CHAPTER 21
Chiara
At my latest appointment, my doctor told me I should take it easy and rest as much as possible, so when Adriano enters the room with a bunch of boxes, I immediately light up.
“What is all that?” I ask as he places the boxes on the floor and goes out into the hallway to bring some more.
“Gennaro’s stuff. With potential clues. I didn’t want anyone else to go through them because I can’t know who might be his sympathizer or secretly working for Matteo.” He offers me a small box, but this one is all wrapped up in red paper.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Something for you.”
I unwrap the box. It’s my favorite chocolate.
“I love you so much,” I all but squeal. “I’ve been craving it like crazy.”
“Yeah, I know. And I’ll bring you whatever you need or want. All you have to do is tell me.” He grins.
A smile tugs at my lips. “Come here and kiss me.”
He leans forward, and I bury my hand in his shirt and yank him to me. He chuckles before his mouth closes over mine.
“So... did you find anything?” I have to push him away because desire is already filling my insides, but we unfortunately have to keep our hands off each other for a while.
It’s like torture, and I can tell he feels the same because of the bulge in his pants. But we’ll survive. Our babies are the only thing that matters right now.
“Um, yeah. I was checking Gennaro’s accounts, and it looked like he had control over Matteo’s money too, or at least some part of it. There was a huge payment recently, and it seems like Gennaro made it and basically drained Matteo’s account. But I don’t know where the money ended up. The account that received it is gone, and it was probably set up with fake info just for that transaction. Not even my tech team can trace it.”
“That’s weird. But wouldn’t the money go to Matteo? If it’s his and he no longer wanted Gennaro in control of it... Do you think Matteo did it on his own? Grabbed the money and ran with it?”
“Maybe, but Gennaro was the one who had to authorize the transaction himself. I don’t think there was a way around it.”
I furrow my brow. “But Matteo probably has his money somewhere too, right?”
“Yeah. There’s no way he doesn’t, or he wouldn’t have been able to do anything on his own.”
“What if Matteo forced Gennaro to give him that money, and that’s why Gennaro picked you as his heir?”
Adriano shrugs and opens one of the boxes. “Maybe they made some kind of deal, and releasing that money was part of it. Gennaro liked to keep all his contracts in one place, so if it exists, it should be somewhere among all these.”
“Wait, what?” My eyes widen as I look around the room at all the boxes. “All of these are Gennaro’s deals?”
“Yeah, he had a lot of them.”
“But wasn’t he afraid they’d be used as evidence against him if the cops or someone got their hands on all the contracts?”
“Not really. These were under heavy protection. It took a while for me to get to them, and it was only because Gennaro created a set of rules that allowed me to enter the room too. If anyone else had tried or they used force, the whole room would’ve exploded.”
“What?” I gape at him. “Really?”
“Yeah. For a second there, I thought it was a trap too, but Gennaro showed it all to me when I was young, so I knew how to look for any warning signs.”
“But your men haven’t seen Matteo anywhere, right? Does that mean Gennaro paid him off to leave?”
“I doubt it. Matteo wouldn’t just leave, not after everything.”
“Well, then bring me one of the boxes.” I’m looking forward to solving the mystery.
“This is weird,” Adriano says.
We’ve been going through the deals for hours, and some of them were... quite interesting. Murder, money, drugs, weapons. Gennaro was doing all of it.
“What?” I ask.
Adriano sits on the bed next to me and shows me a contract. “It says here Gennaro took a loan from another mafia family, but they’re using an alias instead of their name. It’s weird because I can’t imagine Gennaro ever needing a loan.”
I study the contract. “That’s a lot of money. Like, really a lot.”
“Yeah, and he was supposed to pay it off in twenty years, or they’d come for his territory and everything else he had.”
“What does that mean?” I point my finger at one of the lines. “Aside from money, they also want a payment in blood?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they wanted him to kill someone for them. If they’re using an alias, maybe it was their own family member.”
“But what if it’s something else? Like marriage?”
He shakes his head. “But Gennaro marked it as completed and paid, and this was signed after he married.”
I take the contract and flip through the pages. “Huh. Where does it say it was paid? Maybe he put it in the wrong box?”
“Those twenty years they agreed on were up last week.”
I meet his gaze. “Was that why he named you his heir? Because he thought something might happen to him?”
“But he didn’t mention any of this. I never knew he took a loan.”
“Was his business doing really bad twenty years ago? Maybe he didn’t want anyone to know out of fear his enemies would use that against him.”
“I don’t know. It’s possible he was embarrassed about it. He was proud and wanted everyone to think he was powerful. I guess he wouldn’t have wanted anyone to know that he needed a loan.”
“But who could that other family be?”
“No idea.” Adriano groans. “I thought going through all this would give me answers and not uncover more questions.”
His phone buzzes, making us both jump. He quickly glances at the screen.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “I have to go.”
“Why?” I watch him in surprise.
“My men potentially located Matteo. The tech team was able to track down a phone signal and discovered an old safe house that Gennaro abandoned a long time ago. It would make sense if Matteo was hiding there because no one would think about it. I have to go check it out.”
“Can’t your men do it?” I don’t want him to go anywhere, especially anywhere close to Matteo. “How did they find it all of a sudden? What if it’s a trap?”
“It’s going to be fine, and I’ll be careful. I promise.” He gives me a quick kiss and hurries to the door.
I lower the contract and sigh. Being married to a mafia boss is never easy, is it? And loving him is even harder because you never know when he’ll have to run off into danger again.
But Adriano knows what he’s doing, and I know he wouldn’t do anything to put himself at risk. He wants to be here with me and my babies, and maybe after tonight, Matteo will finally no longer be a threat to us and we can start planning our future.
I don’t want to have to hide in a safe house all the time. I want to be able to go out, visit my parents, and return to my neighborhood. It’s been a while since I spoke to my mom and dad for longer than five minutes.
I take a deep breath and slowly release it. Everything will be fine. I have to stay calm for my babies. Maybe I can distract myself and go through some more contracts. Gennaro might have struck another deal, or maybe he wrote down which family he really took that loan from.
But it’s hard to keep my thoughts off Adriano. With every second that passes, I miss him more.