“Emmanuelle doesn’t seem to need to always be the one in control.” Taviano sounded as if he wished he were like his sister.
“I’m not certain exactly what’s going on with Emme, but she isn’t very happy.”
Taviano nodded. “I agree. I tried to get her to talk to me, but she just shook her head and looked as if she might burst into tears. Fucking Eloisa probably told her she better have fifty kids like tomorrow.”
It was back to Eloisa and the f-word. Taviano was really angry at their mother. “Eloisa hasn’t actually talked to Nicoletta personally, has she?” Giovanni asked.
“Of course she has. She’s been very vocal that she shouldn’t be living with Amo and Lucia.”
Giovanni wanted to swear himself. That was Eloisa, always interfering. “Maybe you need to tell her that Nicoletta is her future daughter-in-law.”
Taviano shook his head. “Nicoletta isn’t going to agree to that.”
Giovanni stared him down. “She’s yours, Tav. That means you step up and take control. You lose her to somebody that she shouldn’t be with and neither of you is ever going to be happy.”
“She isn’t going to be happy with me if I take away her choices since she hasn’t had many to make in her life. And she sure as hell won’t be happy with my brand of sex.”
Giovanni didn’t say anything, but he knew Taviano well enough to know that if someone made a move on Nicoletta and his brother considered her his, the wrath of the demons from hell would fall on everything and everyone. Maybe it already had. Maybe that night when he’d been drinking and he’d seen Nicoletta with Bruno’s friends, he’d already said or done something terrible. Taviano was certainly capable of it.
“We’ve got to get inside,” Taviano announced. “Talking about Nicoletta or Eloisa makes me want to beat the shit out of something—or someone. I’ll do the ‘talking’ when it’s needed.”
Giovanni ordinarily would do his own “talking” when someone tried to kill him, but if that’s what his brother needed, well, it was the least he could do. “I hear you.”
They avoided the front door, winding around toward the back end of the massive garage. Once inside, they hurried across the end concealing the small door leading to the basement. In the basement, there was a hidden door, nearly impossible to find, in the wall. They stepped inside the tiny, claustrophobic closet and punched a code into the keypad. That opened another door to another stairwell. Both men hurried down to the last measure of protection. The staircase ended in a small room. That room had one other door. Giovanni bent down, allowing the scan to move over his eye, recognize it and unlock the door.
Stefano, Vittorio, Ricco and Emme were already there with Emilio and Enzo, their cousins and head bodyguards. The man who had attacked Giovanni was seated in a chair. He had a black eye and swollen jaw. His nose was broken, but the dripping blood had ceased. His mouth was swollen and his front teeth were jagged. He looked up as Giovanni and Taviano entered. Recognizing Giovanni, he half rose, revealing that no one had bothered to tie him.
Giovanni went right over to him. Stefano handed the report to him. His cousins had done a good job of finding out about the man in the short time they had.
“Giles Newborn. Forty-eight. You’re a freelance hit man.”
Newborn shook his head, groaned and looked at Giovanni through his one good eye. “Part-time. Nothing permanent.”
“Yeah, I can see you’re not one hundred percent committed to your career. If you were, I’d most likely be dead. You’re shit at your job.”
Newborn glared at him, looking a little like a cyclops. Now that he was closer and the lightbulb overhead spotlighted their prisoner, Giovanni could see the massive bumps that had formed all over his face from the beating he’d taken.
“I nearly got you and the bitch.”
Giovanni went very still. Newborn hadn’t gotten near Sasha, but if Giovanni hadn’t seen him coming, hadn’t noticed the arm swinging toward him with something held tightly in the fist, and the knife had come across his body, it very well would have gone across Sasha as well. He leaned close. “The hit was on both of us? Her, too?”
Newborn shook his head. “You. I was supposed to scare her. Extra in it for me if I fucked her up a little.”
The tension eased in Giovanni’s gut and air slipped back into his lungs. He stepped back, handed the report to Taviano and went back to his questions. He kept his voice mild. Casual even. Not in any way threatening. “Who paid you?”
Newborn shrugged. “Don’t know. I was contacted via email. Don’t know how he got a hold of that.”
“Must be your extraordinary reputation,” Giovanni said.
The man scowled. “You’re being sarcastic, but you know you almost bought it.”
Giovanni shrugged. “Almost doesn’t count in your business, Newborn. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”
Newborn spat at Giovanni’s feet.
Taviano hit him. Hard. He used blurring speed, snapping the would-be assassin’s head back and planting his fist in the mess that had been his nose. Newborn’s chair went over backward and the back of his head bounced on the concrete. He screamed. Wailed. Drummed the heels of his boots on the floor.
Giovanni waited, drifting over to Stefano. “Eloisa is becoming a real problem with Nicoletta. She got better for a few weeks after Phillip’s death.” He referred to his father. “Now she’s back to interfering in everyone’s lives. What’s wrong with her?”
The rest of the family looked at Stefano expectantly. He shrugged. “Whoever knows what’s wrong with Eloisa? If she’s having a bad day, she tends to take it out on everyone around her, especially Francesca. Mariko doesn’t react, so she doesn’t bother, but Francesca wants to repair the damage between us all. She sees good in Eloisa and keeps trying to bring it out.”
Giovanni frowned, shaking his head. “She’s too kindhearted.”
“I had a talk with Eloisa. I think I scared her enough that she’ll leave Francesca alone. If she doesn’t, as head of the family, I’m going to take drastic action, and I told her so.” Stefano clapped his hand on Giovanni’s shoulder. “I like your woman. She isn’t going to take shit off anyone, not even our mother.” He grinned. “Of course, that means she won’t off you, either.”
Giovanni flipped his brother off, even as his answering grin began to form as he drifted back to the man on the floor. He loved Francesca. Loved her as a sister. He would give his life for her. She would never suit him. He loved Mariko the same way, but she was perfect for Ricco, not him and not Stefano. Sasha, his sassy, sweet, independent woman, would never suit either of his brothers or Taviano, but she was exactly what Giovanni needed.
He reached down and straightened the chair. He caught Newborn under his arms and lifted him easily, planting his butt in the chair. Deliberately, he paid the man no attention, wanting it to sink in that he was strong and he didn’t really give a damn one way or the other about Newborn or his comfort.
“Regarding what we were talking about earlier,” he said, facing Taviano and turning his back to the prisoner. “It has come to my attention that once that lock is opened”—he held his hand over his chest so his brother would know what he was referring to—“it is only opened by the perfect partner, the one holding the key. She has to be perfect in every way, or it’s impossible to be the right one.”
He turned back to face Newborn. “How were you paid?”
Newborn’s eyes darted from man to man, as if for the first time realizing these men might not let him go. He glanced toward the door then back up at Giovanni. “He left money in a Dumpster behind a store just a few blocks from the club. If I got you, there would be more.”
“When did he contact you?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“What’s his name?” Giovanni’s shadow was connected with Newborn’s, the light overhead providing really strong shadows of both men. He needed to hear the truth.
Newborn shook his head repeatedly. “I don’t know. He never told me. I didn’t want to know.”
“How were you going to fuck up the woman?”