Chapter 5 #2
“Yes, exactly,” she agreed. “I’ve been making my way through the list of anyone who was recently released from prison. I haven’t found anything concrete yet, but we can’t rule that out.”
“How long have you known about the informant?” I asked.
“Not long,” she replied. “Why?”
“I wanted to know how long you’ve been keeping it from me,” I explained.
“You and my father kept this engagement a secret from me,” she said. “If anyone has the right to be angry about secrets, it’s me.”
“Your father was probably trying to protect you,” I said. “That’s the impression I got from him at least.”
“I wish he had thought to protect himself.” Suddenly she paused, her expression turning thoughtful.
“What is it?”
“You said that my father sprung that meeting on you last night. If you didn’t know that he was coming over, how would the hitman have known?” she asked.
“Did Frankie know that your father was coming over?” I asked, answering her question with one of my own.
“I don’t know,” she said with a frown. “If he did know, then he’s our number-one suspect. Unless...”
“What?”
“What if that hitman was after you?” she asked. “He could have come here to kill you, and Papa’s unexpected presence ruined his plan.”
“Fucking hell.” That angle hadn’t occurred to me. I’d figured that if the hitman had been instructed to take me out if necessary, the main target would still have been Don Romano. But if I had been the target instead, that put everything in an entirely different light.
“Enzo, is there anything else you want to disclose that might help us?” she asked.
What she was really asking was just how many secrets I had left. While I didn’t have too many, I had enough. One secret was so explosive that I knew there was no way in hell I could ever let her find out about it. The other was something I would take with me to the grave.
For some inexplicable reason, guilt surged through me.
It didn’t make sense. I didn’t trust Valentina, therefore, there were things that I’d be a fool to tell her.
Rational as that was, though, it didn’t stop the guilt.
Didn’t stop the sense of betrayal. Which was insane because I didn’t owe her that level of loyalty.
Not until we were married and maybe not even then.
The problem was that she had trusted me enough to confide in me.
That meant that my plan to win her over was working.
I was gaining her trust and it made me feel like a fucking asshole.
I’d been lying to her face the entire time.
She’d been lying too, but she had lied about past actions, not about the engagement.
Based on how quickly she had turned a gun on me, Valentina didn’t have ulterior motives.
I couldn’t trust that I’d stay safe or alive in her company, but I was pretty sure now that she wasn’t using this marriage as a scheme against me, her intentions on that front were pure, amazingly enough.
She was a loyal daughter prepared to do anything her father ordered, even if she hated having to do it.
“No, there’s nothing else,” I finally said, lying through my teeth.
I pushed the guilt aside. What I was keeping from her had no bearing on the hunt for the masked hitman.
I was as in the dark as she was about who could want me dead.
“If someone was trying to kill me, your family members would be the most likely suspects.”
She frowned again. “Well, it couldn’t have been my father who ordered it.”
“Someone going rogue? Seems unlikely that they’d risk pissing off your father to get to me,” I said.
“The hitman’s motive to get rid of you might have outweighed fear of my father,” she pointed out.
I couldn’t imagine anyone stupid enough to piss off Don Romano for any reason, much less to get to me. Still, the hitman had been so brazen that we’d probably have to consider how far desperation could push somebody.
“Could it be a frame job?” I asked, wracking my brain for theories that made sense.
“Like someone trying to make it look like your father did this by shooting mine?” Her beautiful face was thoughtful as she turned that over in her mind. “Something like that would reignite the war between our families.”
“Right. If restarting the war was the motive, then we can rule out both Don Romano and my father. Your dad was shot and mine wouldn’t put me in the crosshairs like that,” I finally agreed out loud, striking them off the list. Despite my father being the most likely suspect in a mob hit against Don Romano, Valentina had been correct earlier.
My old man wouldn’t have set up a murder that risked my life in the process.
“That leaves someone with less power,” she mused.
“Somebody who wants power,” I muttered absently, as I tried to think through other motives. “But if I was the real target, why come after me if power was what they wanted? I’m the De Luca second in command. My father would make the better target.”
