AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I…” I swallowed hard.Carefelt like too small of a word. “Does she know about you?” I asked instead.
Greta shook her head, staring at her dangling fingers. “When we were kids, I wasn’t allowed to tell her that Vito was my uncle, but other than that, we were just friends.” She shrugged her shoulders. “When I got old enough to understand more, to understand what was going on, it just felt normal—to watch out for her, you know?” She glanced at me, but went on without pausing. “I didn’t like lying to her, but Vito said the truth was dangerous. I didn’t know her family was alive. If I’d known the truth…” She trailed off.
“The lies they told her were because of me.”
The words slipped out unbidden, an error to which I was not accustomed.
Greta looked at me, her brow crinkled.
“Our mothers—hers and mine—plotted to hide Raven to ensure the marriage our fathers planned never took place.” And if they’d lied better, she never would have been here. Berlusconi never would have gotten his hands on her. He never would have been able to hide her… where? Where the hell was she? There was no other property under his name.
Merde!
We were looking at the wrong name.
“Salvatore!” I shouted and heard his heavy steps shuffle toward the door. “I need every property under the name Diego Avalone. Now.” Few people knew that Berlusconi had wanted Avalone to acknowledge him ten years ago. It would be the alias he’d use.
“Right, boss. Right away.”
I was back on my feet, every muscle in my body thrumming with renewed purpose.
Berlusconi had to have property under that name.
I paced back and forth across the front steps. There was only wide, open space all around me, but I felt like a caged animal, trapped until Salvatore could point me in the right direction.
Greta stood up as Vito stepped outside.
“All of this because of some stupid marriage arrangement?” Greta looked confused, still focused on the information I’d dropped inadvertently.
I nodded. “Would you want your friend married to a man like me?”
“No,” she confessed. “Not to a manlikeyou. But toyou…” She shrugged. “I hate to admit it, but I’ve never seen Raven as happy as she’s been with you. And that says a lot given the bomb that was dropped on her a few months ago. If anything’s happened to her though…” Greta’s tough façade fractured. Her pain was written across her face.
“Got one hit, boss,” Salvatore said from the open doorway. “An old, run-down warehouse. Hasn’t been operational for years.”
“Where?”
“I sent the directions to your phone, boss. We’re ready to head out.” He nodded to the Costa men who’d assembled behind him. The rest were busy gathering dead bodies from around the house. There would be one hell of a bonfire going pretty soon, but I wasn’t going to be here to see it.
I nodded and practically jumped down the stairs, Greta and Vito still close on my heels.
Then a sharp prickling sensation raised the hairs at the back of my neck.
“Where’s Gabe?” I asked Salvatore as he followed behind us.
“He’s not here, boss. Never showed up.”
Chapter Forty-One
Raven
I forced my eyelids open despite the heavy weights that were trying to keep them closed.
The disorientation was fleeting this time. It felt like a jarring drop from the top of a cliff.
I slammed back into consciousness, could even feel the jolt through my body. I whipped my head around in search of Cesare. My loose hair flung in my face. Diego had removed the pins. Little did he know it wasn’t me who knew how to pick a lock with a bobby pin, it was—
Cesare’s prone figure laid close by, one arm twisted up awkwardly, shackled to the post. I could still hear the gunshot reverberating inside my head. I could see his lifeless eyes, bright in the beam of the flashlight. The flashlight was gone, but the image had been burned indelibly into my brain. He’d pushed me out of the way. He’d died…because of me.
