Chapter Three Tyler #2
“I don’t think she’s shared,” I tell them both. “She has a motive and said she’s here to help us.”
“But you’re not sure?” Tobias asks, pulling out his phone to rapidly compose a text, and I know it’s to Cecelia to put her on alert.
“No, T, I’m not,” I say, knowing I can’t do shit about his panic but doing my best to try. “Cecelia’s covered, Tobias. I swear. I already put the protocol in place. Every bird has been given the heads up.”
A slight amount of tension leaves his expression as I turn to Preston.
“This particular cage I had every intention of rattling myself, because I think this is who I’ve been searching for.”
Tobias stops texting, his posture rigid, not only because of the bomb I just dropped but because he knows what it will mean to me if I’m right. Both of them do. “You mean the source?”
I nod.
“We’ll get to that,” T says through an audible exhale. “What do we have?”
“Little to nothing, and we’ve been digging deep. Using every fucking resource. Whatever dirt was there has been swept up, and no connected family is this clean. Ciro’s got allies. Very powerful allies who’ve hidden his dirt well.”
“We could wipe them out,” Preston voices, and I shake my head.
“We need to know what we’re dealing with and who.”
Tobias reads my line of thought. “You’re thinking, Fortune 500 or not, these families—even if they aren’t associated anymore—maybe there’s some old beef between them? Someone jaded enough with loose lips who might be willing to give us intel on the DiCiccos for some needed edge?”
“Exactly,” I say, glancing between them.
“The problem is, none of these families are with us. They don’t need us or any favors we can grant.
These people don’t have loose lips and are damn near fucking impossible to get anything from.
Furthermore, we could be knocking on enemy doors in asking for help.
We haven’t gone after them yet for good reason,” I state with emphasis as we all share a long, meaningful look.
Since we found Dom’s list, T, Preston, Sean, and I have been speculating who the power players might be beyond those we initially assumed.
That there might be more unknowns calling the shots.
That the chatter fed to us by the news channels and through dark whispers up the pipeline—insinuating other culprits are responsible—has been spoon-fed over the years as distractions and red herrings.
Whether it be the deeply fed notion of deep state corruption, the cesspool in Hollywood, or anything else that garners and holds the public’s attention enough to keep further scrutiny at bay.
The kicker is, some of these institutions and corruptions are real.
Distracting enough to keep us occupied so that the true criminals can veer in any direction.
All part of the endless layers of solidly packed cement meant to barricade the tip of the shovel from the casket holding the real skeletons.
What’s even more damning is that these types of powerful families exist not only in the States but all over the globe.
Our shared decision for now is to tackle Dom’s list before prodding further into it. We have suspicions but no real intel at this point. But if Larissa’s warning is any indication, we might have already begun our descent by burying the tip of the shovel into dirt we’ve never explored before.
“Aside from the warning,” I continue, “Larissa said she can help us and further our agenda. If we play this right, maybe the ‘they’ she’s referring to is the same ‘they’ and we can get more from her.”
Tobias searches my expression. “This warning you are taking so seriously?”
“Gravely,” I say.
“Leave this to me for now,” Preston says. “I’ll make some house calls and get very persuasive.” Apprehension fills me as I weigh the risks, and Preston speaks to it. “I know what this means, Tyler.”
“I’m not sure even I fucking do.” Dread settles in. “If we open this door—”
“I’m aware,” Preston clips.
“You’re already drawing too much heat.” I eye Tobias for backup.
“They won’t touch him,” Tobias assures.
“You’re too valuable,” I argue.
“My VP’s ink is bolder than mine,” Preston assures.
“That’s not what I want to hear,” Tobias snaps to one of his oldest friends.
“Ah, my dear brute”—Preston claps Tobias’s shoulder—“the time for any sentiment about my death passed when I was sworn in. And to be frank, after living one of the most boring fucking existences in history—well, other than my time with Molly—I’m looking forward to this action.”
Tobias grins. “Your current title not entertaining enough?”
“Put me the fuck in, coach,” Preston quips as I shake my head.
“We can come up with a plan,” I reason.
“We just did,” Preston insists, ending the argument. “I’m going in.”
