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“No problem – peace out, my dude!”
I hung up the phone.
“‘My dude’?” Niccolo asked.
“Don’t start,” I warned him.
4
We went to the kitchen to grab a snack while I waited for Gunnar to get back to me.
Niccolo cleared the room of servants so we could talk in private. The last to leave was the woman Valentino was sleeping with – Caterina.
I could see why he liked her. Beautiful face, expressive eyes, always smiling – and very curvy.
Valentino thought they were being sly, but it was the worst-kept secret in the household. Everybody knew about them.
Niccolo had told him to cut it out – that it was bad for the servants’ morale and a disaster waiting to happen – but Val just became slightly more discreet. Like fucking her in a bedroom instead of the kitchen pantry.
Niccolo asked Dario to get involved, knowing that Valentino would heed a direct order from his don. But Dario reminded Niccolo of their own ‘youthful indiscretions’ and refused to do anything about it until it became absolutely necessary.
“Why steal his happiness?” was the way Dario put it.
On a purely logical level, I agreed with Niccolo. It was bad for morale, and it was a ticking time bomb…
But I found myself coming down on Dario’s side. Valentino and Caterina both seemed happy, and I didn’t have the heart to watch the destruction of anyone else’s love life.
Especially considering what a royal fuck-up I’d made of my own.
We’d just finished our food when Gunnar got back to me. His text identified two of the men as Alexei Kuznetsov and Dmitri Stepanov, both veterans of the Russian military – and former members of the Wagner Group. ‘Former’ seeing as they were dead.
Gunnar hadn’t ID’d the other three men yet, but I was already convinced.
“How bad is this, exactly?” Dario asked.
“Bad,” I answered. “Wagner’s known for their brutality. When Fausto decided to hire extra help, he went with the worst of the worst – mercenaries with no regard for the normal rules of warfare.”
“We don’t know for certain that Fausto hired them,” Niccolo pointed out.
Dario and I both looked at him.
“…but we should assume it, yes,” he added grudgingly. “Call Massimo so we can tell him.”
I texted him first. Can you talk?
He called a few seconds later. As soon as I answered, I said, “Hey, Mass. I’m here with Dario and Niccolo.”
Then I put the phone down on the counter and stepped back.
Massimo’s end of the call was noisy as hell – like he was standing right next to a revving motorcycle.
“Where the hell are you?” Niccolo asked.
Massimo shouted over the noise. “On a boat in the canals with the – uh, Signora Fioretti’s men, going to get her granddaughter at her university.”
So he was standing next to a motor – just one on a boat, not a motorcycle.
“Scoring brownie points, I see,” Niccolo said approvingly.
