20. Adriano
Chapter twenty
Adriano
The door to the ex-commissioner’s house is slightly ajar. Something’s fucking wrong.
Signaling Francesco, I shove the glass door out of my way and head inside, my Glock aimed in front of me.
The fucking man went off the grid for the past two years, completely cutting off communication from the rest of the world and even his family, but no one can hide from me. At least not forever.
The man’s smart, I have to give him that. It took three days of intensive searching to locate his whereabouts. After all, who would have thought he’d resort to living right under our noses, hidden away in a secluded and less populated place like Grindstone Island?
Though we’ve been searching for weeks, we haven’t yet found out where in Utah he stashed his family, so we can’t use them as leverage against him, or force a confession out of a spouse or child who might know something.
Now that I’ve found the man himself though, the back of my neck is prickling with apprehension.
His place is the usual vintage-style house with a wide porch, wallpaper lining the walls, and well-polished floorboards. The place is spick-and-span yet empty.
Francesco heads into one of the rooms while I pivot into the dining area, and there he is—head facedown in his plate of mashed potatoes, his hand closed over his tumbler of scotch.
“Figlio di puttana (Son of a bitch).”
I step closer to him, sniffing the air for signs of poisonous substances. They always leave a trace, either a distinct chemical odor or physical signs of asphyxiation—but his skin looks completely clear.
“Francesco, muoviti (move)!”
The sound of his boots thudding on the wood fills the air as my chest heaves with fury. There’s no way he’s taking a nap or faking this posture.
“Gloves,” I say, holding my hand out. He covers my fingers with the black latex gloves we usually carry around. Keeping my gun raised, I walk stealthily toward the man and feel his neck for a pulse.
There’s not even a flicker. He couldn’t have killed himself, could he?
I straighten and scan the room again. There are no broken windows or anything that could pass for forced entry, and I’m sure he wouldn’t take his own life; the coincidences are too convenient. First Valente, and now him. Whoever killed him either walked in like a friend or was already welcome.
My fingers tighten around my Glock as I resist the urge to smash my foot into the table. What the hell!?
Someone’s trying desperately to cover something up, and whatever it is, it can’t be good.
I move through the house, opening drawers, scanning papers, and checking the shelves. There’s nothing useful here. Whoever did this job cleaned up well; it was no amateur.
My thoughts land on the only other person involved: that damned bastard, Victor Caughn. Who the fuck is he, and could he possibly have a hand in the deaths of Valente and the ex-commissioner?
“Che cosa abbiamo su Victor Caughn (What do we have on Victor Caughn)?” I ask, turning to Francesco.
“Still nothing, Capo.” He shakes his head. “The man is a total ghost. He hasn’t been seen in person for the past six years. There are no fingerprints, matching blood samples, or any other means of identification. He has no family or loved ones either.”
Interesting. Basically, he’s as good as a dead man, and dead men don’t talk. I need a man who does talk.
With all these key figures involved in the scheme dead or non-existent, there’s now just one person left that I need to circle back to. The man who handed me these leads in the first place, and the one who was there when this entire bloodbath sparked: Enzo Marcini.
While I’m not enthusiastic about facing him, I’m getting impatient with the massive jigsaw puzzle I’m having to piece together just to unearth the truth.
“Change of plans,” I growl at Francesco. “We’ll go to Enzo.”
I see the questioning look in his eyes, but I head out of the house. The least Enzo can do now is fucking talk.
“Accendi la macchina (Start the car),” I bark to Francesco, who is following closely behind me.
“Chi altro conosceva la posizione del ex commissario (Who else knew the ex-commissioner’s location)?”
“Solo noi (Only us),” Francesco responds swiftly. “And maybe some really close contacts of the ex-commissioner, like his family.”
I scoff; I must get this information. I didn’t come all this way to get played by ghosts.
***
The car rolls to a stop in front of the hospital. I heard Enzo’s condition deteriorated several days back, and he was only transferred from the ICU to a step-down private room this morning. The rest of the men have already returned to the mansion, so it’s just Francesco and me.
Francesco slips a tip to the receptionist while I make my way up the stairs to the room. Lorenzo, the old man’s second-in-command, should be guarding the door, but he was severely injured during the fight with the Irish, so he must be in one of the other wards.
