57. Dominic
57
DOMINIC
Jesus Christ. I didn’t miss it; I just didn’t heed my sixth sense, choosing to be blind to all her red flags.
As she talks, giving me glimpses into her life, little things add up to her truth. The way she gathered information as she walked through the Don’s house, how she tried to steal my gun and then wielded it like a pro, but unable to shoot me. Something short-circuited in her head in that moment, and I’d love to think it was me. But it wasn’t. It was the past she keeps on running from.
Or maybe she’s running towards it, to annihilate it once and for all. People don’t join the police force for no reason, especially not special units like the DIA.
Ariana Morelli—Emilia Korhonen, as she admitted—was in witness protection and changed her name, disappeared from her prior life, and yet chose to be integrated back into the Mafia as an undercover agent as if she belongs—because she does. No wonder she fooled me.
“What training did you have in the DIA?” I ask to keep her talking.
So far so good, but at some point, she might stop, choosing to protect her team over giving me information. Not that I would do anything with it. We have enough shit in Boston to keep us busy, and I don’t need to poke around the Italian police force or kick the hornet’s nest further down the field, hoping to shoot a fucking goal with it. It’s bad enough Matteo established the kick-off with killing Randazzo.
“The usual basic training, firearms, tactical, some combat training,” she says with a shrug, as if this is old news. “And then the specialized training in organized crime, surveillance, intelligence, hostage negotiations. Extensive psychological preparation to go undercover. That’s just the broad brushstrokes.”
Typical training, but nothing about this woman is typical or average, and I’m looking at her with fresh eyes…and admiration. Through everything, she kept her cool.
“What were you involved with when Franco came for you?” This is the inflection point in her story and where our paths start to merge. How did our paths cross? I’d love to know.
She glances to where the air hostess is busy on the other side of the cabin, preparing for landing. Nobody can hear our conversation over the hum of the jet’s engines. My bodyguards sit in their usual spots by the front and back of the plane, out of earshot.
“We were working on a long-term infiltration operation of Randazzo’s sex trafficking rings in Italy. The plan was to penetrate and take down the ring leaders and make the whole structure crumble.” She shakes her head with a frustrated sigh. “It took us years to get people undercover. I prepped as a make-up artist to gain entry and access to the auctions. And then—and then?—”
“Wait a minute,” I say, holding up a hand. “A makeup artist? At sex slave auctions?”
A feeling I’m starting to associate with her, one of burning fucking rage fueled by everything she’s telling me, flares up in me. It’s only doused by this intense need to protect her.
“What?”
“They put you, a rape survivor, under-fucking-cover on a sting operation that deals with sex trafficking? What the actual fuck, Ariana?” I growl, wanting to wring the necks of the men—without a doubt—who thought this would be a good idea. I’d think of all the things that would disqualify her from getting involved in a gig like this, it would be a brutal rape which left her stunned for decades.
“They didn’t know, okay,” she says, her voice thick with anger, on the verge of tears.
Tears she always shed quietly. Not only because she grew up in the Mafia, but because it would make her seem weak in the police force.
“How did they not know ? You have psychological assessments, endless tests to make sure you’re mentally fit for a job like that.”
I don’t even want to know what she witnessed in some sex trafficking shithole in Italy. What I’ve seen as we researched to prepare Matteo for his job to kill Randazzo, where I needed to go to ensure he had the proper security, was enough to give me fucking nightmares.
Me. Nightmares. Dominic Fucking Scalera, expert on human torture, had nightmares of the women ensnared in that world. And there she just walked in, a lamb into a lion’s den. At any second, they could have flipped on her and thrown her on the stage, subjected her to more of what Franco did to her and worse. So much worse.
“I was fucking mentally fit for the job!” she hisses at me as she slams her hands on the table, leaning into my face. “I was after Randazzo. He killed my mom after he abused her for years, and then he tossed me to the wolves as if I was worthless. I had my own fucking agenda, and I was mentally strong enough to fool all of them. I got in exactly where I wanted to be. And if it wasn’t for Franco Fiore walking in on me, I would eventually have gotten to Randazzo and looked him in the eye as I slit his fucking throat.”
