Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Dante
I was sure the car hadn’t come to a complete standstill before I shoved open the driver’s door. Extinguishing my cigarette, I threw it to the ground and grabbed at my bag to the side of me, before getting out. The steps of the plane were down and the engines were running, and seeing that the pilot was already seated and ready to go home urged me on. When Marco appeared at the doorway, equally smart in a handmade Italian suit, I could see he had also come to the same conclusion as myself.
We were going home.
As he lifted his hand, he began to jiggle a couple of bottles of Moretti beer in front of him and I jogged the final few feet, before mounting the steps two at a time and taking one from his hand.
‘Let’s go.’ I chinked my freezing cold bottle to his.
‘Take us up,’ he spoke, as he signalled to the waiting pilot, by whirling his finger around in the air, that we were ready to leave.
No sooner had I taken my seat and slung my bag to the side of me, than the door slammed shut and the plane began its run before taking off into yet another clear, blue sky.
Marco grabbed at yet another couple of beers and occupied the seat directly opposite mine.
‘So, what’s happened?’ he questioned.
‘Alessio was ambushed early this morning.’
‘Fuck!’
‘He took five bullets to his body and one to his head.’
‘Christ, dude… is he alive?’
‘Last I heard he was hanging in there, but he’s critical and is at this very minute undergoing an operation to find out why he’s still bleeding internally.’
‘Shit… who?’
‘We don’t know yet. Salvatore has his men asking questions and has moved my family out of the villa and into the De Luca compound.’
‘Ricco!’ Marco sat bolt upright, as though his thought was so powerful it physically moved him. ‘Could this be the pressure Ricco asked for?’
‘It could well be,’ I agreed, nodding as I thought it over. ‘Jesus fucking Christ… Ricco.’ I shook my head.
‘He respected and loved Salvatore Snr…’ Marco began to reason. ‘We both fought alongside him in the last war, there was no question of his loyalty to our ‘ndrine… We were both there the day he took a knife to the face, protecting Salvatore Snr.’
‘We were,’ I agreed.
‘If it’s him—what turns a man like him against the family he’s worked with for years?’
‘It was no secret he hated Gianni.’ I shrugged my shoulders as the impact of what we thought we may have discovered hit me. ‘He thought, like the rest of us, that he was weak in mind and body. Maybe he felt that Gianni would be a poor successor?’ I spoke of Salvatore’s papa, who Salvatore himself had taken a gun to after finding he was trafficking women and children and was responsible for the death of his mama. ‘I only ever saw him talking to Gianni with contempt.’
‘True.’ He blew out an audible exhale through his mouth. ‘Which I always found weird. I mean who talks to the potential under boss that way? Even if you felt that strongly against him—you’d have to have a death wish.’
I looked down to my lap, after feeling a drip of condensation fall off the brown beer bottle. It made a small circle on my suit trousers. I traced my finger around it, looking at my family ring on my finger. ‘One who had something on him?’ I lifted my gaze up to meet Marco’s once again.
‘Mmmm interesting. Do you think he knew all along what Gianni was up to?’
‘Knew it. Was blackmailing him because of it?’ I shrugged as I thought it over, before shaking my head. ‘Or was part of it?’ I narrowed my eyes.
‘Was—or still is?’ Marco added.
‘My money is on, is . It’s got to be him.’ I nodded. ‘But what sort of family would attack a consigliere?’ I asked the question, but had already worked out the answer. ‘Except for a rogue fucking one. A family that’s gone out on their own. One that feels they could take over and do a better job than the current Don.’
I watched him absorb my words and begin to move his head slowly up and down.
‘If we don’t act fast, my whole family is going to be in danger. Because whoever they are, they’re closing in.’
‘So, we’re going home to see Salvatore?’
‘Correct. You used your initiative and gave me Ricco’s balls on a plate to serve up to Salvatore, and…’ I took a long drag on the beer in my hand and set it down on the table beside my seat. Then, looking at him I began to pull my laptop out of my bag and switched it on.
‘And?’ he asked, knowing me well enough to know there had to be more as to why we were rushing home and potentially leaving Ricco in Malta, effectively unguarded and possibly unrestrained.
‘Two days ago, Giovanna turned up in Valetta.’
‘Well fuck!’
‘Precisely.’
