Chapter Fifteen
Romeo
Six hours of discussing shipping and transportation had left me ready to put a bullet through the conference table.
During the meeting, a message came through from Fausto regarding The Ghost who called himself Ardo, the one whose identity had remained unknown since we beat the name out of the soldier we’d captured, who in turn almost killed half my family.
The ghost had been a thorn in my ass since the agreement with Santo Calogerà. His absence from today’s meetings was a blatant insult to the so-called peace created by our families’ union. I didn’t trust that man and agreed with my brother that he was up to something.
The moment we were outdoors, we returned Fausto’s call.
“Hey. What do you have?”
“I followed through with Tony and followed the numbers, which led me into the security feeds. Some footage had been erased. It’s not great, but I do have a partial image of the one they call the Ghost.”
An image appeared on my phone.
“It can’t be,” I heard myself say. “What the hell?”
“What?” Massimo peered over my shoulder. The image was partial, but there was no mistaking the face. It was Leo.
“You vetted him,” I said.
“Carlo vetted him,” Massimo said, already pulling out his phone.
“Fausto, check on the family. We’ve got a lead on our mole problem and it’s Vittoria’s new head of security.
Find the old one, too– Leo. He knows our estate.
They might be working together and if that’s the case, who knows how many of our men aren’t loyal. ”
“On it.”
He hung up. I texted my wife.
Nothing came back.
Dio Santo!
Massimo was firing rapid Italian into his phone. I called Tony and was about to hang up after a dozen rings when my brother picked up, and before either of us could say anything, the sounds of screams and gunfire came through the line.
“Tony, where’s Vittoria?” I demanded. “Tony! What the fuck is going on?”
“We were attacked,” he rasped. “Inside job. I was knocked out and I’m just coming to. I don’t know anything, brother. I’ll call you back when we lock this shit down.”
Massimo was still firing rapid orders in Italian. Cazzo! I was done waiting for status or damage reports and called my pilot. “Get things ready. I want to leave in half an hour,” I ordered, and hung up at the same time as Massimo. “Well?”
“Leo and Ardo are the same man. Leonardo Calogerà.”
Curses tore out of me. “How the fuck did we not know he existed? Who is he, a cousin? Nephew?”
“I don’t know yet, but Simon confirmed once he and Fausto found the missing footage and got a hit on this guy. Simon is still digging.”
“And how did our estate get infiltrated without Simon being alerted? Or was he in on it? Whoever the hell Leonardo Calogerà is, he obviously had help.”
He was about to answer when a call came through from Tony. “Get everyone to the plane, we’re leaving,” I told Simo, and to Tony, barked, “Speak to me.”
“At least five of our men were in on it,” he said without preamble.
“Simon?” I guessed.
“No, but he’s alive.” Julius, who came to see him and said something about clearing Vittoria to leave the grounds, and claimed you’d already approved it.” Simon tried to call and confirm and got his skull cracked. He’s sitting up now and talking. Fausto is looking over the footage now.”
“Take care of Simon,” I said, feeling a twinge of remorse at how quickly I’d suspected him. And Julius, a mole! I’d known the man my whole life, one of my father’s closest confidants. I would have trusted him with my life, and had, many times. “What else?”
“We managed to take one of them alive. We’ll keep him on ice until you get here.”
“Vittoria?”
But somehow, I already knew. If she’d been safe, he would have led with that.
“She’s gone, brother. And not just her. They managed to get a hold of Vinny as well. We’ve got feed showing them being thrown in a van.”
I calculated the time it would take to fly back and was about to issue orders. They knew I would be away, they knew how long it would take to fly back, and most importantly, they knew I would come back for this. They weren’t running. They were dangling bait and waiting for me to act carelessly.
“Tony, we need as much information as possible before we act. Have Simon turn on all the trackers for Vittoria.” There was one they would never find, but he didn’t need to know that right now.
“Then have him find all Calogerà businesses in the area, even the shell companies. While he is working on that, pull all your men that you trust from wherever they are stationed and bring them to the estate. We need a thorough check for bugs and devices. They could be listening to our plans, right now. Start the search in Simon’s office and when it’s safe, have him call me directly. ”
“Got it, boss. Anything else?”
