Chapter Fifteen Raffa
Chapter Fifteen
Raffa
Raffa Romano, respected Florentine businessman, was almost an entirely separate entity from Il Gentiluomo.
Which might have explained why it was so easy for me to hide that part of myself from Guinevere.
It certainly made the decision to leave her out of the discussions an easy one.
Drita Hoxha was an ally and had been since we were first introduced five years ago, even through the ups and downs of her tumultuous relationship with Carmine, but she was not a friend.
There was no room for true friendships between other crime syndicates. You never knew when your interests might diverge or an insult might be handed down, and suddenly you were at war.
So I liked Drita, and I put up with her and Carm, but I would never trust someone like her with Guinevere’s well-being.
Especially when my woman had declined to take her throne beside me.
If she had . . . well, I would have decked her out in jewels and finery, told her about Albanian culture so she would not make the mistake of flinching away from Drita’s kiss of welcome, and then watched as she made the Shqiptare eat out of the palm of her hand.
It was easier this way, I told myself, but there was something beneath my breastbone that ached like a bruise.
“This is not good news,” Dren, Drita’s younger brother, muttered after I explained some of what was going down with the Venetian.
“You have to understand, when you took over again from the Grecos, we were thrilled,” Drita explained.
She had short, dark hair slicked back from her forehead so that her large, ice-water-blue eyes dominated her face, and a large, mobile mouth that was always painted a dark red reminiscent of blood.
“The Romano clan is known for its discretion and efficiency now that you are capo. In the years we’ve worked with you, we’ve had no issues.
With the Grecos, this was not the case. We are not happy to hear that now you might not be without issues too. ”
“If you think I am happy about it, then perhaps our language barrier is deeper than I realized,” I said dryly in Italian.
Drita and Dren both spoke Italian well, having been raised on it for the express purpose of being the Albanian liaisons on the ground in Italy.
They did not like my insinuation that they were not fluent.
“You motherfuck—” Dren started to curse, leaning over the table to growl at me.
Drita held up one hand. “Do not be a cliché, Dren. How many times do I have to tell you? If you can’t keep your temper, take a walk.”
For a vibrating moment, Dren bared his teeth at me before he crossed his arms and sat back in his chair.
His sister nodded curtly and folded her hands. “As I was saying, we are not happy to hear about your . . . woes. So we will do what we can to help.”
“For a price?” Renzo inserted, because he knew her well.
Drita’s smile was almost blinding in that bloody red frame. “If we can be of aid, I think a grateful ten percent off your cut of the deal would be fitting.”
Renzo scoffed, but I held her cold eyes and offered my own wolfish grin. “As thanks if you do discover something of value, I will set you up with the Montucci family in Ravenna.”
It was Dren’s turn to scoff. “They hate Albanians. They will not work with us.”
“Carlo Montucci is an old friend,” I said, without divulging that I had saved him from bankruptcy last spring and he would be in my debt for life. “I am sure we could figure something out. I know you’ve been eager for more east-coast entry points.”
Drita’s mouth pursed unhappily, but there was a sparkle in her eye she did not try to hide. “I can agree to those terms. Besa,” she said, an Albanian oath.
“Besa,” I mimicked, taking her proffered hand.
“Excellent. Now that we have negotiated terms, I do believe I can help,” she offered, snapping her fingers so that a man waiting against the wall behind her stepped forward with a covered tablet he opened and presented to her.
After taking it without looking, Drita slid it across the slick wood tabletop to me. “We should start with this.”
The screen depicted an image of a blond-haired woman with tanned skin and vibrant blue eyes smiling into the camera with her arms wrapped around a squat older man and woman, a field of vines curving up behind them.
Though I had never seen her before, there was something familiar about her features.
The large eyes topped by delicately arched eyebrows that made her look young and especially vulnerable.
I knew before Drita said anything whose name would pass her lips.
“Gemma Stone. The sister of the woman you’ve been sleeping with since the summer.”
Her hand was suddenly at the top of the screen, swiping to the next photo in the gallery, one taken of Guinevere and me in Firenze before she’d gone back to Michigan.
She was in a short red dress, raised up on the toes of her sandals to meet my kiss, my hand cupping her ass under the fabric, my entire body bent to curve over hers like a shield.
