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“Dario?” she whispered and put out a hand, which I clasped.
I lowered the partition. “Take me to Elisabetta’s,” I ordered, then raised it again.
I could see Sofia wondering what to say.
“I never met Amato, I don’t think,” Sofia lied. “But why would he be interested in Alessandro?”
“Alessandro clearly has something Amato wants. I mean to go and spend all night finding out exactly what that is.” I smiledsadistically. “Lucio has certain skills, and we know where the two of them are. It won’t take him long.”
Which meant Sofia knew she had possibly minutes after I left her at Elisabetta’s to get to the boy before I did.
“If I knew something, I would tell you,” she said. “You know the only thing I’ve ever wanted was to be your wife.”
I sighed and brought her hand to my lips. “Hopefully we can talk when I put all this behind me.”
We passed the blacked-out Prius on the side of the road as we pulled in at Elisabetta’s house, and I smiled to myself at Gia’s car. He was all for saving the world. He’d reported that the locksmith was still there but was parked around the side of the house. As soon as Sofia hurried in, Lucio lowered the partition.
“That was quick thinking,” Gia’s voice filled the car.
“And she won’t warn Amato because she thinks he’s just tried to kill her,” Lucio said.
“She’s also not going to trust anyone else. I really think she’s going to get the boy herself,” I agreed.
We quickly and quietly transferred to the car Alvize drew up in and Mario hopped out to take home the one Sofia would recognize. Lucio briefed Alvize quickly.
“How’s Nonna?”
“Terry is there with Emily.”
Good. Looking after Emily would stop Nonna worrying as much.
“Sofia’s getting into one of the bodyguard’s cars, and leaving from the back gate,” Gia reported. I knew he was looking at the cameras on his laptop.
Lucio pulled forward until we saw an older-model black sedan pull away. “That’s her,” Gia said. “But I don’t have it tracked.”
“I won’t lose her,” Lucio promised.
We followed and about twenty-five minutes later, she pulled up outside a small ranch house that looked like it was fallingdown. I didn’t need to read out the address to Gia, as my car had a tracker on it, and I knew there were three cars full of my men a couple of minutes away that had been following us. “The renter is a George Gleeson and his wife, Stacy. There’s been noise complaints and the cops have turned up a few times.” Gia paused. “Wait, it says they have a son. He’s eight years old. Attends Croft Elementary, but his attendance is very hit and miss. Social workers have been involved as the kid sports bruises when he does turn up at school.”
“I’ll just bet he does,” I growled. The screen door opened, and I saw Sofia coming out, practically dragging a little boy behind her. I nodded to Alvize, who got out and silently went to deal with the human trash that lived in the house. I knew it wouldn’t take him long, and one of the cars behind us would collect him.
As if we had done this a hundred times, we made Sofia crawl to nearly a stop when a car braked, and a woman jumped out screaming at her bastard cheating husband and blocking the entire intersection. All the cars came to a halt, effectively blocking Sofia in, and people started getting out of their cars to yell at the woman to move it. There was so much noise no one took any notice of the four men that walked up to Sofia’s car and simply broke her window, unlocking the car before she’d even raised her small gun. While the man stuck her with a needle, two more lifted the little boy out and spirited him away into another car. I saw Sofia being pushed into the passenger seat and one of my men sliding in behind the wheel.
Good. They would take the boy to Nonna. Now it was time to get my husband.
30
Dario
“Iwant every available man with me,” I yelled as all the cars turned around. Gia even abandoned his car to one of the others and slid in next to me. “The house is a nine-bedroom monstrosity owned by the same dummy corporation we traced Amato to originally.” He looked up. “I don’t have any floor plans dated more recently than 1973.” He winced. “There could be a ton of surprises.”
I stared at my phone. Then I dialed Marcello. He answered and I didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Do you know a house at—” I paused, then repeated the address Gia rattled off to me.
“Wait,” he barked. Then he huffed after a long two minutes. “We pay the gardener and the cleaning service for that property. Have done for a lot of years. It was never flagged so I didn’t know..”
I waved off his half-apology even though he didn’t see the gesture. “He has Alessandro there.”
Marcello was quiet a moment. “What do you need?”
