AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You have no one to help you the way you helped Papa,” Damone replied, sitting down in the chair Rodrigo had always used when Salvatore was alive. “It isn’t right that I should spend my time studying money markets and moving funds around when you’re shouldering the entire responsibility for operations.” He spread his hands. “I also receive news from both the Internet and print sources. The item I read early this morning wasn’t very informative, just a small mention of an incident at a park yesterday, of several people exchanging gunfire. None of the culprits were identified, other than two guards from a nearby laboratory who heard the shots and ran to help.” His intelligent dark eyes narrowed. “The name of the park was given.”
Rodrigo said, “But why are you here? The incident was handled.”
“Because this is the second incident at Vincenzo’s lab. Am I supposed to think that is coincidence? We are depending on the influx of profits from the influenza vaccine. There are several opportunities pending that I’ll have to let go by if the funds aren’t there. I want to know what’s going on.”
“A phone call wouldn’t have sufficed?”
“I can’t see your face over the phone,” Damone replied, and smiled. “You’re a talented liar, but I know you too well. I’ve watched you from the time we were s
mall, looking up at Papa and denying we had done whatever thing had happened, though of course we were always guilty. If you lie to me in person, I’ll know it. So. I am capable of adding more than two digits together. There is an ongoing problem at Vincenzo’s laboratory, and in the middle of this, our father is murdered. Are the two connected?”
That was the problem with Damone, Rodrigo thought; he was too damned intelligent, and intuitive into the bargain. It annoyed Rodrigo that he’d never been able to successfully lie to his younger brother; everyone else in the world, yes, but not to Damone. And perhaps being protective of his younger brother had been good when they were seven and four, but they were both grown men now. That was a habit he should perhaps break.
“Yes,” he finally said. “They are.”
“How so?”
“The woman who killed Papa, Liliane Mansfield, was a close friend of the Joubrans, the couple who broke into the laboratory in August and destroyed a great portion of Vincenzo’s work.”
Damone rubbed his eyes as if he was tired, then pinched the bridge of his nose before lowering his hand. “So it was vengeance.”
“That part of it, yes.”
“And the other part?”
Rodrigo sighed. “I still don’t know who hired the Joubrans in the beginning. Whoever it is could well hire someone else to attack the laboratory again. We cannot afford another such delay. This woman who killed Papa wasn’t working for anyone at the time, I don’t think, but she could well be by now. My men spotted her at the park yesterday; she was surveilling the grounds of the complex. Whether she was hired or is doing this on her own, the result is the same. She will try to sabotage the vaccine.”
“Can she possibly know what the vaccine is?”
Rodrigo spread his hands. “There is always the possibility of betrayal from within, someone who works at the laboratory, in which case she would know. Supposedly mercenaries such as the Joubrans don’t work cheaply, so I’m investigating the financial circumstances of all the laboratory employees, to see if any of them had the means of hiring them.”
“What do you know about this woman?”
“She is an American, and she was a hired killer, a contract agent, for their CIA.”
Damone paled. “The Americans hired her?”
“Not to kill Papa, no. She did that on her own and, as you can imagine, they are very upset with her. They have, in fact, dispatched someone to ‘terminate the problem,’ I believe is the phrase that was used.”
“And in the meantime she is trying to devise a way to get inside the laboratory. How did she get away yesterday?”
“She has an accomplice, a man driving a Jaguar. He drove the car between her and my men, shielding her while he returned fire.”
“License plate?”
“No; the angle was wrong for my men to see it. There were witnesses, of course, but they were too busy cowering to take down a license number.”
“The most important question: Has she tried to harm you personally?”
“No.” Rodrigo blinked in surprise.
“Then it follows that I am in less danger than you. Therefore I will stay here, and you may delegate some of your duties to me. I will oversee the search for this woman, or any of your other problems if you would rather see to that yourself. Or we can work together on everything. I wish to be of help. He was my father, too.”
Rodrigo sighed, realizing he had been wrong to keep Damone away from everything; his brother was, after all, a Nervi. He must long for vengeance as deeply as did Rodrigo himself.
“There is another reason I want this matter taken care of,” Damone continued. “I am thinking of getting married.”
Astonished, Rodrigo stared at him in silence for a moment, then burst into laughter. “Married! When? You haven’t said anything about a special woman!”
