“Yeah, I ascertained I was the lesser of the two evils. But now I’m not so sure…I fucking failed her. I’m sorry, man. I thought I had all the safeguards in place.”
“Raf, the thing to know about Mafia men is there’s two settings. One: Aim for mass destruction and fuck shit up quick. Two: Have the patience of a saint and lie in wait to take a silent but lethal strike. That’s what these conniving fuckers have done. But mark my words, we’re going to find her. Alive. Then I’m going to find every motherfucker who had part in this and string them up by their balls, slash their hearts, and watch the fucking blood drain from them like a beast taken to the slaughterhouse.”
“We have to fucking find them first. Does your dad know what’s happening?”
“I’ve got the twins running interference, keeping him occupied with a new business venture they want us to back. He can’t know just yet. I want to handle this problem myself. My way.”
“Which is?”
“Get rid of the problem.” He eyes me silently, questioning my position. “Completely.”
I nod my understanding.
“Marco, Avery, and Samuel are working every possible scenario and have put every resource Vault Enterprise has on this,” he assures me. “They’re checking every single traffic camera in the city for utility vans, running number plates, accessing phone records and matching the pings from the towers to the locations of every vehicle identified on those cameras. If you feel like you failed her, imagine how I feel. I’ve worked side by side at one time or another with both the fuckers I think are behind this.”
Apprehensive because I don’t know if the answer is going to make me want to cause bodily harm to him as well, I askthe question that’s been eating at me since Marco and Sophia’s engagement party.
“What does Alessandro have on you? What’s his threat to tell Chiara the truth about her parents’ death all about?”
He rakes his hands through his hair and then shoves his hands in his pockets.
“A dirty detective on the take from Alessandro told Domenic Rizzo that Chiara’s dad was a mole, but only to cover up that one of Alessandro’s boys had been flipped by detectives,” he explains. “They said they saw Uncle Lorenzo talking to detectives and selling intel on drug runs and the Mafia families involved. A couple of raids on the same day coincided with the suspicion, adding more weight to the accusation.” He blows out a long shaky breath. “It’s true he talked to detectives, because he discovered the older man she had been seeing was Alessandro. Uncle Lorenzo knew he worked for the Rizzos, supplying girls and running drugs. He went to the cops to report he thought Chiara’s life was in danger and he thought she was being held against her will when she didn’t acknowledge their texts or any of the calls they made after. He thought if they would raid Alessandro’s underground hangout spot, they could get Chiara to safety. It was the riskiest option, but he felt it was the only way to get her away from him.”
“Why didn’t he just deal with it himself? They way gangsters do?”
“He knew that killing Alessandro would start another Mafia war—something he didn't want for the family. Alessandro was a lower rank, but the Rizzos needed him. He was the handsome face for that lucrative sex tradebusiness, and they were training him up to be more. If he told the Rizzos to deal with Alessandro because he hurt his daughter, he’d owe them a favor—most likely an arranged marriage—and he didn't want that for her. It alsomight even have pushed her further into Alessandro’s arms,” he explains.
“They still fucking tried to pull the arranged marriage card,” I say.
“Yes, but I knew the truth all along. I would never let it happen. In Mafia lore, moles need to be taken care of—it doesn’t matter who they are or who they’re related to. The heads agreed Uncle Lorenzo needed to be taken care of. My father gave him a heads up, tried to tell him to get out before they got to him, but he and his wife refused to leave without Chiara.
“I had only just come back from being away for work, and Chiara’s best friend Mia was the one who tracked me down to tell me everything she knew about Alessandro and how he’d framed my uncle as the mole, and that they were going to say my father ordered the hit on his own brother.
“I also came to discover he was running some sort of high-end escort business and filming girls having sex, making money off a pay-per-view site without them ever knowing.”
“Fuck! I only pieced it together in the last few hours, but did you know that today’s witness in the trial against Arty was Mia Damiano?”
“Wait. She’s in New York?” His eyes widen. “Fuck! I haven’t seen her since that day. Then she disappeared without a trace.”
“Chiara thought she and Alessandro were working together.”
AJ shakes his head. “No. Tell me what happened.”
I continue hastily because time is ticking. “She’s one of our key witnesses in the case against Arty. Today, the defense tried to get a video included as late evidence as part of the trial. It’s why I was unreachable. We were in a closed viewing with the judge, fighting for him to rule against its use as evidence.” I pause, fighting the doubt creeping up. What if Alessandro lures Chiara back into his web? I push down the insidious thoughts and focus on getting through this so all the information is onthe table. “It wasn’t Mia in the video. It was Chiara,” I tell him, swallowing the bile that’s risen up my throat once more. “I’m pretty sure Alessandro was sending me a fuck you message and literally fucking up my life by ripping Chiara out of my home at the same time.”
“Fuck!” AJ says on a low growl, punching the door frame then shaking his fist out. I understand, my craving to feel the sting of pain is overwhelming now too.
“If you knew all of this, why isn’t he dead already?” I snap.
“Believe me, I had him right in front of me, bloody and bashed up. He was a trigger pull away. I had even taken the safety lock off when immediately my phone pinged. He told me to look at it. Sure enough, it was a video. I didn’t even have to press play to see it was her.
“He proceeded to tell me how he has hundreds of videos and photos of Chiara and has given copies to people in high places. He said if I gave him time, he’d bring me the intel on who made the kill for the Rizzos so we could clear my father’s name.”
AJ closes his eyes and rubs his temples. “He dies or something happens to him, he said he’d release every video he had, ruining any chance at her photography career so he could manipulate her into working with him—and tell Chiara my father killed his brother.
“She was in love with Alessandro. I couldn’t run the risk of her thinking my family didn’t protect their own and pushing her further into his arms. Her parents were already dead. She’d already lost so much, and I didn’t want her future and reputation to be marred by a sex scandal.” He looks at me, eyes glazed over. “Then he fucking disappeared. Untraceable.”
“So he never gave you the name of the killer?”
