“It’s tequila, fixes everything.”
“Yeah.” Sal nods in agreement.
I’m sure he’s remembering Francesca taking a bullet earlier this year.
“I just hope this doesn’t lead to another war,” Mama murmurs.
Juliet takes the shot glass and sniffs it.
“Chug it, you need it,” Dante encourages her, knowing she was a college student at one time, but she never really partied and probably never had tequila.
“Drink, it’s okay, I got you,” he assures her.
Juliet, still wearing her beautiful dress, throws back the clear liquid. She coughs and makes a face to let us know she won’t be having another. It must be working as I watch her shoulders relax and her hands stop shaking.
“If this name doesn’t belong to his wife,” Francesca types away on her phone with both hands going at once, “who is she?”
Riccardo is working on his phone as well. No doubt, everyone is reaching out to contacts we have on payroll in the government and the underground.
“Hold on.” Francesca asks Mama, “Where is your laptop?”
“I have mine in the bag by the door,” Dante offers.
“Great.” Francesca retrieves the bag, the laptop, and starts typing away.
“Gambino doesn’t have a wife. He has a daughter,” Francesca announces. Her eyes are still reading the computer screen, looking for more information, while fingers move swiftly over the keyboard like she does this for a living. In a sense, I guess she does.
“The dark web is the answer to everything,” Sal explains as all eyes turn to him for an explanation.
“Except Kennedy,” Prende points out.
“Except Kennedy,” Francesca reiterates.
Dante is lawyered up and Juliet is standing by her man.
The newspapers are going bonkers and trying to implicate him in both murders now that Argon’s death has been declared a homicide. We’re worried Dante be tried in the press and not in the courts. Thankfully, there is no evidence he was anywhere near Argon at the time of his death.
The bad news is, both murders were perpetrated using the same drug, the drug found in his pocket.
We need video surveillance tapes of the hotel reception before the wedding. The new Sicilian Don, Gambino, has the most to gain from this murder and his daughter has not been seen anywhere for over twenty years.
“What is his daughter’s name?” Dante inquires with a rock glass of bourbon paused by his lips.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so damn serious. “Maybe we shouldn’t drink any more liquor in the house.”
Prende’s face is whiter than porcelain, “We already drank liquor.”
“Well, let’s check the video feeds of the house and for God’s sake, Dante, put that drink down, we’ll have everything dusted for fingerprints.”
“Which will come up empty, we’re dealing with a professional,” Sal adds, and he should know cause my sister-in-law is our in-house contract killer, one of the few we use.
“If we could only get pictures from that damn hotel,” Francesca murmurs.
Sal shoots her a look, and I’m assuming he’s afraid it might incriminate them.
She pats his hand and says “It’s fine, really.”
The last thing I want is for them to be caught in a lie, because they were there at some point that night but on the other hand, we can’t be sure the people handling Dante’s case might be threatened by the Albanians or Sicilians.
I’m a strategist—a realist— and I’m saying everyone has someone on the dole. The only question left with the government players is who?
But more importantly, why did these men die? The killer is trying to get our attention by using the same drug for the killings.
“Digitalis is poisonous, as you know,” Prende pipes up, “but it doesn’t have to be in a pharmaceutical drug, all the parts of the plants have that in it and the leaves are especially poisonous.”
“Great, anyone could have planted that vial on me,” Dante looks at the drink in his hand like he really needs it.
“Don’t drink it, brother, I’ll send Riccardo out to get us some and have the staff clear out everything.” I look to Mama, “Please oversee it. We all need to dump things at home and look for missed time in our security footage too.”
“Well, well, little brother, you are coming through in a crisis.” Dante’s eyes give me an approving look. He’s proud. I’m not just the youngest in the family with a love of watches and a nice shoe collection he jokes about.