Dreading the next drop, I look between them. “It gets worse. There are very close relatives of the DiCiccos—”
“DiGiovanni,” Tobias states, eyeing my screen before muttering a low “Also mafia. Fuck.”
“Larissa’s mother, Cosima, was born Cosima DiGiovanni. She’s been in and out of mental hospitals for nearly two decades. I’ll see if there’s anything there in the way of getting her help, but—”
“It can’t get worse,” Tobias mutters.
“It can and has, especially if they already know who we are. And Larissa’s seen our fucking tattoo, brother, in the flesh, and it wasn’t mine.”
“I’m guessing there’s more to this?” Preston asks in an attempt to read between the lines.
“No coincidences,” I repeat, Delphine’s warning about the limited number of players on the board never straying far from my thoughts.
“The fact that her father could be the motherfucker I’ve been searching for and could have ties to Spencer and the officials we put down is one thing.
The fact that she’s a middle child is another entirely,” I say as Tobias weighs my words, and I know it’s sinking in.
“And the other siblings?” Preston asks just as a knock sounds on the door.
A knock that lets me know I spent way too much time explaining what went down last night with Larissa personally, rather than what’s pertinent now, as Preston is summoned and forced away from us for his intelligence and national security briefing.
“Shit.” Preston grimaces. “Fill me in later?”
I nod, and Tobias and I continue to stare off until Preston snaps the door closed behind him.
“Do you think that’s what she’s after?” Tobias asks.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but I don’t know.”
“Fuck!” Tobias explodes, fisting his hands at his sides as he starts pacing. “Motherfucker!”
“We knew it would catch up with us at some point, T.” I let out a long breath.
“This may be that point, but if she truly has already made us and shared the names of those inked, I think we would have been hit hard by now. Her younger brother, Ignacio, is a loose cannon. If this is vendetta-based, he’d be the first to make a move. ”
“Our systems didn’t identify her?”
“Nope. Every search came back with the same completely identical bullshit intel, which should have been a red flag in and of itself. If the age on the false backgrounds we ran is correct, she was around seventeen when Spencer went down, and after digging deep, I noticed that’s where the true trail on her ends.
She disappeared. ‘They’ purposely falsified her life and buried the truth of everything after age seventeen to protect her. ”
“Sounds familiar,” Tobias snaps sarcastically.
“Because it’s a similar paranoia to Roman’s.
When a family heir is threatened, the rest of the family tends to protect them.
My guess is that when we took Spencer down, Ciro feared he was next and sent off his successor until it was time to call her up.
Wherever she was sent, it wasn’t here in the States, because there’s no trace of her here in the last seven years and change. ”
“You mean this woman is—”
“Next in line,” I say. “Has to be, and what better way to earn her position than delivering us on a silver platter?”
“But if that was her intent, why come to you?” He considers this. “Do you not think maybe it’s out of fear for what we may have in store? That Ciro sees us as a threat because of what we’ve done and is ready to strike a deal?”
I bite my lip. “Not sure, but believing a word she says won’t help us in the least.”
“Doesn’t look like we have much of a choice,” he grits out.
“If there’s a way, I’ll figure it out,” I say.
“We have to without taking her word for anything. But T, I’m almost positive Ciro is the motherfucker I’ve been trying to identify for the whole of my time as a bird.
Dom suspected it and didn’t share this with me,” I relay, irritated about the fact that Ciro’s name was sitting on Dom’s laptop for fucking years when Dom knew enough about my personal stake in this.
“He didn’t know it was going to take so long for us to get to these files, Tyler,” Tobias offers apologetically.
“I know, and he was acting on his own during that time anyway,” I sigh. “After doing a shallow dive and revisiting the file, I’m almost positive Ciro alone is responsible for rerouting half of the gun shipments in the last five years.”
“Which makes him your most important mark yet,” Tobias supplies.
We both sit in collective silence as Tobias scans what’s on the screen, as I remember the night I went to Tobias when I was a teenager and told him the additional role I wanted to play with my ink. My personal added skin in the game.
It was during one of the worst years of my life, nearly twenty years ago. When I realized my father was never coming back mentally after his last deployment, which destroyed my family.