla perfume, driving me out of my head.

I called my lawyer, Brian, and gave him the lowdown.

‘I have Ignazio’s number,’ I growled into the receiver. ‘I want to set up a meet, but I need you to get Interpol to pick him up for blackmail.’

On Brian’s advice, I reached out to my former cellmate.

I recorded a call with him, promising to meet him at Caffè Sant’Eustachio at eleven in the morning with the fifty thousand deposit in cash.

I turned the recording over to Brian, and his team alerted the authorities.

A day later, I stood on a cobblestone corner in Rome across from an open-air cafe.

High-end espresso machines hissed while tourists dodged Vespas in the heat.

Ignazio sat at a corner table in a linen suit, sipping a cappuccino, waiting for me and my money.

The bastard actually thought he played me.

I had no intention of paying a single cent in blackmail.

Nobody threatened my wife or me and got a payday.

Four plainclothes agents closed the distance from two angles.

They pinned his arms behind his back.

Ignazio thrashed, screaming profanities into the afternoon air as they forced his wrists into steel cuffs.

I made my presence visible, standing across the street, hands crossed over my chest, leaning with casual ease on the hood of a car.

He caught my eye and cursed loud and long.

I gave him a slow chin raise and a two-fingered sarcastic salute as they shoved him into an unmarked sedan.

Brian filed international extortion charges with Interpol, backed by my audio files and proof found on Ignazio’s phone and email.

Brian also dropped a massive racketeering dossier onto the desks of prosecutors in New York and Vermont, target-locking the Compagni syndicate.

Dario and his crew faced mounting charges, proving I wasn’t some helpless mark.

Yet, tracking the car as it disappeared around the corner offered zero comfort.