Page 21 of The Boss

Juliet

I am not giving Gino anything until I know who this is.

Unknown

That isn’t important. Get this to him immediately.

File sent

Don’t open it, I tell myself. There has to be a way to figure out who this is.

I dial the number.

“This number is no longer in service.” Are you fucking kidding me? They blocked me after sending that. Curiosity gets the better of me, so I open the file.

Holy shit.

Before I can get dressed, I run out of my room to Gino’s office.

TEN

GINO

I hear someone calling my name, “Gino, Gino.” I feel my arm shake. I slowly open my eyes to see Juliet staring back at me.

“Juliet, what, what time is it?”

“It’s almost five in the morning; you need to look at this,” she says with a hint of panic in her voice.

Before I respond, she puts her phone in my face, and I blink my eyes to adjust to the light of it. Staring back at me is a document detailing a bounty on Mateo for five million dollars. Are you fucking kidding me?

“Who sent this to you?” I say in anger.

“I have no idea. It came from an unknown number, and once I tried to call them, it said not in service.”

“I’m calling everyone in, except Vanessa. I’m not telling her about this,” Juliet nods in agreement.

I call Gabe, Jake, Marco, Ryan, Alonso, and Drew, and they’re all in my office within twenty minutes.

“Juliet got a message from someone saying there is a bounty on Mateo’s head, which means the Russos will kill him unless we can find him first. This could be bullshit to draw us out, but we don’t want to risk it. Gabe, I’m sending you to Italy; go to Mateo’s hotel room and see if there is anything of use. I was planning on waiting to do that and using the contacts we have in Italy to look for him, but this bounty makes it seem like there are more than the Russos involved in all of this. I want you to stay there until we get him back.” He nods in agreement.

“Drew, Juliet received the bounty on her phone from an unknown number. See if you can figure out who it’s from.” Drew walks to Juliet, who’s sitting on the couch in my office. She hands her phone to him as he sits next to her and starts typing on his computer.

He whispers something to her, something almost inaudible, but I catch “Tell him.” Tell him what? Tell me what? Does she have something weighing on her?

Pushing that thought aside, I continue. “Ryan, did you see anything in the Russos’ logs to give us anything we can work with?”

He sighs. “Nothing we don’t already have, but I know they have something out there. I’m going to keep digging.”

“I’m thinking we should look to see who and what else they have here in New York. So far we’ve only found a handful of associates that are more focused on their assets than mafia dealings. Anthony and my father had some dealings years ago. I understood those were all in Italy, but they might not have been. But now that we know they have associates here, it could help us.”

“What about me, boss?” Alonso asks.

“Don’t worry; I might have the most important task for you. I need you to live with Vanessa. I know you’ve been the de facto bodyguard for her and have been staying with her here and there, but I’ll need you to move in with her,” I reply.

“You got it. Do you need me to go over there right now?”

“No, it’s not even six in the morning. I know she’ll be awake, but she’ll know something's wrong if one of us goes over there this early in the morning.”