Chapter 22
VALENTINA
The next morning, I stand on the terrace overlooking the back gardens, sipping coffee with Victor.
In the golden sunlight, I can see he looks tired, his skin pallid and his eyes almost hazy.
The way he sits in a rattan chair makes him seem smaller than he actually is, despite the finely tailored dark green Italian suit he chose to wear for this visit.
“Are you okay?” I ask him.
Michael sits on the wooden floor playing with colored blocks, occasionally glancing up at us to offer a toothy smile. Every time, Victor melts a little. I can tell he’s deeply attached to my son, and I welcome his affection.
“What makes you ask that?” Victor asks, pouring himself another coffee from the white porcelain pot Susie brought out.
“You look tired,” I reply, then I take a bite of a chocolate croissant.
“Given the events of last night, I’ll admit, I barely got a couple of hours’ worth of sleep,” Victor says. “The aftermath required extensive cleanup, I’m afraid.”
“I thought the cops were investigating.”
“They are.” Victor looks at me. “But they never got their hands on Lanny.”
“Lanny?”
“The shooter Luca caught, the survivor of his crew. We interrogated him afterward at a separate, undisclosed location.”
I frown at Victor. “You weren’t there?”
“Luca didn’t want anyone there, except his security lieutenants. I’m afraid they’re the only ones he fully trusts at this point.”
“Wait, do you mean to tell me he doesn’t trust you, of all people?”
A shudder runs through me as I try to keep the image of the shooter out of my head. I have a pretty good idea as to how the interrogation ended. I could tell from Luca’s promise that I’d never have to worry about that man ever again that Lanny didn’t make it, but his employer did.
And they’re still coming after us, it seems.
Victor shakes his head slowly. “In all fairness, I can’t exactly blame him. The information Lanny provided points to someone inside the Petrucci organization, someone who knows all the details of our operations.”
“But not you. You wouldn’t—”
“No, I would not. Yet I understand that Luca needed a moment to assess the situation. All I can do is stay loyal and keep doing my job. He needs all hands on deck right now.”
“Mama, look!” Michael yells, commanding my attention.
He’s managed to put a cube through a square-shaped hole in one of his boxes, and he is absolutely delighted as he grabs a cylinder and slips it through the round-shaped hole next.
“You’re such a smart little boy!” I exclaim and give him a piece of a plain croissant to nibble on. “Next thing I know, he’ll be graduating Magna Cum Laude from Harvard, and I’ll be praying to God that he’ll still come home to visit on the weekends.”
Victor laughs lightly. “Are you kidding, Valentina? This boy will never leave your side. He’ll build his whole world around you if he has to. That’s the mark of a good mother.”
“I’m not sure I want him to stay so attached,” I mumble. “Though I won’t mind it, of course. I just want him to have a life of his own.”
“He will,” Victor replies. “But you’ll always be a part of it.”
From his lips to God’s ears. With tears in my eyes, I watch Michael chewing and enjoying the piece of pastry until my mind wanders back to Lanny and the events of last night. My boy’s safety is paramount, so I’m curious about what Luca intends to do to keep him safe.
As the sun rises slowly toward the noon hour, we gaze out at the garden, alive with color and life: roses and hydrangeas blooming, birds jumping from branch to branch, trilling and courting one another. But despite the tranquility of the scene, there’s a burning question I have to ask.
“Victor, what did Lanny tell Luca? Do you know?
Victor takes a deep breath and a long sip of his black coffee before he leans back into his chair.
“There is a mole in our organization, that much is clear. Lanny and his crew had access to privileged information,” Victor says.
“Upon searching his apartment and questioning some of his known associates the entire night—”
“Questioning?” I raise an eyebrow at him.
Victor scoffs. “You know better than to request such details, Valentina.”
“Luca is ruthless, isn’t he?”
“I suppose that’s a rhetorical question?”
It is. I saw what my husband is capable of doing to protect those closest to him.
I dare not imagine what lengths he will go to in order to find the person responsible for all of this.
It will get infinitely worse now that he’s aware of a traitor in the Petrucci syndicate.
The Camorra treats treason as a capital offense.
Whoever leaked the information will die, likely at Luca’s hands.
“Are you safe?” I ask, worried.
“I have nothing to hide, and Luca knows it. In fact, I’ve gone over the information Lanny was given for his operations. The truck hijacking, the charity ball… I’ll admit, it startled me deeply.”
“Why is that?”
“It contained the kind of information only the family’s upper echelon had access to. A handful of people, at most.”
“What kind of information?” I ask, my blood running cold as I look at Victor and pray he doesn’t suffer a fate similar to Lanny’s.
“Transport routes, shipment details… even the drivers don’t get this stuff until half an hour before they show up for work,” he says.
“Logistical information, financial information, security blueprints of how Luca’s men would be positioned at a formal event with more than 500 guests, as opposed to an event with less than 500 guests, and so on and so forth.
“Point is, the information Lanny got narrows down Luca’s suspect pool, for sure,” he adds with a deep frown. “There are only a handful of suspects left, and one of them is already dead.”
“Who’s already dead?”
Victor looks troubled as he glances at me.
“Stefano. Stefano knew the routes in great detail because he set them up. He knew which cops and units were paid off to look the other way, which street corners had cameras and so on, and all the information was delivered to Lanny, giving him the opportunity to choose the perfect spot to hijack the truck.”
Shivers run down my spine as I try to wrap my head around this. “But Stefano’s been dead for a few months.”
“Luca didn’t change the routes. I’ll give Stefano credit where credit is due. The man had great knowledge of the streets and which levers to pull in order to get our people through undetected. It’s just…” He pauses and sighs heavily.
