Page 75 of The Boss

“You weren’t born in this life, Ness. I don’t want you to have to think about all of that. I want you to focus on yourself, Victoria, and Julian,” I say.

“I know that. Mateo might be your best friend, but he’s the man I love, the father of my children, and he doesn’t know that yet.” She pauses. “Wait, do you think he knows?”

“I don’t think he does. They haven’t mentioned you or the twins, which tells me they have no idea you exist, even after all this time,” I say.

“Why?”

“Because your husband, who I know is so madly in love with you, would rather pretend he isn’t married than risk your life.” I know it’s blunt, but it’s true. Mateo would never risk her life even if it meant he had to pretend she didn’t exist.

She swallows. “I know if he were here, he would be the perfect dad.”

“I have no doubt.”

“Do you know why they’ve kept him for so long?” she asks.

“I don’t have any idea,” I say honestly.

“Do you think it’s because of Dad?”

“No.” I know where she’s going with this, but this has nothing to do with him. “This deal was supposed to be easy, but Lorenzo wants something for himself. The raid on one of their warehouses allowed him to exploit us,” I say.

“And his entire family has no clue what’s going on?”

“If they do know, they are very good at hiding it. Everything we’ve gathered is that they’re none the wiser to all of this. Salvo, Lorenzo’s brother, who was there when they drugged Mateo, either hasn’t gone into detail about what happened that day with their father, or they think something completely different happened.”

“I know you’ve talked to Lorenzo and Anthony, but have you tried to contact Salvo? Maybe he has some intel?” she suggests.

“We thought about it, but we didn’t think it would give us any leads.”

“It might not give you any leads, but it could give you intel you didn’t have before,” she says.

We’ve looked into Salvo, and all we have on him is that he’s set to take over everything when his father dies or retires. He won’t give anything up even if he wanted to.

“What intel do you think he has?” I ask her.

“It might be nothing, but his brother did this. If they're close at all, Lorenzo has had to have let something slip by now,” she says.

She has a point. But I’ve made enough phone calls to the Russos that they won’t tell me anything directly. We'll need to find it ourselves.

“I’ll see what Drew can find. I think calling them is making it worse. Every time I talk to Anthony, Lorenzo is somehow there, or someone is telling him I’m talking to his father.”

“What about the messages Juliet is getting?” She asks.

Damn, she’s remembering everything right now.

“They’ve pretty much stopped. Whoever it is clearly doesn’t like that she and I are dating.”

She smirks.

“What?” I react.

“Nothing. It’s just…being in a relationship looks good on you,” she replies.

I huff out a laugh.

“Gino, I’m serious; find whoever was messaging her. It scared the shit out of her, and I know it scares you too that someone would message her like that.”

My sister is very good at observing the things around her. I think that’s what made her such a good nurse.