My reaction was so immediate, it could not have had time to filter through my brain. It was just gut instinct. An animal response to the sudden threat of knowing someone had been shadowing us.
I gripped Drita’s outreached hand by the wrist and tugged so forcefully she was upended over the table and dragged before me in an instant.
Before she could recover, the knife I kept sheathed at my hip was in my hand and pressed to the junction of her jaw and throat, the flat of the blade digging deeply enough to make her breath stutter hard through her throat.
Around me, I was distantly aware of Renzo, Carmine, and Martina standing off against Dren and the other two Albanians.
I curved over Drita’s prone body, not like a shield as I had with Guinevere but like a weapon homed in on a target.
The words I spoke were deceptively soft, but as sinister as the wrath barely leashed within me. “You have one chance to tell me why I should not gut you like a fish for following us.”
Drita stared up at me, miraculously unperturbed, given her position. She looked almost . . . curious. “So she is not just a bit of fun for you, capo.”
A growl ripped up my throat in answer.
She smiled thinly. “I did not take the photo, nor did any of my people. It was delivered to one of my men by a fellow who called himself the Venetian.”
My heart hammered so hard it reverberated in my bones. It was hard to hear her over the cacophony of my internal stress.
“Why the fuck would the Venetian give you that photo?”
“Because,” she said calmly, “I knew Gemma Stone.”
I blinked down at her as the world tilted just slightly. “Excuse me?”
“Perhaps you can lower your weapon and I can take a seat to explain things?”
Reluctantly, I took the blade from her neck, neatly sheathing it even though I did not retake my seat until everyone else had slowly reclaimed theirs.
“Gemma was seeing Dren for a time,” Drita explained, gesturing to her grim-faced brother. “They met at a club in Durres, and he was quite smitten. So much so that he started to bring her around.”
There was a grimace on Dren’s face that did not speak of a happy ending.
“He even introduced her to members of Clan Greco when they were visiting to renegotiate terms for our smuggling deal. The day after, she broke up with Dren and, presumably, started to see one of the Italians.”
“Who?”
It was Dren who grunted, “If I had any clue, he would be dead.”
Ah, so he had been very smitten, then.
Merda, well, Guinevere had mentioned her sister had terrible taste in men. And poor decision-making, if she’d gotten involved with an Albanian gangster and then abruptly dropped him for an Italian mafioso. The Stone girls were not big on self-preservation, clearly.
“But you are sure she was with an Italian?” I asked, thinking of the cross necklace Gemma had supposedly given the stranger who’d tried to kidnap Guinevere on the top of the bell tower.
“Very. I followed her the day before she died,” Dren admitted, then scowled at my look of suspicion. “Only to try to speak with her. There was no closure.”
Beside me, Carmine hid a laugh behind a very fake bout of coughing.
Dren’s scowl deepened, and an angry flush burned his pugnacious face. “She ducked into an Italian restaurant by the harbor that is often frequented by the Grecos.”
“Did you see her leave?”
“No, she stayed very late, and I decided it was over. The next day, she collapsed in the street dead.” There was misery in his voice, as if he missed her despite their end.
The magic of the Stone family, perhaps.
“In what context did you receive the photo of Guinevere and myself?”
“A member of the Greco family who escaped persecution after you set the Italian dogs on them came forward to offer it as a bargaining chip so we would not kill him.” Drita’s smile was vampiric.
“It did not work, of course. But he assured us that the Grecos were still on top and had recruited the Pietra family to work against you and claim the north. They planned to use the girl against you.”
“To kill her,” I corrected. “They came after her in Florence during the San Lorenzo festival.”
“No, Alessio Greco told me they were going to take her. She was worth more alive than dead because they could use her as leverage against you.”
“They tried to take her in Michigan, which is why I brought her back to Italia. Another attempt was made to kidnap her in Impruneta just last weekend,” I admitted.
Drita frowned. “Impruneta could not have been the Grecos. I killed Alessio myself.”
“There are other Grecos,” Dren pointed out.
But . . . “No,” I said, looking at Rezo, who nodded. “Alessio and his cousin, Ricardo, were the only two higher-ups left in the organization after Sansone Pucci incarcerated the rest without parole. Ricardo was last seen belly-up in Lago di Como.”