Olivia
What the hell did I just do? I’m paralyzed as I stand in my living area long after Dom leaves.
I glance toward my dining table where I eat my sad microwaved dinners, now forever tainted with the memory of what we just did. What I just did. With Dominic Vitale.
A man I'm supposed to put in prison. A man whose family may have killed my father.
I press my palms against my eyes, as if I could physically push the memories away.
My body still feels the echo of his touch. This wasn't supposed to happen. I'm supposed to be smarter than this.
What kind of FBI agent sleeps with her target?
Not as part of some honey trap, but because she wanted him. Burned for him.
How did his coming by to confront me over failed justice for Rocco end in my being naked on my dining table. Because as much as I’m unsettled by how my lust overtook me, I’m also rattled by his accusations.
It’s not like I wasn’t concerned about being told not to make a report and hand Rocco’s case to agents who work in that area.
Why was I called to find Rocco? Who called? And what about Don Ferraza’s wife’s murder?
At the FBI, we know many people end up missing or dead in the mafia at the hands of others in organized crime, but we never have enough to arrest anyone. Is that why these cases were dropped?
But Dom's words keep circling in my mind, which is what he wanted. He was manipulating me. Wanting me to doubt myself and those I work with.
I give myself a shake and head to the bathroom. I take a long shower, trying to wash away the feeling of Dom's hands on my skin. It doesn’t work.
But I press on, putting on my pajamas, brushing my teeth, taking my birth control pill as I do like clockwork every night, and follow it up with my antibiotic, noting I have five more days on the prescription.
I grab my tablet, and once in bed, I pull up the case files, scrolling through trying to view them with new eyes. The search warrants that yielded nothing.
The surveillance that went nowhere.
Four years of investigation with zero progress. It's like Dom is always one step ahead... or someone is feeding him information.
My stomach knots. What if Dom is right about corruption within the FBI?
But if someone is working for him, he wouldn’t chastise me for corruption, would he?
I open a secure browser and search for information on Mrs. Ferraza's murder.
She was killed in broad daylight as she went to do some shopping.
The file focuses on Marco Calabresi as being behind the killing, but why would a don of La Corona kill the wife of another don?
The file says an informant, Ernie Abruzzo, was working to arrange a meeting between Mrs. Ferraza and my boss, Agent Blackwood.
Is that why she was killed? Because she was going to share mafia secrets?
It doesn’t make sense why Calabresi would kill her unless Don Ferraza asked him to.
Except, Dom said two informants were behind her death. Is he just playing me? Trying to distract me?
I look up Ernie Abruzzo, who was apparently a mafia-wannabe but never made. He turned up dead from a drug overdose.
While not proven, the file suggests that Don Ferraza may have been behind the death as drug ODs were his MO.
The file notes that Ernie’s brother, Salvatore, worked for Marco Calabresi.
It also says that he hasn’t been seen for at least three years and is presumed dead.
I think back to when Blackwood asked me to assist him on the case. He’d been talking with Don Ferraza’s daughter, Isabella.
If I remember correctly, he’d been using her mother’s murder as the way to connect with her, promising her he’d get her answers, but he needed her help.
He’d asked me to approach her to give her a new phone after La Corona forced her to marry Marco Calabresi’s enforcer, Roman Ginetti.
I’d been eager to work with him as even then I felt like I was hitting a brick wall in the Vitale case.
So I agreed, approaching her in a fabric shop while Roman was taking a call. I remember seeing a woman who was terrified.
Later, I came across Mrs. Ferraza’s notebook in the evidence and thought I could use it to gain Isabella’s trust and yes, cooperation to help me learn more about Dominic Vitale.
Boy, did that backfire.
She called me out for using her mother’s death, her grief to turn on her family.
So I just gave her the notebook, and figured I’d deal with the fallout from Blackwood when he found out.
Up until tonight, that was my worst infraction as an FBI agent. Interestingly, he’s never said anything about it.
What I’m unable to piece together is Dom’s assertion that Ernie Abruzzo killed Mrs. Ferraza and how that links to the FBI?
Is he saying Ernie killed her because the FBI asked him to? That’s ludicrous.
I put my tablet aside deciding to get some sleep. My dreams are filled with swirling facts and colliding conjecture.