“Maybe they’re trying to get rid of the competition by playing the long game,” Valentina suggested.
“What do you mean?”
She paused, as if contemplating if she should respond or hold back.
That grabbed my interest because I was starting to realize that Valentina only held back when she had something to gain.
Typically, she’d unleash and let me fucking have it.
But that wasn’t always wise and I could see the gears in her pretty little head turn before she answered.
“Take your father as an example,” she finally said. “He went after my Papa’s second in command first. Remember, your father killed Uncle Tony before targeting my dad with that car bomb.”
Valentina had laid that out calmly. So calmly that I was certain that her placid, aloof air was practiced.
A purposeful masking of her true emotions so that she would avoid unleashing her rage or grief over her Uncle Tony’s murder.
It was then that I really understood what she was giving up every time she was in my presence.
Forming any kind of alliance with me was nothing short of betrayal on her part.
And now that she knew for sure that my family was responsible for Anthony Sullivan’s death, she had every fucking right to hate me even more than she ever had.
“You family killed my Uncle Tony to weaken my father,” she continued. “With his right-hand man, his second out of the way, my father was vulnerable to attack.”
“That’s what led to the car bomb. He was weak and that was the best time to strike,” I confirmed.
“Your father only came to the bargaining table when that car bombing failed,” she said, a bitter edge to her tone.
There it was. The actual emotion that was simmering below her placid surface.
“No different from your father,” I reminded her.
“Both dons only decided to negotiate their way out of war after your father survived the car bombing. They were both weakened by then. My old man figured that he wasn’t going to get another chance at killing Don Romano. Negotiation was the only option left.”
“Papa was weakened by the loss of Uncle Tony, but car bombing also left him injured,” she filled in for me. “Recovering from his wounds forced him to slow down. I think it made him finally see how vulnerable and exposed he was.”
“Both dons were weakened,” I said, nodding. “That’s the only reason we’re getting hitched. Our fathers will do anything to regain their strength and power. They can only do that through us.”
“Which is what I mean by playing the long game,” Valentina said, bringing our conversation back to her earlier theory.
“If that hitman was after you, Enzo, he might have been trying to weaken your father before a final, killing blow. Not only are you the one person who could protect Don De Luca, you’re the one person with the strength to take over the De Luca empire if he was ever out of the picture.
Your father would be weaker without you.
Just like my father was weaker without his second in command.
That hitman could have been after you to get to your father. ”
It made a perverse sort of sense. But that was only if I had been the actual target. And that seemed pretty far-fetched. I shook my head. “There isn’t enough evidence for that right now. Speculation helps us think outside the box, but we can’t make concrete conclusions based on conjecture.”
Valentina nodded slowly, taking in what I was saying. “Agreed. We can throw out ideas, but we need hard evidence if we’re going to officially connect dots or make accusations.”
We both knew that in our world an accusation meant that a person was as good as dead. Whoever we pinned this shooting on, ultimately wasn’t going to be able to go on living once they were found out. Neither of us could afford to fuck this up. Too many lives were at stake.
“So even though we can question if you were the target, we have to assume the hitman was after my dad,” she said. “At least until we get evidence saying otherwise.”
Going over last night’s shooting in my mind, it made sense for the hitman to have targeted me as either the bystander who got in his way or as the witness that needed eliminating. Either way, I wouldn’t have been the primary name on his kill list. “Great. We’re on the same page.”
“For once,” she said, granting me a knowing, mischievous sort of smile.
“Good to know that you’re finally listening to reason,” I tossed back.
“I see that you’re finally ready to cooperate,” she returned, interest flickering behind her blue eyes.
Before we could continue our verbal sparring, my cell phone rang. I grabbed it off the nightstand to answer. After exchanging a few words with the security guard on the other end, I hung up, invigorated by the latest developments.
Valentina sat up straighter, seemingly noticing the change in my demeanor. “What is it?”
“Security guard,” I responded.
“Some good news I hope?” she asked.
“More evidence coming our way,” I told her. “We’ve got video surveillance footage. Of the shooter.”