“I have the word out with our contacts and have her names flagged the best I can; we don’t have control at all the borders, but we’ll see if she surfaces. I have a hacker who’s trying to track her bank accounts.”
“Great.”
I glance at my watch; it mocks me as Valentina should be home around now and yet there’s no word.
I hit a button and her phone goes to voicemail, so maybe she’s still mad at me.
“What’s up?”
“She’s never not returned a message to me, it’s a rule. I’m calling Micro.” Micro’s phone goes to voicemail. “Fuck. Turn around, we have to go to the hospital, step on it.”
“Okay, what happened?”
“Something is wrong. No one is picking up. This can’t be good.”
“Maybe she’s being leveraged by the men who are trying to overthrow her brother. That’s what I’d do. It’s obvious she’s the family’s weakness. However, they don’t know who they are dealing with now. Gambino is behind this; we just don’t know who all works for him and his plan.”
“We’ll be there in twenty.” Savio tries to placate me, but traffic is at a standstill. It always is this time of day.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Running would be faster than this traffic. These damn trains and trams. My God, I guess this is why I live up the hill,” I say and I push my right foot to the floorboard even though I’m not driving. I put my right hand on the grip area that’s in the panel of the door, clinching it with my hand so I don’t pound the dashboard.
“Easy there, