Enzo reached for my hand and threaded our fingers together, sensing my unease, and maybe I shouldn’t have been in the room, but I refused to leave his side when I knew he needed me.
“I told you last night I had nothing to do with her death, and I’m telling you the same now,” Mr. Costa seethed, clearly upset at his sons for pressing him. “But now that we know someone in the Brambilla family hired the cleaner, I’ll do everything in my power to find out who and why. And I’ll kill them myself.”
Enzo’s grip on my hand tightened as he turned toward the door, and I followed his gaze to see Alessandro there in cargo pants and a black tee. “You have her things?”
Alessandro nodded. “The boxes are in the safe room in case we need them.” He pocketed his hands, leaning against the wall by the door. He looked worn out, like a man who’d fought all night long. And, well, he had. “Where’s Hudson?”
“He’s working on a few contingency plans. Making calls,” Constantine spoke up, and his cryptic words meant I’d be in the dark on that.
I’d never seen Constantine even slightly off-kilter, and he looked like he was ready to throw the laptop now. His facial muscles were locked tight, and his body screamed, Fuck around and find out.
“The Brambillas are ten times more powerful than they were thirteen years ago, and you know they’d love nothing more than a reason to come after us,” Alessandro said, which meant Constantine must’ve given him the heads-up before he’d arrived that the list had been decrypted.
Decrypted? Yeah, not a word I’d ever thought would roll through my thoughts. I was still in Mickey Mouse and Bubble Guppies territory back home.
Enzo released my hand to go for his phone and then shared, “Looks like we gave them extra motivation to do exactly that last night. Jesse just texted they identified some of the downed bodies from our mission. They worked for the Brambillas.”
“The Brambillas also appear to have been one of the cleaner’s most frequent clients. And based on the fact they’re responsible for half a dozen deaths on his list, I can see them wanting to get to the cleaner the second they heard he was on the run,” Constantine noted. “But that still doesn’t explain why someone in their organization wanted our sister to die.”
“They identify anyone else from your op?” Mr. Costa remained standing by the window, eyes on Enzo, jaw moving with a tic. “Or just the Brambillas?”
“It was a clusterfuck of bad guys. Not just them.” Enzo shoved his phone back in his pocket, eyes on me as he added, “Nothing we couldn’t handle.”
But without the backup, what would’ve happened? I shuddered to think about it, and why was I? They were okay, and I had to focus on that. Well, okay was a loose term. Okay for now, sure. But later?
“Without knowing who within the Brambilla crime family hired the cleaner, we’ll need to do some more digging ourselves.” Constantine turned on the flat-screen behind the desk and then synced his laptop with the screen. “Footage from outside the club that night thirteen years ago.” He pressed “Play” and turned to the side. “I still think it was someone she knew and she let them into her home. I just don’t know why she’d ever associate with someone from the Brambilla family.”
Constantine paused the screen, and my heartbeat became hostage to my frozen thoughts. Every part of me rooted in place at the sight.
The camera angle wasn’t great, and the screen wasn’t in color, but I could tell it was Bianca.
Enzo walked over to stand by his brothers, so I sat in a nearby leather armchair.
“What if she fell in love with someone in the Brambilla family?” Enzo asked in a low voice, sharing the idea we’d discussed in the theater room.
That had his father’s attention, and he snapped his focus around, his harsh gaze focused on Enzo. “Are you out of your damn mind? Your sister had a heart of gold. She’d never sleep with the enemy.”
“No, I agree with Pops,” Alessandro said. “She’d never.” He looked at Enzo. “Maybe she was writing a nonfiction piece for the magazine, and her research led her somewhere dangerous? She might have notes in one of those boxes in the safe room. We didn’t read over her work files back then because all the evidence had pointed to that guy.”
“You were young,” Mr. Costa said. “No excuse for me. I should’ve questioned things more.”
“I don’t think Bianca would write a Lois Lane–type exposé. It wasn’t her style. She loved love,” I said, sharing my thoughts. “But even if she did decide to write something dangerous, which led to her attack, the killer would’ve searched her place and taken any notes she had or evidence tied to them, right?”
Enzo nodded in agreement. “Play the footage,” he suggested, facing the screen again.
The camera angles bounced around, never losing sight of Bianca as she walked. It was as if Constantine had designed a program to recognize her face and follow her every step.
“Her head is down. Shoulders forward. I can’t see her face, but I can read her body language. She’s sad. The kind of sadness that only happens when . . .” Enzo’s gaze cut back to me. “When you feel like you can’t be with the person you love.”
My hand climbed to my chest at the anguished expression on his face as he studied me, and I couldn’t help but replay his words to me in the theater room that we hadn’t had a chance to discuss. His “I love you” had been buried among fear and worries, but it’d been there.
“Go back to the cameras by the club. Change the time to within thirty seconds of when she left. Let’s see if we recognize anyone leaving the club after her,” Alessandro suggested, and Enzo slowly faced the screen as I gripped the armchairs, nervously waiting, and it didn’t take long before Alessandro hissed, “Stop.”
“Is that who I think it is?” Constantine asked, and I stood to try and get a better view as he zoomed in on a man’s face.
“He was at the club that night?” Enzo whispered in disbelief, and chills scattered over my body.
“Who?” I asked, my timid voice nearly just a squeak of sound.
Enzo slowly faced me. “Giovanni’s son-in-law. His daughter’s husband, Nico.”
“Wait, the man outside the club that night is also the same guy in charge of the three men who came to your place yesterday. And now he’s on his way here?” That felt a little . . . suspect. Even for me.
Enzo’s palms went into prayer position, and he bowed his head against his hands and tapped twice. He cursed, this time in Italian, and dropped his palms. “Those three idiotas weren’t stupid. It was an act. They didn’t have a side operation. They knew who I was beforehand, and Nico sent them to me. I’d felt like I was being watched the night before when Jesse was talking to me, but he said he hadn’t been followed.” He shook his head. “That’s because they were already in Charlotte. Watching me.”
Wait, what?
“Now that we know the Brambilla family regularly used that cleaner, it makes sense they’d keep tabs on him. The moment they knew there was a breach, they’d started working on a game plan,” Constantine said.
“For whatever reason, Nico must be in league with the Brambillas, and he clearly has been for a long time,” Alessandro spoke up.
“They’ve been watching my every move since I arrived in town,” Enzo said. “Must have followed us to the cabin last night. We led them right to the cleaner.” He cut an angry hand through the air. “I was playing checkers while they were playing chess. I walked right into it because I was—”
“Distracted,” I murmured in defeat, assuming that was the direction he was going, and bricks of guilt suffocated me at that fact. “What does this all mean?”
Enzo looked at me and let go of a ragged breath. “Nico’s men saw me with you in the parking lot before Jesse showed up. They saw you show up at my place later that night. And maybe they were even outside the morning before when Thomas came.”