60. Ariana
60
ARIANA
I’m a bunch of twisted nerves as I wait in the car. It feels like hours. I don’t know what Dominic would find at Antonio’s place. When I escaped twelve years ago, it was already a dump, and to my knowledge, nothing’s changed.
When Dominic appears through the olive grove, I have to hold myself back from getting out of the car and running to him and jumping into his arms. He’s safe. My heart is a mess where it beats in my chest with a mix of fear and hope, and an ache I’ve started to associate with him. Not pain—more like bubbles of joy that have nowhere to go, pressing against my ribcage. I thought we were done, that he’d end me once he learned I’m in the DIA, but then I recalled Matteo is my half-brother. I might be a pawn in their hands now, but they won’t just kill me to be rid of me.
And then he said, so casually, we still have plans for that sweet pussy .
I’d love to hear—to experience—all those plans. Memories of last night flood my mind, and I squirm in my seat. Now I can’t think of anything else as he opens the door and slides into the back seat. I blush, the full range of red heat invading my face.
“What happened?” I ask, forcing myself to think about where we are and what we came to do, not sure I want the finer details. “Was he alone? Is he still alive? Did he know anything?”
“Give us a minute, and map out the direction to Potenza already,” Dominic says to the driver who waited with me in the car. The man gets out and closes the door, giving us privacy. “For now, sweetheart, he’s still alive. Apparently, Gabriella went to a convent. I have the number, but it’s too early to phone.”
“A convent? What are the chances she’s still there after all this time?”
He shrugs. “It’s our next lead. We’ll go there and figure it out.”
His gaze locks with mine, and then it wanders over my flushed cheeks and down my neck. As if he could read my mind, his slow inspection only intensifies the heat.
“Fuck, Ariana,” he murmurs as he leans in and cups my neck to pull me closer. “Don’t look at me like that. We have work to do.”
“How do I look at you?” I protest, having done nothing I’m aware of.
His lips slide along my cheek to my ear. “As if you’d like me to fuck you in the backseat of the car…amongst other things.”
Goosebumps spread down my body as his warm breath ghosts over my skin, his lips teasing my ear. That’s exactly where my mind had gone, my core just paces behind. To think he read it all on me like I’m an open book. My nipples harden against my bra, a disconcerting wetness seeping into my panties. How is it that he turns me on with a few select words and then just touches me right?—
He kisses me then, and all logic leaves my mind. I’m in trouble. So much trouble when it comes to this man. I have fallen for the enemy, for a Mafia man with gentle hands, a kind heart, and a dark side he’d loathe to show me, because he hates it. But needs must. This is how he survives his world.
He groans as he pulls away. “Damn. Matteo’s obsession suddenly makes sense, so much sense.”
“What obsession?” I murmur as I look up at him, shy, my hand still on his chest where his heart is thumping wildly, too. I affect him, and it’s somehow the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.
“His obsession with Tasha, and particularly with the fact that he doesn’t want to do anything but, and I quote, fuck his wife.”
“Oh.” The implication of his words leaves me breathless, but then other men appear through the olive grove, and Gus gets back into the front passenger seat. The driver clambers in and meets Dominic’s gaze in the rearview mirror.
“It’s done, boss,” Gus says as he straps in his seatbelt.
“Good.”
“What happened to Antonio?” I ask, not sure I should or want to know.
“We left him feeding his pigs. There’s nothing much else keeping him company here. Let’s get going,” Dominic instructs the driver. “You’ve mapped the directions to the convent in Potenza? Where is this place?”
“Yes, sir,” the driver says. “It’s a drive. Eight hours at least as it’s on the other side of Rome.”
“Fuck. Should have kept the jet on standby.” Dominic reaches for my hand and rests it on his thigh, leaving me buzzing as the driver starts the car, and we head off again.
“Did you kill him? Antonio?” I whisper, scared they went in and let the asshole live.
“He’s been taken care of, sweetheart. He won’t talk about our little visit.”
His phone rings, and he answers, thankfully sparing me the details.
“Benedict. Yep. Fuck it, you’re breaking up. Okay. Yes. What? What the fuck? Okay, send it through, and we’ll have a look.” He kills the call and shoots me a glance as he sweeps open his phone.
“What?”
“Benedict hacked into Franco’s phone. He’s sent us some things to analyze.”
“How does he do it so quickly?” I ask, stunned at how Benedict just seems to walk digitally into any room he wants.
“For starters, he’s freaking smart and has been playing around for years. He’s got a gift for this type of thing and unlimited money to spend on the latest tech, and a team of weirdos just like himself working for him. Plus he’s addicted to the high of breaking and entering where nobody is supposed to go.” Dominic groans and drags his hand through his hair in frustration. “The internet is useless here. We need to go somewhere with better reception. Speed up where you can?”
