Page 45 of Married to the Enemy

“Then it wasn’t him,” Raffe muttered, then exhaled, muttering epithets. “Someone slashed Mia’s tires. I didn’t really think it was her father. The vandalism was too obvious. Not Calvino’s style. He’d grab her, not just vandalize her car.”

Silence crackled down the line for a beat. “So, we’ve got another player.”

“That’s my read.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll check the footage from the security cameras I installed. Call you back.”

Raffe hung up, then leaned against the wall to contemplate what he’d just learned. Mia was afraid of her father. That was a good thing, right?

Well, ‘good’ wasn’t the right word. But it was good for him. Good for what he hoped was growing between them. Especially after last night.

Pushing the future aside for now, he logged into the security system he’d installed the day after he and Freddy had moved in to Evangeline’s house. He flipped through several videos that captured a racoon, a fox, and two rabbits before he came to the video that showed a man in dark clothes walking down the driveway. The night vision sensors had kicked on, showing the man with angry eyes, a dirty hoodie and frumpy jeans. As soon as the man pulled out the knife, the idiot looked directly into the hidden camera.

“Got ya,” Raffe muttered, then pulled out his phone to call Diane back. “Jim Fuller slashed Mia’s tires last night. Think you could send this video over to the police for me?”

He heard Diane clicking on the file he’d just emailed to her. A moment later, she laughed. “Ya gotta love stupid criminals, right?” There was more clicking, then his boss said, “Done. I’ll follow up once the case is assigned to an officer or detective and let you know when they’re going to pick him up.”

“Thanks,” he replied, about to log out of the security system. But movement caught his eye. Something sparkled in the woods. But in the end, he dismissed the movement as an animal urinating behind Evangeline’s house.

Chapter 31

Vito Calvino sat at the impressive desk in his office, the curtains drawn tight against the morning light. His phone screen glowed in his hand, and he glared at the frozen image until his coffee went cold.

The picture had been taken outside on Evangeline’s stone driveway this morning, his daughter, his stupid, disobedient excuse of a daughter, standing far too close to a man he didn’t immediately recognize. Not just close. The man had his arm around her, holding her like she belonged to him.

Vito clenched his jaw until his teeth ached.

He zoomed in on the face. Tall and muscular guy, light beard, shoulders wide enough to fill a doorway. Something about him was familiar, nagging at the back of his mind. He couldn’t place the guy.

“Lorenzo,” Vito barked.

One of his guards stepped forward immediately, the other two hovering near the doorway like silent shadows. “Yeah boss?” the guy asked, fingering the hem of his loose shirt nervously.

“You know this man?” Vito shoved the phone toward him.

Lorenzo squinted, then shrugged. “Think he used to run messages and errands for Bianchi.” A moment later, he shook his head as he laughed slightly. “The guy was dumb as bricks. Could barely follow an order.”

The other two guards leaned in, eager to prove their usefulness.

“Yeah, boss,” one said quickly. “I’ve seen him too. Always hanging around, never important. Looked kinda, you know, slow to me.”

“Right,” the other agreed. “We used to call him Lurch behind his back. Big and dumb. A nobody.”

Vito leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. He let their words hang in the air while he studied the photo again. His daughter’s head was tipped back slightly, her eyes soft. And the man…

No. That wasn’t a stupid errand boy.

His predecessor, Enrico Bianchi, had been blind to nuance. He saw tools and pawns, nothing else. But Vito trusted his gut, and his gut knew the man in the photo wasn’t stupid. Not with those sharp eyes. Not with the way he carried himself.

Something was wrong.

Without a word, Vito forwarded the image to a contact buried deep in the police force, a man whose loyalty Vito had purchased with both cash and a few well-timed photographs. He despised honest cops, he thought. Thankfully, his source replied faster than expected.

You don’t want to touch him. FBI.

Vito’s blood ran cold.

He read the message again. And a third time. His fingers tightened around the phone until the plastic case creaked in protest.

An FBI agent. The man holding his daughter was a member of the FBI!