‘So, don’t tell me—you took her to bed and now we’re going back to Salvatore, so he can hang you up by the fucking balls before castrating you?’ He lifted his eyebrows before beginning to laugh.
‘Hopefully not.’
‘Which bit?’
‘The hanging and castrating.’
‘But the rest is true?’
‘Yeah—you recall the rest of what you recorded Ricco saying, about the main prize that had seemed so out of reach in Rome, having turned up in Malta?’
‘He was talking about Giovanna?’ I saw the second he fell in, as the smile fell from his face. Marco released his seat belt and leant further forward, placing his elbows to his knees, and released a loud sigh. ‘Well, fuck!’
‘I’m convinced it’s her, she’s the prize he’s after. A De Luca woman’s scalp.’ My stomach turned over as I spoke. ‘Potential blackmail material… or bride.’ My stomach protested at my thoughts. Giovanna belonged to no one else except me.
‘Where is she now? Why isn’t she here with us?’ He held his arms open wide and looked around suddenly, as if he was expecting her to appear.
He was right to question me… Hell, I was questioning myself right now.
‘She’s back on her stepfather’s boat heading to Calabria, after I saw to it that Peter Ariti was asked to leave Valletta. I’m as sure as I can be that no one knew we saw each other. Ricco has no clue we have the recording, and for a few hours she’s safe on the boat.’ I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince, him or me. ‘It buys us time, time to talk and time to plan. Time to turn the cards back in our favour.’
‘Hmmm.’ He nodded as he agreed, before stopping and looking thoughtful. ‘Stepfather?’ he questioned. I nodded in response, and he grimaced. ‘Was Valentina onboard too?’ he asked, as a look of concern spread over his face.
‘Apparently so.’ I shrugged. ‘Giovanna made her peace with her in Rome and was on holiday with the two of them and trying to put her past behind her… why?’
‘Shit.’ His one-word retort had me shifting in my seat.
‘What?’ I almost screamed at him.
‘You remember me saying I’d seen Ricco with a couple of other interesting women?’
I nodded fast and at the same time gesticulated with my hands that I needed him to hurry the fuck up and tell me whatever it was he had to say.
‘It was a couple of days ago. I saw an older woman with Ricco, she was expensively dressed, heavily made-up, and crazily skinny, and if it hadn’t been for the fact she had different coloured hair from what I remembered her having, I’d have sworn blind it was… Valentina.’
‘I saw Valentina today on her husband’s boat, her hair is now lighter.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘It was her you saw,’ I established, as I started to tap my leg impatiently as I waited for my synapses to start firing, and things fell into place. ‘Marco, everything that’s gone on comes back to her. Ricco would have never had control over Gianni, but the wife that hated him and could feed his addictions would have. Her and Ricco… It’s all beginning to make sense.’
‘Right?’ he questioned, playing catch up with where my head was taking me.
‘Yes, don’t you see? She didn’t ever really try to hide the fact she hated her husband, Gianni. Even when I was a child, when I saw them together, I understood she didn’t like him. She sucked up to Salvatore Snr, who made it very clear her performance was an irritation, but one he would put up with for the sake of his grandchildren. When Salvatore Jnr was pulled back into the family fold, she could hardly hide her contempt… Did that woman also see to it that Gianni killed the mama of his first-born son?’
‘A woman scorned.’ Marco nodded. ‘It might have been where this all fucking started. Weak men with a strong, vengeful woman pulling their strings.’
A sudden wave of fear washed over me.
‘FUCK!’ I slammed my hand down onto the table beside me, making my beer fall onto the floor, and spew out its contents. ‘I’ve put Giovanna back on the boat with her.’
‘You put her where you thought she’d be safe.’ His eyes opened wider as he felt my dread.
‘Get me Salvatore on the phone.’
‘Boss.’ Marco snapped suddenly, the way he did so well, from friend to soldier whenever there was the need. ‘Get me my bag!’ With his hand already in the air he shouted to one of the hand-picked stewardesses onboard. Within seconds, he was unzipping his holdall, dialling and passing the phone in his hand over, just as I brought my Mac to life by activating it with my fingerprint. Instantly, I found what I was looking for. The tracking device in Giovanna’s ring identified its position as south-west of Sicily, with my men following closely behind. I took a modicum of comfort in its small pulse.
If the ring was back on her finger, she was still onboard. I could only hope she was still safe.