Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Dante
I t took longer for the Don’s phone to be answered this time, but finally I heard the harsh tone of Bruno, Salvatore’s right-hand man.
‘Ciao.’
‘Bruno, it’s Dante Giordano… I need to speak to Don De Luca.’
‘He’s with his family right now. He has asked to only be disturbed if it’s a matter of life and death.’
‘I understand that, but I am part of his family.’ I took stock of exactly what I’d just said.
‘So you are, Dante.’ I could hear slight amusement in the older man’s tone.
‘And this is a matter of life and death.’ I spoke the words and thought of the woman I loved with everything I was. The one I’d held in my arms merely hours before. The woman who would forever own me, body and soul, and the same one whose life was possibly at risk this very minute.
I heard a muffled discussion between Bruno and Salvatore.
‘Dante.’ I heard the booming voice of my brother-in-law as he snatched up the phone. ‘We’ve had no news of Alessio. We will be in contact as soon as we hear anything.’
‘Thank you. But I’m not phoning about Alessio.’ I hated admitting that my fears about my brother had been replaced.
‘No—What the fuck’s happening?’
‘Giovanna left Malta this morning with her mama, Valentina.’ I briefly closed my eyes as I let my answer resonate.
‘They landed in Malta?’ I could hear the anger in Salvatore’s tone.
‘Can I ask if you knew they were going there?’ I knew what I was asking could possibly be insinuated as a gibe against his leadership.
‘No, I didn’t… because for very obvious reasons, I wouldn’t have given my permission,’ he virtually snarled back his reply.
‘I have reason to believe that whatever all of this is—Valentina, your stepmother, is in on it with Ricco. She’s possibly heading it up.’
‘THIS?’ he bellowed.
‘Everything… Alessio being shot, Ricco stealing from you, his Don and your family… and even going as far back as your mama. So, therefore also my papa’s ill health and subsequent disability,’ I explained.
‘Explain?’ His voice deepened with his growing anger.
‘I believe Ricco and Valentina are the traffickers you’ve been searching for since you were old enough to, the ones that went to ground and let others who worked for them take the blame for your mama’s and other disappearances and deaths—your papa was a pawn, as was my brother Zeno. Your papa did their bidding, as he depended on his wife for the alcohol and drugs he needed to exist. I believe Valentina and Ricco are heading up the rise against us and have been doing so for years.’
‘Do you have any evidence?’ he questioned.
‘Some. But the rest is gut instinct. But so much of it is far too compelling to be a coincidence… this is what I’m carrying.’
Moving the phone in my hand to nearer the laptop, I pressed play on my Mac and let him listen to the recording Marco had presented me.
The sound of a woman moaning filled up the small body of the aircraft, and I waved the stewardesses away, after watching their eyes open wider at the obvious sexual noises. Then the unmistakable voice of Ricco filled the air. “I’m fucking them over from the inside out and taking back the money that’s rightfully ours. It’s time for you to apply pressure from your end…”
‘Bastardo!’ Salvatore’s voice grew in strength. ‘Do you think you know who he is talking to.’
‘No, although Marco traced it to Calabria. But my gut has me thinking it’s whoever…’
‘Whoever gunned down Alessio.’ Salvatore finished my sentence.
‘Does Ricco have any family?’ I questioned.
‘Lorenzo— who was Giovanna’s fiancé,’ Salvatore answered and went into a tirade of Italian expletives. ‘I will kill them both with my bare hands.’
‘Was? She was engaged to Lorenzo, her bodyguard, but isn’t now?’ I asked with disbelief, my head was spinning with the facts being unravelled.
‘Yes. Today he asked my permission to bring their wedding forward. He said they were too much in love to wait any longer.’
‘And you refused him permission?’ I was ecstatic to hear it, but needed to know why he’d already refused.
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Before I gave him my refusal, he also said that Giovanna would sail back into Calabria today. Do you have any idea when?’ He didn’t answer my question and steered me back to what he wanted to know.
‘In about four hours.’ I’d twisted my arm around to check the time on my watch, before I interrupted him. ‘Ariti’s boat is just off Sicily now.’
‘And you know this how?’
I swallowed before answering truthfully, no longer caring about his anger, and only about her safety.
‘My wife and I were together last night…’ I paused, letting my words sink in.
‘My sister?’
‘My. Wife,’ I corrected. ‘When she left this morning, I placed a tracker in her engagement ring, that’s how I know where she is. I would never have let her go if I’d had any suspicions about Valentina.’
‘FANCULO!’
‘I have a boat with eight of my best men aboard following them,’ I added, knowing it wasn’t nearly good enough.
‘At least that’s something.’
‘It’s something,’ I agreed, wishing it was so very much more. ‘I have no reason to believe Valentina knows Giovanna met with me yesterday, so she should be safe for now.’
‘Do you think you deserve my sister, Dante Giordano?’
‘No. But I know I deserve her as much as you deserve my sister, Salvatore De Luca.’
A few silent seconds passed between us.
‘Touché,’ he eventually laughed.
Then I heard him exhale loudly. When he spoke again, it was with the cold, ice tone of anger that he tried to keep under wraps.
‘Valentina and Ricco.’ I heard Salvatore speak his thoughts out loud, followed by an almost whispered and emotional, ‘Mama and now Gi. I swear while there is breath in my body that you won’t take her too.’ And I knew he wasn’t talking to me.
Interference crackled on the line and looking out of the window I could see we were circling around the edge of the storm that had been forecast earlier.
‘There’s a storm blowing in.’ I explained the noise on the line. A sudden thought ran through my head. ‘Do you think they would land in Sicily? To avoid the weather?’
