On the other end of that call was the spliced recording I’d given to Uncle Guy with their names being mentioned in connection with that night in the story told to me by the nun. I would’ve liked to have seen their faces when not much later and still reeling from the shock, they were confronted by an irate Carlo. I’d worked so well on him, using what I knew about the affair to drive him over the edge. Each time she laughed at him, comparing him to her lover where he always came up short must’ve been a dagger to his heart.
I sent him years and years of screenshots of the messages I’d hacked from his wife’s phone and computer; I even sent him the videos the lovers had made for good measure. He wasn’t given the pleasure of the recording; instead, as he made his way down the hallway to the room, a nice old man whose body looked too spry for his age if you looked closely even though he was stooped over stopped to have a word.
“Do you remember Sofia Antonelli? She says hi.” Those are the words I’d asked to be said to him. I’m sure he was in too much of a hurry to catch his wife and his best friend in the act to really absorb the words. According to Guy’s report, the screams that came from him when he first entered the room were almost animal in nature.
The hotel staff didn’t start to panic, though, until after the first two shots, which were closely followed by a third. Anyone coming upon the crime scene would know what happened at a glance, and so their chapter ended. The only ones left now were Luna and her extremely wealthy husband.
With her, because of what she’d done to Natalia, apart from the part she’d played the night Ma was harmed, I was taking things in a whole other direction. I wasn’t waiting until her death to remind her of why she was dying but taunted her with little snippets here and there. It might be in the form of an email that can be sent from anywhere in the world or a postcard slid under the door of her home with no postmark.
All the messages followed the same theme. She must’ve known by now that Natalia was out of her reach and wondering where she was and who she was talking to. The exclusive would be released later today, with most of the gory details of their past, including the trafficking of children and all the underhanded business deals her husband had taken part in.
Not only that, but I was making sure that behind the scenes, anyone who was in bed with them would want to get as far away as possible before the news broke. By the time the real story breaks, she’d have become a pariah among her friends and acquaintances. In this day of Internet justice, I don’t think either of them would last very long, but I’m almost expecting each of them to turn on the other.
Of course, I will be helping that along with some well-placed and very well-timed messages. The fact that I now know things that neither of them would expect anyone to know is of great help, and I have my boy Memnon to thank for that. The truth is, I’m not sure who’s going to kill these two to shut them up, but I’m certain someone will because there’s always someone bigger than you with more to hide.
So far, I’ve bombarded Luna with hints from that night. Just enough to jog her memory, but she’d done so much horrible shit since then I’m sure someone like her would’ve become desensitized by now. She might make the connection between my sudden appearance and these new leaks, especially with the mention of my mother in some of the more cryptic notes, but I expect she’d be too busy trying to cover her ass to worry too much about me and a twenty-year-old case.
I looked over everything and was satisfied for now with the way things were going. Now to go meet these men who’d interfered in my life and business without an invite. She was still sulking when I finally stood up from the desk, so I took pity on her. “I’ll take you shopping as soon as I come back. I just don’t want you having to handle all three of them on your own anymore.”
“But your sisters and your mom and aunt were planning to go.”
“It’s not their responsibility to protect my woman and kids. Besides, I need more bonding time with my kids before anyone else does.” Cue the eye-rolls, which I ignored and kissed my babies goodbye before kissing her one last time and heading out the door.