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Valentino

Page 69

by Sherry Blake

"Fishing."

"Yes."

I keep my eyes on the road. "What else?"

"She's been attached to Vittoria for ten years. Photos. Social media. Events. Her face is everywhere, Valentino. Enzo's people are good, so how come they don't have her name yet?"

I think of her phone. Her clutch on the floor near Aldo's hand.

"The wipe," I say.

"Dante got it before they cracked it. Cut it close." Bruno exhales. "But that's not luck I trust twice. Aria and Carmela flew to Chicago an hour ago. I'm not having our mothers on the same continent as that old man while we figure out what he knows."

I press my thumb against the cool glass and watch the smudge it leaves.

"Four hours," he says. "Luca drives the lead car. Elio takes the second with Amanda. You ride with her."

Bruno hesitates, and I already know what's coming. He is my Don. He is not stupid.

"Valentino. The fact that Enzo is looking and still doesn't know what he's found concerns me more than the vendetta. An angry man, I understand. A man who doesn't know how angry he should be yet? That's the dangerous one. He can still surprise you."

"I know."

"Get Amanda to Rome. Don't let her near a window with the light on."

The line goes dead, and I stand there a moment with the phone in my hand.

Behind me, the bed creaks.

"That was the bad-news call," she says.

I turn around.

She's sitting up against the headboard.

"We leave in four hours."

"Where?"

"Rome."

"And the bad part?" she asks. "The part that made you do the statue thing."

I cross the room and crouch beside the bed so we're level.

"You're going to be safe," I say. "I'll make sure of it."

It's the closest thing to a promise I've made in a decade.

And the worst part is, it isn't only a promise to protect her.

It's a warning that I won't let her go.

Elio is in the front room cleaning his gun. The pieces are laid out across a dish towel on the table like a surgeon's tray. He doesn't look up when I come in.

"We're moving in four hours."

His hands stop over the slide. "Where?"