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“Listen closely.” He made sure I was paying attention before continuing. “Do anything and everything you can to get this girl to trust you first. Then we make our move. Helping her find this mysterious murderer is a start, but Sienna isn’t just some damsel in distress, boy. You’ll need to do more than that to get her to hand over any power.”
“And not just Sienna,” I pointed out. “But Mateo? How will we deal with him?”
My father waved a hand. “Mateo isn’t the issue. Whatever threat he might pose can easily be shaken by his lineage alone. He might have been a loyal dog to Giovanni all these years, but that’s all he is—a dog. A mutt.” I was not about to point out the hypocrisy of my father’s own underboss being half-Italian.
“I’ll deal with it.” I stood, straightening my suit jacket. “That’s what you’ve been training me for all these years.”
“No,” he growled. “You were meant to be Don. Not a shadow puppeteer. But that will change.”
The warning in his voice stopped me. It wasn’t the first time the thought of him being the Snake crossed my mind. Leaving aside the fact that he had the most to gain from Sienna’s downfall, our family had remained untouched by the Snake through all of this. Even when I’d come face-to-face with one of their associates, I’d only been knocked out, not taken out.
“Is there a problem?” Sal asked, a dark gleam in his eye.
I realized I’d been staring at him for just a beat too long. “No,” I said finally. “Not at all.”
My father was an ambitious man. Ruthless. Cruel at times. But he wasn’t a murderer unless absolutely necessary. That’s the one thing I could count on with Sal Scarano—if it didn’t benefit him in some way, he didn’t waste time doing it. There was no way he could be the Snake.
I shut the door softly behind me, praying that was true.
Just as I stepped out onto the sidewalk, my phone went off, an unknown number on the screen. Swiping it open, I answered.
“Hello?”
“Is this Dante Scarano?”
Immediately, my defenses came up. “Who’s asking?”
“This is Blake Rogers from the NYPD lab. We have the results back from Mr. Giovanni Rosania. I tried to get a hold of his family, but no one answered. You were the last number on the list.”
I was on a family list of contacts? That was news to me. “I’m Sienna’s husband. Giovanni’s daughter.”
“Good enough for me,” Blake replied, sounding a bit out of breath. “I wanted to send over the results to you as I know….” He trailed off.
Today was not Blake’s day. “Know what?” I asked, channeling my inner Killian just to be annoying.
“That you—well, Miss Sienna is—”
“It’s Mrs.,” I corrected. “I’m her husband.”
“Look, I know about your family, her family, the whole shindig.” Bold words from Mr. Blake, especially to me. “I’m going to send you the report before the cops to give you a heads up.”
“And in return?” There was always a give or take. Always.
“No return. Just…remember what I did.” Now he sounded uneasy.
“Well, thank you, Mr…?”
“Blake Rogers.”
“Great. Is this your personal cell phone?” I wedged the phone between my shoulder and ear, opening the car door.
“It is.”
“Then I’ll text you an email. Send the results there.” I hung up before he could reply. He might not have had the balls to be straightforward with what he wanted, and I wasn’t about to play patty-cake with some corrupt official over some lab results.
Though, I had to admit, Blake Rogers was diligent. And quick to deliver. The results were in my public email box before I’d even turned the car on. I quickly sent it to my private email before letting the encrypted virus do its thing to destroy the evidence.
Scrolling through the files, my eyes skimmed whatever information I thought was most important, but there was really no need. It only confirmed what we had already suspected. Giovanni had been injected with the venom of the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake—the Snake’s own calling card in a way.