“Yes, sir,” the driver says, and for the next ten minutes, we bump along old country roads until we connect with a main road.
“Here,” Dominic says as he hands me his phone. “These are transcripts of messages. There are several between different numbers and Franco’s phone. Can you figure out if any of them is from Pietro Garlini?”
“How on Earth…?” I ask as I scan the pages and swipe between them. “How did he know to pick these specific ones?”
“Probably used AI. Asked it to analyze the content and narrow it down to the most likely suspects.”
I shake my head as I read through the short lines of messages on one file, then jump to the next. Franco was a busy man, and even though the messages are clearly coded, it’s obvious he was knee-deep in criminal activity.
“I’m getting car sick,” I say, but it is more than that. I’m sick to my stomach by having access to this information, seeing straight into that sick mind’s workings. Here I have raw evidence the DIA would do anything to get their hands on…except there’s nobody in the DIA I really trust right now.
“Pull off at a gas station and tell the others to stop close by but elsewhere. Ariana needs to work through this before we make any further decisions.”
“Yes, sir.”
I look out of the window, trying to get a grip on the growing ball of churning bile in my stomach, and when the driver pulls off again, I take my time. There are ten sets of messages, in code, I need to work through. I disregard the first seven after nothing in them gives me any hints as to being related to Pietro Garlini.
A flicker of hope lights in me. Maybe Dominic’s theory is wrong. My team wasn’t ambushed during a mission we were never set to complete; it was something else that led to our demise.
And then my gaze snags on one little line.
EK in position. LR detained. MD done. AR done.
Pins and needles prickle over my skin. Those are our initials. Lorenzo Ricci, Manolo Diconti, and Alesso Romano. And I…I was known as Emilia Korhonen between Franco and…and it must be Pietro Garlini. I swipe up to the page where the number and a name is included. It’s not Pietro’s DIA phone number, and nothing else gives it away. But it must be Pietro Garlini because the only way anybody could know my birth name is if they had access to my Top Secret file. Emilia Korhonen was ‘killed’ twelve years ago, but only someone with access to my records would know I’m alive and have turned into Ariana Morelli.
Oh my God. I check again. The message is dated on the last day I was in contact with Lorenzo Ricci, the team member who was supposed to look after me and protect me. Detained. I’m in position. MD done, AR done. Code for killed.
“Ariana?”
Dominic tries to take the phone from me as I’m trembling so much, everything is a blur, but I cling to it as tears fall like stones to my lap. I drag in breath after breath, forcing myself to try to calm down.
“Oh my God, he sold them out. He sold us all out.”
I wipe at my eyes, focusing on the rest of the message chain, which details their plan like a to-do list in which they tick off every step.
LR done.
Oh my god. Dead.
EK detained.
Is she done?
No. Detained.
Do her already.
No. Now that I have her, she might be useful.
Not what we agreed upon. Do her.
Soon. Need time.
There are several more call outs from Pietro Garlini to kill me, but Franco had lost interest as he doesn’t respond.
And then comes a line from Pietro Carlini that chills me to the bone:
Why the fuck did you leave Italy with her and where the fuck are you going? Not our agenda.
Franco’s response is simply, She’ll be back.
And then the last line from Pietro: I want to see her body.
Franco never responded because we were going to the US by then, and he had me in that dungeon with his own plans, which didn’t include Pietro Garlini’s plans to end me immediately.
“I can’t believe it,” I sob. “He sold us out. He butchered my team…he?—”
Dominic takes the phone from me, and I let go, already in his arms.
He holds me close, trying to calm me with gentle strokes on my back, his lips pressed to my forehead as he murmurs. “It’s going to be okay, Ariana. Eventually, it’s all going to be okay.”
I’m crying ugly tears, sobs tearing from my chest like I never allow them to, but there’s no hiding this grief. My whole life, my whole idea of self has been wiped out by the man I trusted the most, trusted with my life—trusted with my team. And they all died except me.
“What if they died because of me?” I cry into his shoulder.
There’s no doubt I could have been the sole objective of Franco and Garlini’s mission—I am, after all, Randazzo’s daughter. An heiress to a sick underground network and a Mafia fortune. A prize in the right man’s hands. I was the only thing Franco wanted out of his deal with Pietro Garlini.
“The only way it will ever be okay is if I end him, like he wanted to end me.” I don’t know where the words come from, but with Garlini alive I’ll never be safe. The idea is a one-eighty from everything I’ve come to trust and believe, but a sense of rightness is spreading into me like the cool reassurance of Dominic’s touch on my skin.
“That’s the only way, sweetheart, and together, we’ll get it done. Give me the list of names, and I’ll make it happen.”