“Yes. Be careful, proceed with caution, and keep your communications written until the house has been thoroughly searched and every last man accounted for. Oh, and one more thing. Find Vittoria’s call log and see who the last person she talked to was, and bring them to the house.”
“Okay, boss, on it.” Tony hung up and like magic, Massimo was there with the car. Our driver made record time to the airstrip while I worked on the phone. I typed a message into my phone and showed it to Massimo.
He nodded and silently had the men search for listening devices. Before the plane left the ground, we found them all, seven in total. Porca puttana!
“This has been in the works for a while, Romeo,” Massimo commented.
“A good long while. Our defenses were never intended to guard against an inside threat. We’ll need to take another look at how we do things in the future.
For now, we play their game. They timed this, they’ll know when we land and that’s when they’ll make contact.
They probably also know we took a captive, who most likely knows nothing, like the last ones we took.
I bet those fuckers are congratulating themselves right now on pulling one over on us. ”
Silence held until Simon called.
“What did you find?”
“Leonardo is Don Santo Calogerà‘s son. Vittoria’s brother.”
“Cazzo!”
“There’s more, boss. We haven’t been able to confirm if Vittoria knew about the attack.”
And there it was, things getting worse. I thought back to the past several weeks with my wife, looking for signs that she was a betrayer and working for my enemy. She was smart and tenacious, but could she be part of something of this magnitude?
Possibly. She always fought against being bartered into marriage.
Maybe my mistake was in believing that she’d been raised to be a mafia queen and had accepted her fate.
Still, had she been so disgruntled, would her body have responded to me as it did?
Would she have told me she loved me? I replayed that moment when I saw something hidden behind her wall, a girl with a secret.
“She is my wife,” I said. “She will be treated as a victim until I have proof otherwise.”
Massimo didn’t respond, which was fine with me.
I needed to think and strategize the best way to get my wife and brother back, preferably unscathed.
What I had been holding back on was what they may be doing to them right now.
If Vittoria was in on the scheme, which I didn’t believe, not yet, then she would be celebrating the temporary win, but if she wasn’t…
who knew what type of fucked up mind games he could be playing with her.
My knuckles whitened around the armrests.
I would destroy anyone who hurt her. No matter what, I believed Vittoria was mine and that she knew in her heart I would come for her.
I was sure that Vinny had allowed himself to be captured on purpose.
He would run interference and keep the attention on himself for as long as he could.
No one could be as sneaky as our youngest brother.
Even when he was two years old, the toddler could hide from us all day long.
He was smart, wily, and a good actor, and could play both sides.
Massimo’s phone dinged with a message alert.
“It’s from Simon. The last person Vittoria spoke with was her girlfriend, Gia. How would you like to handle her interrogation?”
“I’ll let you handle her. I’m in no mood for games, and if she gets mouthy, I may forget she’s useful.”
Despite the gravity of the situation, Massimo chuckled. “She truly is a brat, but I understand that woman. I’ll get what I need from her.”
The timing wasn’t appropriate, but I couldn’t help sparing a moment to consider the slightly adoring look in his eyes when Simo spoke of Gia. Did he like her? Mama Mia!
We pulled through the gates of the family compound. Soldiers were everywhere, turning home into a war zone. The moment we stopped, Tony opened my door and hustled me into the house beneath the protection of six armed soldiers, with Massimo close behind.
“Is Gia here?” Massimo asked.
Tony didn’t even look at him. ‘Yeah, in your office, as requested.”
Massimo took a different passage and would hopefully learn the nature of Gia and Vittoria’s conversation.
I followed Tony into the war room where we joined Massimo’s number one, Dante, Simon, our head of security who was holding an ice pack on his head, Fausto, Gio, Tano and myself.
Beyond the soundproof walls sat our prisoner, trussed up and waiting to die.
“Tony, you’ve been on the ground here. Bring us up to speed.”
“I thought we’d start with the footage that Simon was able to recover.” Tony nodded at Simon, who brought up the feed. The massive screen flickered to life, showing Carlo stalking toward my suite. From another hallway came Leo.
With no cameras in my suite, the image was held on Leo in the hallway, while Carlo brought out a series of pictures. The image quality was good enough for me to recognize the photographs immediately. They were real enough, but years old, but Vittoria wouldn’t know that.