‘If you’d have asked me that a few hours ago, I would have said it was possible, but now…’
‘Why?’
‘If Valentina is in fact Ricco’s woman, she knows he won’t be able to meet her there, not without risk. After making numerous enquiries, I finally discovered who the child was that was stolen all those years ago from the Sicilian family, the Ricolletis…’
‘Lorenzo…’ I guessed.
‘Correct.’
‘So, Ricco took the Ricolleti child, and pretended he was his nephew,’ I added, as another chunk of the jigsaw fell into place. ‘That means Riccos ‘ndrine is the Lombardis—how did we not after all this time realise this?’ I smacked my palm down against the arm rest.
‘Because until now he has never done anything to make us think he was anything other than my grandfather’s loyal soldier. He even fought against his own blood in the last war.’ Salvatore’s voice raised in strength and anger. ‘He is a Lombardi, by maternal line. He was cast out a long time ago. The woman he loved was married off to the now Ricolleti under boss, as part of the families joining together, and Lorenzo was their first born. Knowing first-hand how reprisal drives you on, I can only assume he stole him as vengeance.’
‘So, from early on he showed his true colours, by stealing a child. Our families have unknowingly been harbouring a child kidnapper for all these years.’
‘One who was just waiting for the time to make his move,’ he added.
‘I think he has had made many subtle moves against us, using others by feeding their weaknesses.’
‘Him or Valentina?’ Salvatore hit the nail on the head as we both sifted through the facts.
‘That I can’t answer—the fact you were born before her own sons must have secured Valentina’s hatred of you and your mama. Now, she has been banned from Calabria by you… I mean there’s enough hatred there.’ I shook my head at my reasoning. ‘It was evident when your grandfather announced you as his successor, that she’d been coveting the position of being the Don’s wife, and you’d taken that away from her. She would feel disparaged. But Ricco has no real home apart from Calabria, he is displaced. Both by blood and love.’
‘Correct,’ Salvatore agreed.
‘And that makes him a dangerous fucking bastard,’ I added.
‘After I told Lorenzo who he was and refused to honour the promise of him marrying into my family because of it, he attempted to raise his gun to me. He’s so fucking brainwashed by his “uncle”.’
‘Does he still live?’
‘He does.’ I could see him in my mind’s eye nodding just the once, before he carried on. ‘He was taken away to be held in a secure place, before I send him back to the Ricolletis, but not before he bargained with his life and gave me the names of the men in Palizzi who he instructed to kill Alessio.’
‘You have them?’ I couldn’t help the eagerness in my tone. They would suffer for what they’d done to my brother and family.
‘I had them. Now, though, they no longer exist. They are dust, earth to earth, ashes to ashes. Our family ways are steeped in traditions. Traditions outsiders don’t understand. But we do. Our laws are as sacred to us, as God is to those who believe in religion. Women and children are to remain outside of our dealings, as are the men in the role of consigliere.’
‘Agreed,’ I conceded, before I released a sigh at his swift act of retribution.
‘And so here we are, Dante Giordano, with our two families now bound by blood. Facing a mutual enemy.’
‘Bound by blood,’ I repeated. ‘And by love for our women.’
He made no response, but I knew he’d heard me, and I also knew he would take all the time he needed to decide if I would get the woman I loved, his sister. Because I would have done the same.
‘Dante,’ Marco interrupted.
I refocussed on the man sitting across from me, who had been listening to my phone call and looking at his own laptop.
‘Ricco is in the air,’ he divulged, without looking up.
‘Salvatore, Ricco is in the air,’ I sighed, understanding I was stood on the precipice of either the beginning or the end of my life.
‘He’s heading to Sicily!’ Marco imparted loudly. Just then my phone started to blow up. Marco shoved his laptop to one side and stood before snatching it out of my bag. I knew without asking it was the men on the boat I’d secured reporting in.
‘Va bene… I understand.’ He nodded as he listened. ‘It’s confirmed, they are heading for Syracuse,’ he communicated to me.
‘The weather?’ I questioned, gripping the phone in my hand tighter as my guts began to turn over with apprehension. Looking down I watched as the tracker in Giovanna’s ring signalled that Ariti’s boat had also corrected their route and were also heading to Sicily.
‘There is a report of gunfire onboard the Ariti boat.’
I stretched out my hand and reached for the phone. ‘Fabio’
‘Boss.’
‘Can you see what’s happening?’
‘No. But we saw and heard gunfire.’
‘How far away are you?’
‘Half a mile.’
‘Follow them in. Do not… I repeat, do not open fire on the boat, until you receive further instructions.’
‘Boss.’
‘They have Giovanna Giordano onboard, our Don’s sister… and whatever else you do, she must be kept safe.’
I disconnected the call and dropped my phone back on top of my open bag.
‘Report!’ Salvatore shouted in my ear, reminding me he was still there.
‘Ricco and Ariti are heading for Syracuse. It can only mean that they know we’re on to them.’
‘Change your flight plan to Syracuse. I will contact Don Ricolleti and advise him of our imminent arrival. We will make sure Ricco and Valentina receive a welcome like no one else has ever received.’
‘Don Ricolleti,’ I voiced, knowing how much had gone down before between our families.
‘It will be his pleasure to host us all—after all, I will be returning his under boss’s lost son and the man who dared to steal him.’
The mobile in my hand died, just as the world outside darkened, and the fork lightening dancing around us lit up the sky.
‘We land at Syracuse,’ I instructed Marco, who immediately jumped up to sort out our new flight plan.
Then I turned to watch the small pulse on my laptop, that I hoped showed me the woman I would gladly die for, was still alive.