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“You’re investigating my mother for the Vatican?” Vitari asked.
“Yes, among other things, such as why some of the Vatican’s finances finds its way into organized crime?—”
“If you’re trying to solve my mother’s murder, it’s a bit fucking late. Sasha Zhokov pulled the trigger.”
Father Davis grimaced. “I’m just trying to survive, so if we could leave and all talk about this later, that would be great?”
“Agreed.” Vitari tucked the gun against his back, under his shirt. “We need to get out of here and see what’s on that drive.”
“Something Sal was willing to kill for,” Francis added. Although, that wasn’t entirely true. “Something his father is willing to kill for.”
“Francis.” Vitari stopped him by the door, gripped Francis’s shoulder hard, and peered into his eyes. “Make no mistake, Sal would have killed you.”
Vitari clearly believed it. His friend had turned on him. But Francis had looked in Sal’s eyes, he’d seen the pain there. “I don’t think so.”
“Would you kill for me?”
“I… have,” he said quietly. And he’d do it again in a heartbeat.
“It’s the same. He loves his father. He’d have pulled the trigger. Don’t forgive him. He doesn’t deserve it.”
“C’mon, I know where there’s a back entrance,” Father Davis said, checking the corridor. “You can discuss this after we’re safe.”
“Can we trust this priest?” Vitari asked, hurrying with Francis after Davis, toward a stairwell.
Could they trust a priest who had been working for the Vatican this entire time? Who had lied, and probably done worse, since he’d been so close to Giancarlo. Francis had assumed he was the only priest neck-deep in a crisis of faith. Now it seemed he had more in common with Father Riley Davis than he could have realized. “I have no idea.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Vitari
They paid cash for a pay-by-the-hour room in a run-down hotel far from Monte Carlo’s glitzy main drag, the least likely of places to find L’ Angelo della Morte and his priest, and after ensuring they had somewhere to stay for the night, Vitari turned on the charm, asking the sweet, helpful young man behind the front desk, if they could borrow a computer.
In a back room, stacked with dusty file boxes, he plugged the USB drive into a laptop with sticky keys, opened the folder, and stared at over a hundred numbered subfolders. “Fuck.” It was a lot. And without knowing what they were searching for, he had no idea where to start.
Francis leaned against the desk, while the American priest peered over Francis’s shoulder. As Father Davis had saved Francis from Sal, Vitari gave the man the benefit of the doubt, for now. But if he so much as glanced at Francis sideways, he’d find himself in a shallow grave. Since Sal had turned on him, Vitari had no trust left to give.
“The file names, I’ve seen them before,” Francis said, leaning closer to the small screen. “On the back of a Stanmore boys’ home photo. Those numbers were given to the boys, and me.”
“Stanmore still has secrets to give up,” Davis said.
Vitari twisted in the seat and narrowed his eyes at the American. “What the fuck do you know about Stanmore?”
“Not much. It wasn’t my remit. But I was aware of it, through Archbishop Montague. Do either of you know what happened to Charles Montague?”
“No.” Vitari caught Francis’s widening eyes. “We don’t, do we Francis?”
“No. Absolutely no idea.”
Davis’s glare skipped between them. “Regardless, Stanmore is over.”
“It’s not over,” Francis said. “Open that one.” He pointed at a folder on the screen.
Vitari eyed the number on the file and glanced again at Francis. “You sure?”
“Yes. Open it.”
Vitari double-clicked the file and opened the first document.
