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I went into the hallway. Listening to the sound of the hoover running, I knew she was still upstairs.
I returned to the kitchen and opened her purse and took out her phone, promising myself that I would go to church and mention this misdeed in confession.
Quickly checking over my shoulder, I punched in Christian’s cell number. The thing about having a mind good with numbers was that I could easily remember multiple phone numbers and pin codes.
“Yeah?” Christian answered.
“Christian, it’s me, Anni.”
“Hey, Mrs. Marchiano,” he answered with his usual greeting for me. “Have you got a new number?”
“No. Christian, I have to make this real quick. A Fratellanza drug factory was raided by the Feds last night. Lorenzo thinks I might have leaked to the Feds, which means he might want to kill me.” I was only half-joking—even though I knew that I wasn’t the leak, I still had to convince Lorenzo of this somehow. “I need you to tell me the truth: did you or papà find out about the factory’s drug operation and leak it to the Feds?”
“No, we didn’t.” He didn’t hesitate before answering—but then, he was a good liar.
“You’re sure?”
“One hundred percent. Anni, if Lorenzo is being an asshole and trying to blame you, then I should come down and talk to him.”
“No, don’t worry, Christian. But I’ll call if I need you.”
“Anni, are you sure?”
“Absolutely. It’s just a misunderstanding and I’ll be able to sort it out.”
I heard Adelina coming down the stairs. “Sorry, gotta go. I’ll call you again when I can.” Then I hung up and shoved the phone back in Adelina’s purse before she came back into the kitchen.
“Mrs. Anni,” Adelina nodded at me.
“Hi Adelina. Would you mind getting some groceries from the store for me please?”
“Of course, Mrs. Anni.”
After handing over the list, I went to the den to think.
Now that I knew that the Imperiosi wasn’t behind the leak, I just had to prove that someone else was.
***
I paced back and forth in the den all morning, trying to work out what had happened.
Lorenzo’s words kept running through my mind: everything he’d said last night about me interfering in what had gone on between him and Rita, telling me yet again that Clara and Clemente werehischildren, and then accusing me of being a snitch to the FBI.
I slumped down on the couch and buried my head in my hands.
It couldn’t get any worse than last night—my own husband accusing me of leaking intel to the FBI. That he really had that low an opinion of me shocked me to the core.
I shook my head, trying to clear my mind. I had to stop dwelling on the issues in my marriage; instead, I needed to focus on what had happened at the factory last night and work out who had leaked to the Feds.
I remembered what Lorenzo had said: there’s no such thing as a coincidence.
I thought back to my visit to the factory. Lorenzo normally didn’t take me along when he was on business. He had taken me because he’d been running significantly behind schedule that day after his trip to the doctor’s clinic. Going to the clinic was the only out of the ordinary thing I could think of that Lorenzo had done in the couple of days preceding the raid.
That had to be it: someone at the clinic must have followed us.
Why would they do that, though? They obviously knew who he was…so they must have decided to get some dirt on him in a way to make money. The Feds would have paid handsomely for a tip-off about someone as powerful as a Marchiano.
Now I just had to work out who it was at the clinic that had tipped off the Feds.