Francesco opens the door, stepping inside after me.
Enzo’s skin is pale, but he doesn’t look half as bad as I imagined. Though his lips are cracked, and his eyes are a bit sunken, there seems to be some strength in him as he sits upright with his bandaged shoulder and swollen foot.
I briefly wonder if he’s been told about his missing millions of dollars. Something pinches at my heart at the thought, but I quickly nudge it away.
“I need intel on Victor Caughn,” I deadpan, my arms crossed tightly over my chest. There’s no time for pleasantries.
“You treacherous bastard, you think I don’t know what you’ve done!? All you sabotaged just to get to the mafia? As if crippling us wasn’t enough…” He breaks into a violent fit of coughing.
“Easy. I don’t need you back in the ICU just yet.”
“…You’ve now crippled our finances. You bastard.”
I smirk, enjoying the look of despair on his face. “In fifty… maybe sixty years you can make back a quarter of what I took. But my family—my whole family—will never come back.”
He grinds his jaw, and I continue, but this time with a frown. “Justice has only partially been served. The scale is not even remotely balanced. Don’t fucking tempt me to balance it, Enzo.”
He stares at me for the longest moment, wheels turning in his head, before his shoulders slump.
“I said I’d help you find Valente, and you have. We have no further business with each other,” he grits.
A smile curls on my lips. If he’d started by giving me exactly what I wanted to hear, I’d have known he was lying.
“You’re right, but I have something you want, so it’s only right you give me something I need.”
Realization flickers across his face, immediately replaced by a ferocious snarl. If he could leap and tear at me, he’d have done so without hesitation.
“Don’t you dare hurt her.”
“Your next words determine that,” I snap impatiently. He shuts his eyes, breathing in deeply.
“I know nothing about the man,” he croaks. My fingers curl into fists, rage building in my chest. If he weren’t already hospitalized, I would have beaten the truth out of him myself.
Instead, I play the card I know he’ll always succumb to. Jerking my chin in a sharp signal, Francesco and I turn toward the door, but his frantic voice stops us.
“Wait!”
Of course, he thinks of Elena first. A strange, suffocating feeling rises in my chest at the realization that I’m using her as a pawn to get what I want, but it’s gone in a flash. She’s still leverage. And fuck, I’ll use every ounce of it.
“I heard something,” he says, his eyes heavy with a defeated look.
My brows knit together with anticipation.
“I heard some rumors from Valente. The ex-police commissioner had him holed up with his family in Utah for a while. If you speak to his family… they should be able to help.”
Finally, something worthwhile. I nod, turning around with Francesco on my heels.
Enzo rises after a few minutes of struggle. “Don’t hurt her, Bellandini.”
I don’t spare him a second glance. I’m already way past the door. But I do hear my own voice in my head. Rest assured, old man, I have no intention whatsoever to harm that pretty little flower.
And with that thought, my damn dick twitches as her image flashes in my mind.
Seeing her bound to my bed, locked in my collar, snapped something feral within me.
An irrational urge to possess her… to force her to submit until she understands exactly who owns her. And that makes me so fucking furious!
What the fuck’s gotten into you, Bellandini?!
“Francesco, what do you have on the ex-commissioner’s family?” I ask, in an attempt to distract myself from those pink nipples and the way her back arched for more when I teased her dripping sweet cunt with the vibrator.
“He had a wife and three daughters. Two of the girls are toddlers and one is fifteen.” That’s more than enough leverage. “But their location remains unknown.”
“Trovali (Find them).”
“Sì, Capo (Yes, Boss).”
“And find everything you can on the wife and the older daughter.”
“Yes, Capo.”
If pushed hard enough, the mother or the older daughter will be able to sing the song I’ve been dying to hear. Somebody in that house has to remember something.
Taking a fresh cigar from my breast pocket, I light it, puffing thick smoke rings into the air. With the Rossis’ money sitting secure in my account, the Bellandini family is about to become invincible.
There’s just one enemy left that I need to take out… Caughn. None of the circumstances surrounding him seem coincidental. My lips close around the cigar again, dragging in heartily.
I’ll definitely get to the bottom of this and drag whoever is there even further down to hell with me. Only then will this raging fury within me be sated and my family truly avenged.