“Enzo, the less she knows the better.” His father’s warning coated my skin in chills, and Enzo never broke eye contact with me despite his words.
“She knows enough at this point that hearing the rest won’t make a difference,” Enzo remarked, and my shoulders relaxed at the fact he wasn’t planning to keep me in the dark. He took my hand and tipped his head toward the door. “Come on, let’s take a walk.”
“Be back in five,” Constantine said. “I’ll have the answers then.”
We faced Mr. Costa, and he hesitantly moved aside so we could leave, but the sharp, almost disappointed look he gave Enzo didn’t exactly do wonders for my nerves.
“Is he mad at you?” I asked once we were in the hall.
“He can get over it.” He tightened his hold on my hand, and we went into the room one door down. It was a movie theater. Rows of leather recliners in front of a massive screen.
He shut the door and set his back to it, one hand on my hip, his gaze on me. An exhausted, pained look in his eyes.
“Did you get any sleep?”
“Enough, don’t worry.” He brushed his knuckles over my cheek, his brows slanting.
“Hard not to worry about everything right now.”
“I’m so sorry.” His hand moved to my arm, and he gently squeezed. His eyes fell closed as if harsh memories from last night pulled at the edges of his mind, and he was probably worried how to share them.
I set my hand over his heart, finding it thudding hard and fast. “What happened?”
“The CIA officers who picked up the cleaner from border control were crooked. From what Jesse’s team determined, they grabbed him to get the list and silence the cleaner before he could talk to anyone else,” he finally shared. “They may have even killed the cleaner before the ambush.”
Ambush?
“There was another team there when we arrived. Jesse and I managed to get inside the cabin before their team could, and we found a USB on one of the officers. The cleaner’s client list.”
I replayed his words in my head, thinking about the danger he’d been in. Deep breaths, I reminded myself.
“We were on our way out when we were attacked again. Based on what we could tell afterward, it was by a different crew. Thankfully, Carter called in backup, too. He hadn’t been sure if they’d make it in time, though, which was probably the only reason he’d allowed us to join him in the first place.” He shook his head. “So we were lucky we had that assist. We needed the extra numbers or we may not have . . .”
He let those harsh words remain hanging in the air, recognizing I didn’t want to hear the fact he could have died last night.
He lightly squeezed my arm, reminding me he was alive and there with me. “Constantine convinced Jesse’s boss to give us a copy of the USB before we came home. And we’re hoping the answer to who was responsible for killing Bianca is on there.”
“If so many dangerous people are after that list, is there a chance someone can connect the dots you were there? I mean, you flew there in your private jet, and—”
“We thought of that.” He interrupted my frantic thoughts. “Fortunately, Carter’s team has connections all the way up to the White House. People he trusts. And they erased the fact my brothers and I were ever in Syracuse. The flight records have been altered so there’s no digital footprint we were even there.”
“But?” I could feel the bad news coming.
“The second the cleaner went on the run after he realized he’d been compromised by Jesse’s team . . . well, it’s possible all of his clients went on high alert, realizing their identities and crimes might be revealed if the cleaner were to be captured.” His gaze softened with regret. “And that’s why we still have the extra security here.”
“But the cleaner’s dead, so won’t the bad guys assume their secrets died with him?”
“That’s what we’re hoping. But if anyone found out about the list and that Carter and his men now have it . . .”
“They’ll be targeted.” I finished his trailed-off thought.
“They can handle that. They’re okay with being bait, drawing the fuckers to them and right into a trap. It’s what they do. And no one knows we have a copy or that my brothers and I were ever there,” he reminded me, trying to keep me sane. “Our identities are safe.”
“Do you need to help them?”
“They have plenty of additional reinforcements now. They don’t need us. So we’re focusing on Bianca’s killer, and we’ll hopefully have that name any minute.”
“Why do I feel like there’s something else? Something you haven’t told me?”
“I just have a bad fucking feeling in my gut.” His shoulders dropped as he shared with a slight tremble in his tone, “I’m worried that I missed something and I’ll lose the only woman I’ve ever been in love with because I was distracted.” He closed his eyes. “What if my love for you is what gets you killed?”
Love? I tensed, swallowing as my stomach flipped and my brain turned to mush. I was pretty much out of order at his words. “Enzo,” was the best I could get to exit my lips before a call came through for him.
“It’s Jesse. He must’ve decrypted the list faster than us, and he’s letting us know.” He brought the phone to his ear. “What do you know?” His gaze cut to the floor, and he let go of a heavy exhale. “No,” he said a moment later, “I have no fucking clue why they’d want her dead. I need to talk to my family. Watch your back. Stay safe.”
“What’d he say?” I asked after he ended the call.
“Remember when I told you there are five main families in the Italian American mafia?” I nodded at the memory from our plane ride to New York. “Well, one of those families, the Brambillas, who happen to have the most power now, hired the cleaner. The files directly tie them to her case.”
“So the Italian mafia was responsible for her death, just not the Sicilian branch of the mafia?” I searched for clarification.
“Looks like it, but I don’t understand why. We don’t have any contact with them. As far as I know, my father never threatened them. Unlike Giovanni, the Brambillas are much more powerful, and it’d be a death wish if . . .” His words trailed off at that, and shivers darted up my spine. “I thought my sister may have been murdered because of someone she may have loved, and like Izzy, she didn’t want me to know about him, knowing I wouldn’t approve.”
“But she wouldn’t fall in love with someone in the mafia, would she?”
“No, like hell would my sister—” He dropped his words and his head. “No, it can’t be.”
“What?” I reached for his arm, urging him to look at me.
“The story she wrote just before she died, well, she told me it was based on a true story. But she said no one would ever know that.”
I thought back to the story published in the magazine, trying to remember the details. “And you think it might be based on her own life, and she just wrote the ending she hoped she’d get?”
Love. A happily-ever-after. Who’d want anything less?
“I don’t know what to think, because if that’s not the case, that means only one thing.”
“And that is?”
“That my father more than likely pissed someone off in the Brambilla crime family, and he’s responsible for her death.” He opened the door and shot a quick look back at me, and I could read his thoughts.
No mercy.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Maria
“You’re asking me that again. In front of everyone here?” Enzo’s father slid his hand down the column of his throat, his back to the bay window. The water was calm today. The sky clear. And yet, the storm was in the room.
“Well?” Constantine stood from behind the desk, his arms locking across his chest. Despite being in battle last night, he was in a three-piece suit.