"Romy, we found a container. And it does have people in it. But Celenia isn't one of them."
"Are you sure? Did you look a second time? Maybe she looks different. I haven't seen her face-to-face in a while. She could have dyed her hair. Gained or lost weight. Gotten work done. I don't know. You have to look again. You have to ask them their names."
"Sweetheart, she's not here. But listen to me, she could be on the next one, okay? We just have to wait it out and see. But I wanted to call and tell you before this is all over the news. I wish I could be there, but the cops are here. The feds are here. I can't leave."
"I understand," she said, voice thick, and it shattered something inside me to know she was upset, and that I couldn't be there for her.
"I will get out of here as soon as I can, okay?"
"Okay," she agreed, and this time I could hear the tears in her voice.
"Sweetheart..."
"It's alright," she assured me, sniffling. "I'll be okay. You have to do what you have to do. I'm alright."
"Romy..."
"I'm fine, Luca," she told me, voice a little firmer. "I'm not mad or upset. This is what you have to do. And we can talk later. It's okay. But thank you. For calling. For not letting me be blindsided and worried. I'm going to take a bath. Have a cry. Then pull myself together."
"You don't have to do that. When I get there, I can help."
"Alright. I will pull myself mostly together," she said, sounding a little lighter. "Thank you, Luca."
"I'll be there as soon as I can, sweetheart," I promised, ending the call.
"Aw, sugar plum, how sweet of you," Lucky's voice called from behind me, making my eyes close as I sighed out my breath. "I didn't know we were the pet names kind of cousins, pumpkin," he added when I turned. "I thought it was suspicious that Matteo was giving you a burner," he said, shaking his head. "I never thought I'd see the day when The Great Luca would fuck up," he added. "It was giving me a real complex, always having to be the fuck up," he added, giving me a smirk.
"Snooping around on me isn't a smart move, Lucky," I told him, tossing the phone into the water.
"No, but sometimes it is the only way to get information. Were you planning on keeping it a secret forever?"
"I was planning on telling everyone when she was proven right. Which she was."
"You're not worried your old man is going to kill your ass for this?"
"My father will understand," I countered.
He would.
Antony Grassi was a lot of things.
But one of them not everyone knew was that he was a romantic. This man who honored his beloved wife's memory by never dating another woman again. Not even casually. The man was still married to his slain wife. And he held those vows sacred.
"So, she's someone you want him to meet?" he asked. "Not just someone to warm your bed for a while?"
"She's someone important to me. I can't say for how long she is going to be important, since she has a life of her own across the country. But for now, she's important."
"Got it," he said, nodding. "So what do I have to get her to make her forgive me?"
"Matteo might have a list you can work off of at this point," I offered as we made our way back into the chaos, women being led out of the container, loaded into ambulances, headed out to local hospitals to be checked out.
"We appreciate your cooperation," Lloyd told us hours later after the FBI took off without anything pleasant to say other than they would be back.
"We're not monsters," my father told him. "These girls needed help."
I didn't think New York would necessarily agree. They would likely want us to have taken care of it, just shipped the girls back on our dime somehow, washed our hands of it, then taken care of the perpetrators in private, not involving the police in our business.
But t