Chapter 24 Giovanni
GIOVANNI
It feels as though someone tampered with the main electricity switch serving the town and killed the lights. The thrift store has the feel of a long-derelict building, abandoned to the rodents and spiders and feral creatures creeping in from the surrounding woodland.
We approach the rear of the store on foot.
Luca Bonetti, owner of Amato Thrifts, has known Don Calderone all his life. My father’s old friend claimed that the man would die firing bullets with a gun in each hand and a knife between his teeth if it came to it. He would have been prepared.
Which is why I’m unsurprised when we find the back door swinging from its hinges, the locks busted. Two things fight for attention inside my head. Firstly, Meggie was here. Secondly, The Fish knew about it.
As before, Bruno and his men enter first.
I follow them through the storeroom and out the other side where they halt abruptly in a narrow corridor. They stand aside to let me see what has stopped them in their tracks.
At the opposite end, a man is slumped against the wall, head propped at an unnatural angle, a rifle in each hand. His chest is covered in blood, but his eyes are intact.
Luca Bonetti.
He gave me instructions for locating the hidden entrance to the basement. I run my fingertips across the wall to my left feeling for the slight dip that would indicate a panel, and finding it, I manipulate the lever to spring open the door.
I don’t wait around for Bruno.
Activating the flashlight on my cell phone, I take the slippery staircase slowly, scanning the basement for a glimpse of Meggie’s honey-blond hair or Amber’s curls.
The entire basement has been turned over.
Boxes and cartons have been ripped open, their contents scattered across the floor.
Cabinets are tipped over. Shredded sacks and mountains of clothes lie all around like a rummage sale that’s about to close.
A rocking horse lies on its side, eyeing us up sadly like an upturned tortoise that has given up trying to right itself.
I turn three-sixty, scrutinizing the floor, the walls, the utter carnage left behind for a glimpse of blood. The world tilts on its axis when I discover the patch on the floor, partly mopped up by a velvet curtain, the stain spreading along the material like rising damp.
I’ve lived with bloodshed and violence all my life. I was still a boy when I heard my father deliver the order for someone’s murder to one of his foot soldiers. But nothing has prepared me for this moment.
Meggie is already a part of me, and if she dies, that part of me dies too.
I stumble across the room, following the brown-black splatters towards the staircase, wondering how I missed them on the way down.
Hope. That’s how I missed them. The hope that I would open a cupboard door and Meggie and Amber would crawl out.
While we’ve been in the basement, Bruno’s men have searched the building. When we emerge back through the secret doorway, they’re guarding a familiar figure.
Enzo.
I lunge at him. My fist connects with his jaw, and he reels backwards. Bruno’s men keep him upright and shove him back my way, but he spreads his hands in a gesture of surrender.
“Hear me out before you hit me again.”
Enzo has always loved a scrap. When he was a kid, he picked a fight with a teenager on the beach at San Vito Lo Capo for yelling at a girl. Enzo marched right on up to the wiry youth and punched him in the neck because he couldn’t quite reach his face, and said, “You know why.”
The youth chased Enzo back along the beach, skittering sand over towels and picnics and bodies slick with sunblock, until I stepped in. One glance at me and my family, and he backed off, but Enzo yelled at him, hurling abuse until the lad, suitably embarrassed, grabbed his stuff and left the beach.
My brother never backs down. Ever. Even from me.
Especially from me.
He probably figures that one day, he’ll prove that he has earned his place in the family business. It’s enough to make me stop and listen, even though my fist is aching to cause some damage.
Enzo waits for me to lower my fists before he copies me. “I saw what happened, well, some of it anyway. I saw him drive away with Meggie and Amber when they left here.”
“And yet here you are, Enzo.” The first rush of despair has passed, leaving in its wake, a slow-burning rage that won’t be snuffed out until I find them. “Tell me, brother, what brought you to Vermont, today of all days?”
“Call it a hunch.”
I thump my left hand with my right fist. Smack. Smack. Smack.
He eyes up my fists lazily. “You’re not the only brother who keeps tabs on our sister and her delightful husband. I heard a name mentioned that I didn’t like. Decided to follow it up for myself. Seems to me like you overlooked the mole in the Sabatelli camp.”
The nugget of fear is back, solidifying into a cold, black kernel that will continue to grow until this is over, and I prove him wrong.
“You have my attention, Enzo. Use it wisely.”
“How else do you think he got past security? Do you have any idea where your men were while your new girlfriend was trying to run me over?”
I’m sure that he can’t wait to enlighten me. But at the same time, I can’t overlook the fact that he saw Meggie.
“Go on.”
He shrugs. “I don’t have the answer. I simply wondered if you knew.”
“Enzo, whatever you’ve got to say to me, I’d get on with it before your time is up.”
His smile fades, and for a fleeting moment, I see my kid brother behind the well-groomed features and the charming facade that he applies at will to get him whatever he wants.
“They weren’t guarding Meggie, that’s what I’m trying to say.”
I process this latest revelation. “We found Ric’s body.”
“He helped her get away. That’s how she almost killed me on her way into town.”
“So, you followed her here with the intention of…?”
Because although I’m listening, the various parts of my brother’s story are not quite adding up to a beginning, middle, and end kind of tale.
If he has been tracking Bianca and her bastardo husband, then he’ll already know about the bratva, and I still don’t believe that he flew to Vermont, out of season, to follow a hunch that would benefit me more than him.
That isn’t Enzo’s style.
“Doing what your security team failed to do: keep them safe.”
“But they’re not here, and the blood in the basement tells me that The Fish didn’t greet them with a smile and a warm handshake.”
Tick, tick, tick.
Time’s up.