I see the concern deeply embedded in his features while he carefully strokes his bearded chin. His eyes blink slowly, his gaze wandering down to Michael—but there’s no softness there, only concern. Doubt. The kind of doubt he hesitates to express, which, in turn, triggers my cat-like curiosity.
“What aren’t you telling me, Victor?”
“It’s what I’m not telling Luca. I’d rather let him suspect me or the two other men who might’ve had a hand in this than to consider the alternative.”
“Which is?”
He looks at me, and I can tell he can’t even bring himself to say it out loud.
“Stefano,” Victor says, finally expressing his biggest fear.
“But Stefano died. He was blown up, right?”
He nods once. “There was a body, yes.”
I’m compelled to sit up and take another sip of coffee, my blood suddenly rushing and nausea threatening to upend the entire moment. Victor has decided to trust me with something that has clearly been eating away at him for some time.
“The thing is, I could never confirm that the body in the morgue was Stefano’s. Luca couldn’t even go in to see him. He was understandably devastated,” he says.
“Are you saying you’re not sure Stefano died in that club explosion?”
“I’m saying it was always a small possibility. And I would’ve left it at that. But going over the information in Lanny’s files, Valentina… I can’t help but think about it some more.”
“Wait, if Stefano survived, where is he?”
He shrugs and shakes his head. “No idea. It’s just a crazy theory at this point. There’s nothing concrete to go on, merely the imagination of a tired, old man.”
“You said there are two other people whom Luca likely suspects, given the detail in Lanny’s files. Who are they?”
“Raymond Shelby and Tony Petrucci Jr., probably. Luca wouldn’t say, but they’re the ones I’d be looking into.
Raymond’s been in the organization for almost as long as I have.
We came up together. He took over the logistics after Stefano died.
And Tony, he’s a second cousin and one of the few Petruccis still actively involved in the business.
He took over the… let’s call it the bribery department.
He’s the one keeping the wheels of the machine thoroughly greased. ”
“Well, what are your thoughts then?” I ask, growing increasingly aggravated by the prospect of someone so close to Luca being capable of such heinous betrayal.
Victor offers a subtle half smile as he looks at me. “You know, Valentina. I do appreciate the trust you have in me, given that you don’t consider me a suspect at all.”
“Maybe you are; I can’t know for sure. But I see the way you are with us, Victor. The kindness in your eyes cannot be faked, and I know a man with kind eyes like yours may be capable of terrible things, yet you’d never put me or Michael directly in harm’s way.”
“I can’t imagine Michael growing up without his mother, if that’s what you mean.”
“It’s exactly what I mean. So, I don’t know about Luca or his security lieutenants and what they all think about it, but I’d just rather not worry about you, too. Now tell me about Raymond and Tony. What’s their deal?”
Victor leans down for a moment to help Michael retrieve a yellow cylinder that slipped away. He gives it back to my son, then watches as he gingerly pushes it through another round-shaped hole in his play box.
“Tony is a Petrucci down to the bone. He’s scared of Luca, to begin with.
He simply wouldn’t betray him, because he understands the repercussions.
Perhaps if Luca were dead or certain to be killed before he could get to Tony, maybe then Tony might consider betraying him.
But frankly, I don’t think he has the spine for that. I don’t know, I’m not buying it.”
For some reason, I trust Victor’s judgment. Maybe it’s because of the way he speaks. Maybe it’s his experience in the syndicate and his lifetime’s worth of wisdom, but whatever it is, he inspires my trust.
“And Raymond?” I ask.
Victor frowns, a troubled look in his eyes. “Oh, how do I say this? Raymond can’t betray Luca. He’s not wired like that.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I told you, we came up together. He and I, we’re cut from the same cloth.
I went on to handle the administrative aspects of the syndicate, while Raymond stuck to the groundwork, but fundamentally, he and I are the same.
We took bullets for each other, Valentina.
He certainly would never betray me, and he knows that, in a sense, I’m as much a Petrucci as Luca himself.
I’ve dedicated my entire life to this. Raymond cares about me, about us, and he cares deeply.
This man will die before he would ever sell any of us out. ”
“And that leaves us with the impossible, doesn’t it, Victor?”
The implication is insane, even as a theory.
But if I’m to follow Victor’s reasoning and the information available, it doesn’t sound theoretical anymore, and it scares the hell out of me.
An even crazier thought crosses my mind in my sudden urge to get to the truth before this situation pushes me to do the unthinkable: to leave with my son and never look back—this time, for good.
“How can we know for sure?” I ask him, “that it really was Stefano who was killed at the nightclub?”
“There were some items of his found close to his body, which Luca confirmed as belonging to Stefano,” he says. “And that’s what the police used to positively identify him as the victim in the black bag they brought back from the club.”
“No DNA testing, nothing else?”
“No.” He pauses, a thought crossing his mind. “I might have an idea on how to get an undeniable confirmation. Valentina, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go.”
Immediately, I shoot up from my seat with a determined scowl. “No. No way you’re doing any of this on your own.”
“Valentina—”
“No. First, if Luca still suspects you and you go to him with this particular nugget, he’ll need me to confirm. I was with you every step of the way. He trusts me. I’m his wife, after all.”
His gaze softens slightly, and his shoulders drop in defeat. “I guess you’re right.”
“Second, if Stefano is still alive by some… I don’t even know what to call it, because it doesn’t sound as if it’s a miracle… I deserve to be the one who uncovers the truth. He’s my child’s father, after all, and the reason I’m here. I need to know.”
Victor thinks about it for a moment, then looks around. A twinkle of amusement dances in his eyes. “I guess we’ll have to get Susie down here to take care of Michael while we’re out.”
“Excellent answer,” I reply with a cool grin.
I can’t sit on my ass and wait for this situation to resolve itself. No matter how crazy our options may seem at this point, I have to explore every avenue, every angle, until every possibility is exhausted.
Until only the truth remains.