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“Only your loyalty,” I said. He met my gaze, and I knew we were good. Last year, his niece had become very sick. Treatment had been experimental and expensive and not covered by any sort of insurance. He’d gone to Rocco first and been laughed at. I had paid and she was currently in remission. Not that I had paid money to earn loyalty. I wasn’t a saint, but I didn’t hurt kids, not if there was something I could do.
I nodded. “You can go. Give my regards to Grace.”
“Boss,” George nodded and headed out to the van parked alongside the car we had arrived in.
I turned to the room Maxine was in, but Lucio stopped me. “I can do this for you.” He was the only person alive that knew Ihated using my fists on a woman, any woman. But because of the picture I’d seen, I was willing to make an exception.
It turned out I didn’t really need to. Maxine held out for about three minutes until it all came pouring out. The only thing she knew that she wasn’t supposed to was an overheard phone call. She didn’t know who Rocco was talking to, but he’d laughed and said his daughter would marryIl maiale Irlandese. She mangled the pronunciation, but she’d apparently googled it afterwards.
I didn’t show any expression on my face because that was old news. This had all started because Sofia was supposedly marrying Declan Walsh to help the Irish take over my territory.
“That isn’t information we didn’t already have,” Lucio growled and picked up the large pliers. Maxine went even paler, if that was possible, and a trickle of urine ran down her leg. I don’t think she even knew it.
“I know how you can make millions,” she said desperately.
“Really?” I said, sounding bored.
“Yes, yes. The merchandise. The boat is the tip of the iceberg. Online auctions are the way to go. I have contacts. Merchandise is already secured, and I know how to get more.”
How I didn’t take my knife and shove it down her throat, I didn’t know. Merchandise? She meant children.
She didn’t know I’d seen the proof. “There is no way my uncle can possibly manage something on that scale,” I scoffed.
“No, well, he doesn’t. Not just him. He has help.”
“Really?” I drawled and walked toward her, examining the huge knife that was mostly for show.
“Yes,” she screamed. “There’s another man.”
A prickle of something ran down my spine. “Who?”
“He doesn’t know. I heard him say all their correspondence happens online.”
“Really?” Lucio said. “Then if you don’t know who he is, what’s the point in us keeping you alive?”
“No, please. He’s called Cat. Kitty-Cat. He gets Rocco the merchandise, or he knows someone that does.”
For a moment, my whole world seemed to still. No, no it couldn’t be. Had I been fooled that badly? “Someone?” I pressed.
“I don’t know, but Rocco does.” Because, of course, she didn’t know Rocco was dead. I shook my head. “The phones were always jammed. There’s no way you could have heard this conversation.”
“Not on the boat. When he came to my apartment. He always said his wife was a cold bitch and he had to get it somewhere else.” She drew in a breath. “Please. I can make you so much money.”
I put a bullet through her head.
I might have been tempted to save her had she not extolled the millions I could make from her special merchandise, and that she could help. I wasn’t an angel by any means. I made millions from debts and the casino. I laundered money from guns and I knew the Russians often armed both sides of the conflict. There was a lot of money to be made in death.
“I don’t buy it,” Lucio said. “Rocco couldn’t mastermind his way out of a paper bag. But some mysterious guy?”
“Kitty-cat,” I repeated.
“But how?” Lucio rounded on me, knowing exactly what I was thinking. “He hasn’t been out of that house in two years, and likely longer.”
It seemed incomprehensible. That the same man ignorant enough to think he could smuggle his mother out of a nursing home without a problem could mastermind a scheme like this. It all came back to Amato. He could.
I hadn’t addressed the problem of Sofia yet, as simple poverty when I cut Rocco off would be punishment enough, and as a result the expected engagement to Declan Walsh was unlikely.Now that Sofia didn’t come with any sort of cash or connections, who’d want her?
I watched absently as Lucio rolled up Maxine’s body in the tarp that covered the floor and went over the players in my head. Sofia's mother was a witch, but that was simple ambition. Rocco was a leech, but now a dead one. Which left me again with Alessandro. It was like all roads led to him, Italian or otherwise.