“We’re done here, and now, I’m going to do what my team failed to do: I’m going to save the woman I love and rip the bastardo limb from fucking limb while he begs me for mercy.”
I signal for Bruno and his men to follow me outside. The Fish must’ve had some form of transport waiting to take Meggie and Amber away from here, and Stowe is littered with CCTV cameras. Time is running out for him too.
“I can help you with that, Gio.”
Deep breath. I have a job to do, and my brother’s attention seeking is preventing me from seeing it through.
“The problem with jogging down the mountain,” he continues, “is that it’s slower than four wheels.
By the time I got here, our friend was already dead.
” He raises an eyebrow towards Luca Bonetti’s body.
“Process of elimination. However The Fish got here, the only vehicle that was still lukewarm when I arrived, was the one Meggie used to escape Tombstone. The one that, unless I’m mistaken, is currently missing. ”
“And?” I’m giving him one last chance before I hit him so hard he’ll need to replace his perfect teeth.
“The same car that I had the foresight to attach a good old-fashioned tracker to.”
He waits for the announcement to sink in.
“You know where they are?”
“Brother, I thought you’d never ask.”
Bruno takes over the driving.
Enzo is tracking the vehicle on his handheld device.
More men joined us in Stowe, alerted to The Fish’s trail of horror by Bruno after we discovered Ric’s body. He trusts them. Right now, I’m no longer certain that I’m capable of trusting anyone other than Meggie, and I feel cast adrift, floundering on a raft of rage and betrayal.
Trust and loyalty are the foundations of any family.
Ric was more than simply my head of security.
He was my Consigliere. My advisor. My friend.
It will take years to build up that kind of relationship with anyone else, and there’s still a small, fractured part of me that wonders if this is Enzo’s opportunity to step in and claim his rightful position as Underboss.
But everything fades into insignificance compared to the loss of Meggie.
If I could climb the mountain faster on foot, I would relish the burn in my hamstrings as I make the ascent. It would give me something to focus on.
Feel pain or inflict it. And right now, I’m doing neither.
The climb becomes steeper. The road becomes narrower. And my gut is twisting itself into knots. This doesn’t feel right.
According to Gio’s GPS, the car stolen by The Fish has stopped at a point on the mountain slope. Which means that he’s waiting for us to rock up so that he can pick us off with one blast of an explosive device, which would in turn cut him off from making his getaway. Or, he has already moved on.
The second option is the one that makes me uneasy.
There is only one reason why he would ditch the car and move on before we could get to him: he got what he came for. Meggie assumed from the start that he would come back one day for Amber, but what if she was wrong?
What if Meggie was the one that he wanted all along?
I clench and unclench my fists. Five years ago, he murdered their mom. Meggie managed to escape and carve a life for herself and her little sister somewhere in East London, and as far as she was aware, he appeared to vanish from their lives.
Until she came to LA.
Why now? Why did the fucker surface now when it would’ve been easier for him to kidnap his daughter in London where Meggie’s support network is practically non-existent? Why did he wait until they were under my protection before making his move?
It all boils down to one simple answer: I’m the one he wants.
The closer we get to the flickering signal on Enzo’s handheld, the more certain I am that this is a trap. But if Meggie and Amber are a part of it, then I would happily walk straight into the guy’s web without a lifeline.
“There’s a shack up ahead.” Bruno pulls the car off the uneven track and kills the engine and headlamps.
“This is it.” Enzo sits forward, the device casting a faint green tinge across his handsome face.
I’m first out of the car, my feet crunching on gravel as I approach the lone shack, flanked by Bruno and my brother. The small building is surrounded on three sides by dense foliage and the mountain behind. The track appears to end here.
“Wait.” Enzo slows down, tapping the side of the device with the palm of his hand. “Where’s the car?”
This is wrong. All wrong. I feel it swirling around in my gut like beer guzzled too quickly.
I study Enzo’s profile while he fixates on the GPS. Of all the people I expected to be with me at the end, it was never my little brother. For all his faults, and for whatever agenda he has going on right now, he’s the one standing by my side.
“Enzo, remember the Underboss code.”
He peers at me, understanding creeping into his eyes that are so like mine. He shakes his head. “No.”
“Yes. There’s no time for debate.”
I’m firm about this. I only hope that Enzo understands what inheriting the family business will mean for him. I have unfinished business with The Fish. The new Don will have to finish the job for me.
Enzo’s lips part, but the smile doesn’t materialize. “Fuck off, Gio. We’re brothers. We’re in this together.”
The tug inside my gut is strong, but he’s right. For once, he’s fucking right.
With one hand around the back of his neck, I pull him closer and kiss the top of his head.
Then, I’m sprinting towards the shack, adrenaline pumping through my veins. Enzo is by my side. I hear the heavy footsteps of Bruno and his men as they try to keep up with us, but I don’t look around.
The Fish isn’t here.
We’re too late to catch him, but we can’t be too late to save Meggie.
We can’t.
If I lose Meggie…
I burst through the door to the unlit shack and freeze.
It’s a one-roomed hut, the kind that provides free temporary shelter for mountain climbers. It’s basic. There’s a rug on the floor, a stove in one corner near a sink providing running water, and a cot pushed up against one wall.
But I don’t see any of this.
Because bound to a chair in the middle of the hut, a dirty rag gagging her mouth, is Meggie. She shakes her head frantically when she sees me, and that’s when my gaze lowers to the explosive device strapped to her chest.
Don’t Stop Now.
Giovanni’s war isn’t over.
The hunt begins in FILTHY SINS — Book Two of The Sabatelli Empire Duet.
If you need the reckoning, the rescue, and the HEA they fought for…
Start reading now.
Continue to Book Two: FILTHY SINS
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