“Has anyone ever told you that you’re annoying and bossy?”
She edged out of the attic, staying low, going to her hands and knees and even lower. She didn’t want Vittorio flattening her.
“No. Everyone thinks I’m sweet. In fact, I think my reputation is sterling among my family members.”
She would have rolled her eyes, but he couldn’t see her. Light was already streaking through the dark as the sun began to rise. Working all night and then having a madman burn down her apartment and try to kill her made the hours pass fast. She made it to the railing and stayed low, waiting for instructions.
Vittorio annoyed her by putting a hand on the nape of her neck, so that even if she thought about lifting her head above the railing, it was impossible. She clenched her teeth. She was a woman of action, not someone to be pushed into a little room and guarded. Giovanni understood her. Vittorio did as well, but he didn’t care. He would have locked her in that little room and let her be angry with him. Giovanni took the consequences of her actions.
She heard the helicopter. It sounded close. Every instinct was to rise up and look for herself. She wasn’t certain what Vittorio was doing. He certainly was looking over the railing.
“Raimondo is a good fighter,” he said suddenly. “Giovanni pointed that out in his texts. He isn’t trained the way we are, but he’s training with Emilio and Emilio is a hell of a fighter. He wouldn’t have allowed Raimondo to go out on an assignment if he didn’t think he was ready. He was beaten nearly to death.”
Her stomach twisted into knots. “That’s on me.”
“He would have been guarding Giovanni’s residence,” Vittorio said. “I’m not certain you can claim that one. Giovanni thinks he was beaten deliberately.”
“Aren’t all beatings deliberate?”
Vittorio lifted his hand, and she turned, staying low, scooting even farther down in order to rest her back and head against the wall.
“Giovanni says only a seasoned fighter, someone with a great deal of experience in combat and martial arts, could have possibly beaten the kid to that extent. Raimondo got in a few good ones, his hands were damaged, but this man nearly beat him to death.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “You think it was Aaron.”
Vittorio shook his head. “I don’t know what to think. Aaron’s smart. If he wanted to do this, if he has some problem with Giovanni, and this looks as if it’s aimed at Giovanni, he could easily make it look as if he’s being set up. He took that picture of you and it was on his phone. No one else had it. It ended up being in the tabloids. Some of the material the bomb was made from was charged to a credit card he later reported stolen. He served in the military and has training in explosives.”
“Don’t you think that’s all a little too neat?” Sasha thought it was. Aaron was smart, at least Giovanni always said he was. “He wouldn’t stack the evidence against himself, would he?”
“It is all a little too neat, as if we’re being handed Aaron with a bow tied neatly around the package. Don’t you think a very intelligent person could pull that off? Make it look as if he’s being framed?”
“What would be his purpose?” She didn’t want to hear that little voice inside that repeated Aaron’s lie about Giovanni and him in competition over women, but it was there. He’d lied when there was no reason to.
Vittorio shrugged. “We’ve got a lot of money, Sasha. People think we live magical lives. They see us as wasted human beings with far too much money.”
“You all play the part of playboys deliberately. You want people to think all you do is race cars and chase women.”
He gave her a small smile. “Someone who lived a good deal of his life on the streets, struggling for every penny, can build up a great deal of resentment. Aaron may think everything has been handed to Giovanni. If he had his eye on you and Gee managed to grab you out from under him, he might tip over the edge.”
“But Aaron never so much as asked me out.”
“He sent you flowers, honey. On his phone, it turns out there are a number of photographs of you. Quite a few.”
That brought her up short. She turned her head to look directly at him. Straight into his eyes because she had to know the truth. “What are you talking about? How could you possibly know something like that?”
Vittorio shrugged, looking casual. Calm. As if nothing ever ruffled him. “I know Giovanni told you about riding shadows. It isn’t that difficult to get into someone’s house and look through their things. If Aaron is a threat to my brother, then I’m going to remove that threat. If not me, one of my cousins or another brother. It’s that simple.”
Another shiver went down her spine. If Vittorio had been showing an intense emotion such as anger, she wouldn’t have been so affected by the way he stated so calmly that Aaron was probably living on borrowed time. Clearly, if the Ferraros found out that he was behind all the threats, he didn’t have long to live. She realized they carried out their work without passion. It was their job, and they didn’t allow emotions to get in their way.
Vittorio was a mystery to her. He didn’t appear to give off the aura of danger the others did, but somehow, spending a little time in his company, she was beginning to think he might be the most dangerous of all of the Ferraros. He reached out unexpectedly and put his hand on her shoulder. His touch was gentle, but she felt his strength.
“I didn’t mean to scare you, Sasha. You have enough to worry about. Giovanni is going to be fine, and we’ll figure out who is doing this and why.”
His cool assurance made her feel more confident. She nodded her head just as a shot rang out. Instantly a volley of shots answered, the sound coming from all directions. Instinctively she ducked. Vittorio moved away from her, coming up in a crouch, peering over the wide concrete barrier.
A bright light lit the sky. The helicopter that had been flying back and forth in a grid pattern suddenly dipped low and raced toward a rooftop across from the pizzeria and down three buildings. The light beamed along the roof of that building, illuminating a man with a rifle running across the roof toward a door. He dropped the rifle and disappeared inside just as more shots rang out.
“Taviano and Stefano are not with Nicoletta, are they?” she asked.
“That was three rifles. Emme’s a crack shot as well. No one was able to get a good angle on him. Giovanni hung out there, but he didn’t take the bait.”
“Do you think he was waiting to get a bead on me?” Again, she looked straight at him, needing an answer.
Vittorio wasn’t looking back at her. His attention was centered on the drama playing out as his brothers and sister tried to race the assailant down to the street. Giovanni kept the helicopter in play, using the powerful light to illuminate the streets and alleyways below to see where he would come out so the others could trap him. The problem was, there were so many routes he could take. He could move from building to building without being seen.
“I don’t know, Sasha. It’s impossible to know what this man is looking to do.”
For the first time, she wasn’t certain whether someone was telling the truth or not. Usually there was a note of discord, but Vittorio was too smooth to give her one. Still, there was something … “You think he was looking to shoot me, don’t you?” A much better question.
“Yes. That’s exactly what I think. Giovanni thinks so as well. That’s why he went up in the helicopter. He wanted to distract him. The shooter wouldn’t think in terms of us using a helicopter. He was up on that roof waiting for Giovanni to join the fray so he could shoot you in front of him.”
Her heart clenched hard. “That’s why he didn’t shoot me when I came out of my house. He wanted to do it in front of Giovanni.”