She stares me down, the anger in her voice reflected in her eyes, and I feel it vibrating through me.
I get it. I completely get every emotion she has.
“And then someone went and killed Randazzo before I—before I could get close enough—” She breaks off, tears flowing, her face flushed as she slumps in frustrated anger, stymied in the one thing that kept her going. “I have no idea who it was or how they managed to get close to him.”
I do, but she doesn’t need to know this.
I reach for her hand where she’s fisted it on the table, and it trembles as I wrap it in mine. She’s so delicate, but with this passion in her, I don’t doubt she would have killed Randazzo if she’d had the chance. But to kill anybody else? No. Not this woman. And it isn’t as if they could give you target practice with real humans, not even in the DIA. I’m relieved someone else avenged for her, someone she can now call family.
Maybe it’s time to share that secret. He is, after all, her half-brother. Maybe they even get to know each other, get to care for each other.
“Matteo. It was Matteo,” I say softly, squeezing her fingers as it hits me. Things suddenly makes sense. This is why Matteo got access to Randazzo so easily—he was his son. “Matteo killed Randazzo on our Don’s command.”
Even Matteo questioned it at the time, and the Don assured him Randazzo would see him, which means Matteo doesn’t know. Or maybe he does…he’s after all been fucking distracted lately.
“He walked straight into Randazzo’s compound, because he’s Randazzo’s long-lost son. Instead of negotiating taking over Randazzo’s operations, which I think was Randazzo’s end goal, well…Matteo did what he did, and looked him in the eye all the way.”
“I can’t believe it,” she says, her voice quivering. “Matteo?”
“Yes, sweetheart.” I reach for a napkin and hand it to her, and she buries her face in it.
I give her a minute, but time is ticking. I’m not at the bottom of this whole fuck-up yet, and my sixth sense tells me I need to dive deeper to find the real nasty business behind everything that led to her sitting across from me.
“Ariana,” I say, reaching for her again. “Franco knew exactly where you were. How?”
“I don’t know,” she says, between two suppressed sobs. “We moved so many times, I lost track of my team, and my team lost track of me. I even got separated from Lorenzo, my partner, and that was never the plan. In the end, I had nothing to notify them of my location. They confiscated everything bit by bit. From my phone to my makeup kit that held my last tracking device. They even took my shoes and gave me new clothes. I had nothing but my training to go on. When I heard Randazzo got killed, I wanted to run, but that was the night Franco came, and it was too late.”
Because it was planned.
A chill sweeps down my spine as Don Scalera’s voice echoes in my head. ‘ The police are so fucking weak because they can’t trust their own.’ Bought, bribed, rotten to the core, and so dysfunctional in places, people would rather ask for Mafia protection than trust the police.
Planned. Franco Fiore knew where she was because it was all planned.
“Have you had any contact with any of your team members since Franco took you?”
“No,” she says with a dry smirk as she wipes at her nose. “I was locked up for more than a month in a dungeon straight from some medieval horror hell. I still don’t know what happened to any of them. I haven’t had access to anything, as you well know.”
True. And with fucking reason. She’s a Trojan Horse, and we were all idiots to let her walk in, buying into her disguise. Just a girl… Blindsided, all of us.
“Here’s the thing, sweetheart. The DIA thinks you’re dead. Or at least, they’ve marked you as missing, presumed dead, on their files. What if this whole undercover operation you were working on was a Mission Impossible, with the only goal to wipe out agents who are actually desperate to get the job done?”
She glares at me, not buying into my reasoning as she shakes her head. “No…there were good people on my team, really?—”
“Exactly. All the good people gone in one operation that goes disastrously wrong.”
She studies me, the color draining from her face. “Impossible. No. I won’t believe it.”
I take in a deep breath as memories of Alex’s death wash over me. Nobody would believe my conspiracy theory either.
“Get used to the idea, sweetheart. There’ll be ways to prove it.” I pull my laptop closer. “Tell me your team member’s names? Any information to identify them on the DIA’s internal records? We have time, but not a lot. Benedict and Luca can help us dig to see where they’re at.”
