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As it was, I was in my office with Shame, Storm, and Pippen. I listened to them drone on and on about what they believed transpired.
“I swear to God above, Shame, if you don’t start making sense of this mess, I will put your ass in the mailroom and let Malice do whatever he wants!” Anger fueled my snarky remark, as I couldn’t hold back my biting words. “How in the hell could you three not figure this out sooner? For fuck’s sake, Shame, you run one of the biggest investigative firms on the east coast. Pippen, your company prides itself on finding the impossible. How the fuck did you two miss this shit?”
Pippen nervously shifted in his seat, avoiding any words.
“I talked with Bane,” Shame began. “He was insistent that before you married Largo the first time, he did the full workup on her. Full physical, blood draws, the works, and put her in our system, and I believe him. I have her file. It’s all there. Now, while Bane is a mean son of a bitch on a good day, he doesn’t fuck around with medical shit. I went over her file and it showed that Bane did order bloodwork, specifically a DNA test. He mailed everything off to the lab in upstate New York. The same lab he uses today. When I called the lab, they said according to their records, they mailed the results five months after they received them. Only there is no record of those results in Bane’s file.”
“If you are trying to tell me they got lost in the mail, I will beat you with that file.”
“No. What I’m saying,” Shame cautiously said, “is that I believe there was someone other than Bane waiting for those results.”
Pippen, still looking at the floor, remained silent.
“Excuse me?” I asked, sitting up, glaring at my brother.
“We think George knew and intercepted the results before Bane could get his hands on them,” Shame admitted as Pippen finally looked up and nodded.
The kid, finally finding his voice, agreed with Shame and added, “He’s right. I’ve had my team working on the timeline back then and while it’s still speculation, this is what we’ve got.”
Opening the extensive file in his lap, the prospect began, “We know that Largo and her brother Landon were born on December 3, 1995, in San Diego, California, at Balboa Naval Hospital. When my team called to get her birth records, we found the names Daniel Shawn Winters and Julianna Claire Guillermo listed as birth parents. After speaking with Renaldo Romano, we now know the woman you knew as Julianna was not the real Julianna. So, I asked Fury to talk with his mother again and she found an old picture of her sister, Julianna. My team ran both pictures in our facial recognition software that I created, and while the women looked remarkably similar, they were, in fact, two different women.”
“While Pippen did that, I sat down with Renaldo and his brothers,” Shame butted in. “The man in the picture you had in your wallet is indeed Stefano Romano, the younger brother to Rafaello Romano, Renaldo’s father. Now, according to Renaldo, Stefano was married to a woman named Cecilia DeFerro. It was an arranged marriage to bring the two families together, and according to Romeo Romano, the two hated each other.”
“So, it was a marriage in name only?”
“Yes,” Shame confirmed. “When I requested to speak with the lawful wife, the woman flat-out refused. Bitch hung up on me.”
“Have to admit, I would too if someone called me and told me that her long-lost dead husband was in fact alive after all these years and had another family.”
“That’s just it, Mercy. I never got a chance to ask her anything. The second I gave her my name, she disconnected the call.”
“When Shame told me what happened, I looked into the woman. Cecilia DeFerro, the only daughter of Marco DeFerro and former business associate of Armando Guillermo. His son is in business with Cesare Vitale, head of the Chicago Crime Family.”
“Yeah, I know the fucker. He took over when Giovanni Valentinetti retired. Shit.” This was quickly becoming a logistical nightmare. Four fucking prominent Italian families, and, at the heart of it all, was a woman.
“Mercy,” Pippen pipped up. “While searching Largo’s past, I came across something that might be relevant to this situation. According to Fury and his mother, Julianna is the daughter of Armando Guillermo, while Renaldo and his brothers all say there was speculation of paternity because the woman looked nothing like the rest of the family. When I looked into Armando’s wife, Valencia, I discovered this,” the kid said, handing me a sheet of paper.
Looking at it, I read the contents.
Well fuck.
Looking at the kid, I asked, “Have you shown Fury this?”
“No, sir.”
“Good,” I said, putting the paper in the top drawer of my desk before locking it. “I’ll have a talk with him later. What else ya got, kid?”
“Well, with that knowledge, I dug into Armando’s past. Got to say Mercy, nothing adds up. The man wasn’t power hungry like the Romanos believe. He immigrated to the city with his wife. Opened a bakery and raised two daughters. Hell, he still lives in the same house he bought when he settled here all those years ago. Armando Guillermo is just a hardworking immigrantwho lived a full and unremarkable life. Not even a parking ticket. The man is clean.”
“And the connection between George and Largo’s mother?”
Shame sighed. “Yeah. That’s where everything gets fuzzy. Largo’s mom, Loraine Delgato, was Stefano Romano’s personal secretary. Going with that, we assume that’s how they met. But I’m at a loss how George Stone got mixed up with her. Honestly, Mercy, this is more an Italian matter than anything else. How George got entangled in all of this is anyone’s guess, and George is refusing to talk.”
“Storm, you’ve been awfully quiet. You got anything to add?” I asked my brother, who’d been leaning against the wall as he listened intently to everything being said.
“You want Prez to speak, then you’re going to need to bring Virginia into the fold.”
“That’s easier said than done, Storm.”
