Chapter 20 Giovanni #2
Sure enough, the bratva pakhan’s wide chest fills up the screen as they trade places. When the room comes back into view, the thug is gone, and Mario is smiling at me, ostentatiously adjusting the camera angle with his busted hand.
“Giovanni.” The pleasantness in his tone is as fake as the fixed smile revealing a gemstone stuck in one of his top front teeth. “I would’ve rather done this face to face, but my wife claimed that you were out of the country. E la vita. This will have to do.”
“The bratva, Mario? That’s an all-time low even for you, isn’t it?”
It’s taking every ounce of willpower to even talk to the man without smashing the device to smithereens. I’m taking small comfort from planning how many pieces his face will be in when I get hold of him.
The guttural voice of the pakhan now holding the camera mumbles something to Mario, who tips his head back and roars with laughter. All fake. Mario d’Angelo doesn’t understand humor.
“Seems you’re collecting enemies, my friend.”
“Make no mistake, Mario. We are not friends.”
His face darkens. Not a pleasant look, and not for the first time, I pity my sister having to share a bed with this man.
It wouldn’t be so bad if Mario counteracted his perverted tendencies and feral behavior by being a good father and the kind of husband who treats his wife like a princess outside of the bedroom. But he does neither.
“If you wanted to start a war, you only had to say.” He watches me closely.
“Bianca is my sister. Our families had an agreement, a contract that you break each time your fist connects with her face.”
He raises his hands in mock surrender. “I have no idea what agreement you’re talking about.” Pause. “Unless you mean the one that you ripped to shreds when you had my knuckles broken.” He studies his busted hand. “What did you think I would do, huh? Get down on my knees and apologize?”
“It would be the decent thing to do, owning your mistakes.” I shrug. “Do the bratva understand that you’ll renege on whatever little arrangement you have going on here when it suits you? Or are you paving that bridge with the same drug money that you use to buy your women?”
He and the pakhan exchange more words that remain just out of earshot.
No matter. I get the gist of the conversation, and it isn’t the kind of banter you’d find at a beachside bar in Sicily. Or anywhere else for that matter.
Mario drags his gaze back to me. “Perhaps I should thank you. I’ve gotten what I wanted from your sister, so you’ve done me a favor.
Killed two birds with one stone, so to speak.
Not only is my wife fraternizing with the enemy, but she will be soiled goods by the time she returns.
No self-respecting mafia don can be expected to share the marital bed with a whore. ”
My jaw is clenched so tightly it hurts. I lean closer to the screen and speak slowly.
“War it is. You’d best warn your friends that there will be nowhere left for them to hide.”
I end the call and down my brandy.
Bruno turns his own handheld device around so that I can see the screen.
While I’ve been preoccupied with my brother-in-law, he has somehow downloaded images of Mario and the leader of a relatively new bratva mob currently trying to infiltrate the casino scene in New York City.
In the photograph, the two men are standing outside a new restaurant with the mayor and his wife exiting a limo in the background.
It can wait.
Meggie is, and always will be, my priority.
But when I log back into the CCTV footage from the cabin, Meggie and Nikki are gone. Instead, I’m looking at another familiar face.
My brother Enzo.
The kitchen has been ransacked. The table is on its side, cabinet doors have been left wide open, but the knife is still there, the wooden handle protruding from the chopping board where Meggie left it.
Enzo disappears along the hallway and reappears in the master bedroom where he yanks open the wardrobe doors and upturns the bed.
He repeats the process in the guest bedroom, adrenaline spiking in my veins as I follow his progress.
He is looking for Meggie, but he’s too late. Ric must’ve given them the signal to move down to the bunker, and I allow myself a small sigh of relief that I never told either of my siblings about my safe place in Vermont. Whatever Enzo’s reason for being there, it isn’t because he’s on vacation.
He comes back to the living room, spots the kitchen knife and drags it out of the board. Wielding it like a dagger, he glances directly at the camera and spreads his hands wide like he’s awaiting further instructions.
It doesn’t add up. Why would Enzo travel to Vermont at the same time as Meggie and Amber and then alert me to his arrival while he’s holding a weapon? What are his intentions? Did Meggie tell him about Amber’s father during their trip to the zoo or has The Fish gotten to my little brother too?
We might not spend much time in each other’s company, but I wouldn’t be the head of the Sabatelli family if I didn’t track my siblings’ movements.
In person and online. And Enzo’s acquaintances don’t generally include sociopathic hitmen with a history of preying on women and children. It would cramp his style.
He’s still staring directly at me as he walks around the kitchen counter and approaches the camera. The swagger is gone. He mouths something that I can’t make out, reaches up and taps the camera three times. Knock, knock, knock. Mouths it again like I can send him a message through the ether.
“Where is—”
But before he can finish, he whirls around, gripping the knife in front of him with both hands, and faces the front door.
Then, without warning, he crosses the room in a couple of strides, grabs the handle and yanks the door open, ducking behind the wall as the door bounces on its hinges.
The camera is forgotten as he sucks in a deep breath, counts to three, and heads outside, running full pelt away from the cabin.
“No.” I must say it out loud without realizing because Bruno is watching me closely.
“Boss?”
My security team didn’t stop Enzo before he entered the cabin.
I’m trying to picture events while I was distracted by Mario’s call.
The bunker was a last resort. How long would it have taken the two women and Amber to get down there once they received the signal from Ric?
A couple of minutes? And would Ric have hung around long enough to replace the carpet neatly over the hatch when it closed behind them?
Because now that I’ve thought about it, the guest room looked undisturbed.
Where were the signs of panic? Of fear? Of a hasty retreat?
I already know the answer.
There were none because Meggie isn’t in the bunker.
The last shred of my patience vanishes as the jet begins its descent.