“I can try to log in on the DIA internal website?—”
“No. You’re presumed dead. Whoever is watching, waiting for you to reappear as there’s been no body, would be notified if you log on. We’re going to keep you dead, sweetheart, because right now, dead is safe.” And I’d do anything to keep her safe. I log back into my laptop, knowing we’re on borrowed time. “Benedict and Luca can hack their way into the system, or would know who can, not leaving a trace.”
My mind is racing, because if she was part of a covert undercover plot to end her, which doesn’t seem far-fetched from where I’m sitting, just getting off this plane could endanger her.
“Pietro Garlini. He is our direttore operativo , leading the operation. Then I have three men on my team. Lorenzo Ricci, Manolo Diconti, and Alesso Romano, but I can give you their agent numbers, as well.”
“Okay, give me a second.”
When I’m ready, she gives me the names again, with the numbers of her brothers in arms which they all memorize as part of some strategic plan. I send off an urgent email to Benedict and follow it up with a message on my phone. I wait for it to deliver and watch as it confirms he’s read it. Trust Benedict to be up at any goddamn hour, and thank God he is. When he shoots me a reply that he’s on it, I sigh in relief.
“This should be quick,” I say, placing my phone back on the table. “And good to know because wasn’t your goal to join your team again, should you manage to escape Franco, and then escape Boston?”
Ariana is starting to show me what she’s made of, and the respect I had for her has multiplied exponentially. She’s been brutally hurt, but that didn’t stop her for going for Randazzo in her own way to avenge her mom. To avenge Elena. She plays a long game.
“Yes. The only thing that kept me from going insane in that dungeon was the fact there’s always work to do. My team waits for me. Just because Randazzo’s dead doesn’t mean the trafficking stops.”
“No, it doesn’t. Let’s see how many of your team are still standing.” I’m not sure how she’ll cope with the betrayal if they’re all dead.
She rolls her eyes at me, and I want to lean over the table, take hold of that perfect chin, reprimand her for it, because how dare she roll her eyes at me. It makes my fucking dick twitch, and now is not the time, because after reprimanding her, I want to kiss her. Hard.
The air hostess walks over to us, and I curse under my breath. Now is definitely not the time.
“Sir, we are landing in twenty minutes.”
“Good, thank you.” I stand. “Come, let’s go strap in.”
It’s quiet between us as we prepare for landing, lost in our own thoughts. If her team is wiped out, it will prove I’m right and the police, the DIA, is in bed with organized crime, with Franco. I bet they have no clue where he’s at, and they’re all in a fucking tizzy.
One thing that eats at me is the passport Franco used to get her out of Italy and into the States. Without a doubt, it’s fake, but if it’s linked to her personal file in any way, using it now to enter Italy could alert whoever is waiting for Ariana Morelli’s body to float up. Shit. We’re going to have to disguise ourselves however possible before we walk off this plane.
“Best you give me your home address,” I say, using the last minutes before landing to get instructions out to my team on the ground. “It could be that your apartment is under surveillance.”
“Really? You think?”
“I’m certain.”
She gives me an address in Rome, and I save it on my maps, then send the coordinates to my team lead to park someone in the vicinity and keep an eye on the traffic going to her place.
Ariana Morelli is only presumed dead. Until there’s a body, death isn’t certain. If her team has been eliminated, and Franco’s job was to end her and he failed, she’s a rogue unit. A threat to whoever is in bed with Franco. She’ll be hunted for the rest of her life.
All she’d have left in the world is us. Il Consiglio. Her new family.
And me. I’m one of the few people who has the resources and skill set to protect her against police corruption. I’m the one man who stands between Matteo and the destiny he’ll decide for her as Don.
Fuck if I let Matteo pawn her off to anybody else.
Tasha and Gigi are already part of the clan, and I might have been fighting this with every fiber in my being, but I’m the one man who can really protect her. I don’t know when this has happened, or how, but you touch this sweet woman, you’re fucking dead.
I might still have to convince her, but she’s mine. Until death do us part.