By the time I wake up, I have a sense that everything is somehow connected, although I can’t articulate why.
The next morning, I head to my desk, but instead of the Vitale case, I decide I want to delve deeper into Rocco’s kidnapping and Mrs. Ferraza’s murder.
I open my notebook of private notes, and flip to the pages about Rocco's kidnapping.
December 18th, last year. A cold night when my phone rang at 4:43 AM.
A voice clearly masked to hide their identity gave me an address and told me the missing boy was there.
At the time, I didn’t know who the boy was. A quick search in the missing child database didn’t indicate a child missing in the last few hours.
But when I tried to get more information, the line went dead.
When I arrived, the place was empty except for a terrified six-year-old boy zip-tied to a bed.
No perpetrators, no evidence, just a traumatized child calling for his mother.
When he told me his name, Rocco Vitale, I knew who he was, and understood why there were no reports of a child abduction.
Mafia families rarely called law enforcement.
I flip through more pages, stopping at my notes on Elena Vitale and her family history. Her father, Umberto Vitale, was arrested on RICO charges eight years ago.
He was convicted and later killed in prison.
All that was before my time, but when I’d been given the Vitale case and did my research into the family, I had questions.
It was clear from the notes that the agents had expected to arrest Luca Monti, Don Antonio Monti’s son the day they caught Umberto, but he wasn’t there. Still, getting Umberto Vitale, second in command to the Vitale family was a big win for the FBI.
It was Umberto’s murder that had me wondering about the case. If anyone was worried about Umberto sharing secrets, he’d have been killed before the trial.
Sure, we do our best to protect witnesses, but he was in jail, easy to get to. So why kill him after he was convicted?
Revenge is one theory, but I couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a greater conspiracy at work.
The arrest was a little too clean.
The Monti family whisked Luca out of the country immediately after Umberto’s arrest.
Why? The only reason would be he knew something and was in danger. Was that from the FBI or the Vitale family?
And did any of it have to do with the murder of my father, who was killed around this same time?
I’ve never been able to let go of the idea that perhaps Umberto’s brother, Don Aldo Vitale was behind it all, wanting to get rid of his brother who was more respected and gaining power in the family.
I remember Elena's face when I mentioned this. She'd been angry that Aldo wasn't accused at the time.
That I hadn't cleared Luca Monti's name as apparently the families believed he was behind betraying Umberto Vitale.
"It's not my job to clear people's names," I'd said, knowing it was a rotten thing to say. Justice is my job, but we failed Umberto.
The memory of that day floods back. Elena's face when I brought Rocco to her, the raw terror giving way to desperate relief as she clutched her son.
I remember how she checked him for injuries, how she whispered prayers of thanks as she clung to him.
I'd wanted to help her then. To tell her she could leave this life behind, take her children somewhere safe. But she wouldn’t have it. Maybe it was because Luca and Dom arrived and she couldn’t ask for help.
But I got the sense that wouldn’t have taken me up on my offer. It’s one thing I don’t understand.
Why do the women stay? We could have helped Isabella leave. Elena and her children too.
I’d have helped them even if they didn’t give evidence against the families. But they stay.
These mafia wives and daughters, born or married into violence, living with the constant threat of raids or rival families or prison sentences, stay.
Is it love? Fear? Or something more complicated?
I refer to the most troubling page in my notebook, the notes I took after speaking with Rocco once he'd calmed down enough to talk.
I'd broken protocol interviewing him without a child psychologist present, but something told me to get his account immediately, before anyone could coach him.
And of course, technically, there was no case, so no rules were broken.
"Santa said I could see his sleigh and that he’d take me to see his workshop,” he'd said, between sniffles.
“Did Santa bring you to the house?” I wiped his tears, my heart breaking for the little guy.
He shook his head. “There was another man. Santa said he was a helper, but he wasn’t nice like elves.”
“Did they ask you anything? Did you hear them talking?”
“The helper man asked about Uncle Dom and Daddy.” He shrugged. “I didn’t know anything and it made him mad.” He burst out crying again, so I stopped asking questions and called Elena to arrange her son’s return.
But it begs the question, why would kidnappers question a child about Dom and Luca? Not for ransom information. They never even made a demand.
They were fishing for intelligence in the family? Was it another family in La Corona? Marco Calabresi, whose name has already appeared a lot in this saga. Or maybe Leonardo Ferraza.
I flip to Elena's statement about the winter festival where Rocco was taken. La Corona's annual charity event. Family members, associates, legitimate business partners. Security everywhere.
Someone had to have serious balls to snatch a Vitale-Monti child from a gathering of the most powerful mafia families in New York.
The risk was astronomical.
One wrong move and they'd be found floating in pieces around the harbor.
It speaks to someone on the inside. Someone who knew the security patterns, who could blend in without raising suspicion.
Or someone the families would never suspect. Someone like Santa.
Since there was no case, there’s no hint who Santa might be. Or the man in the SUV who drove off with Rocco. Does Dom know?
"Did you kill Gio Sarto?" Dom’s question from last night comes back to me.
The question had caught me off guard. I was aware of who he was through my investigation of the Vitale family.
He worked for Dom, and for his father before him.
Why would I kill him? Dom suggested that it was because someone was pulling strings, hoping Luca would blame Gio for Rocco’s kidnapping.
But if the Vitale family blamed Luca for Umberto’s incarceration and death, then was the outcome for Gio to kill Luca?
If so, that seems like something Dom might arrange for revenge. He could have easily arranged Rocco’s kidnapping to set the whole thing in motion.
I shake my head. Dom does many bad things, but I don’t see him kidnapping his cousin’s son. And it doesn’t make since that he’d chastise me over the lack of justice Rocco has received if he was behind it.
So maybe Luca was supposed to kill Gio and when that didn’t happen, someone took care of it. But who? And why would Dom suspect it was me or someone in the FBI? What possible motive would we have?
I stare at my notes, frustration building with each page I turn. The fragments don't connect. There's something here, but I can't see it.
My eyes catch on a notation I'd made after interviewing Elena Vitale: "You and your kind spend a lot of time trying to manipulate us into doing your job for you."
I pause, reading it again.
At the time, I'd dismissed it as typical anti-law enforcement sentiment, the kind I hear from family members all the time. But now...
What if Elena wasn't just being defensive? What if she was speaking from experience?
The FBI runs operations all the time. Sting operations, undercover work, confidential informants.
We manipulate situations to catch criminals in the act. It's part of the job. My boss currently runs one to catch La Corona.
But to kidnap a child? Use an informant to kill a don’s wife? That’s not what we do.
“…manipulate us into doing your job for you.” It’s those words I find odd. Is there something about Blackwood’s operation that is outside the norm? Pushing the boundaries of what is legal?
I pull out a fresh legal pad and start mapping a timeline, working backward from last night.
Dom's accusations about Rocco's kidnapping.
The mysterious death of Gio Sarto.
Isabella Ferraza's forced marriage to Roman Ginetti after her mother's murder.
Ernie Abruzzo's death.
Mrs. Ferraza's murder.
And before all that Umberto Vitale's arrest and prison murder.
La Corona peddles in crime, so it’s not unusual to have so many deaths, but I wonder if instead of being individual incidents if they are all somehow related. “…Manipulating us…”
I flip open my laptop and access the Bureau's archives, pulling up the Umberto Vitale case file.
The agent in charge was Thomas Malone, now dead from an accident.
I can’t help but wonder if it really was an accident.
His team included Agent Thompson and Agent Blackwood before he was put in charge of the unit in part due to the success of Umberto Vitale’s arrest and conviction.
I scroll through the file, scanning interview transcripts, surveillance logs, evidence lists. Something catches my eye, a note about the initial tip that led to Umberto's arrest.
The source is redacted, but there's a reference number that links to another file. A file I don't have access to.
I make a note to get the file as I wonder if this source is the same one who called me about Rocco.
I have no reason to think so, unless all this is related. If someone is out to bring La Corona down and trying to make it happen from the inside out.
And I was made a part of the game they’re playing when they sent me to get Rocco.
But is it a rival family or are Elena and Dom right in suspecting someone on my side of the law.
I close my notes and look around, all of a sudden unsettled as a variety of implications take shape.
I need to keep my thoughts on this to myself because it’s possible that I’m no longer just investigating Dom Vitale, I’m also investigating one of my own.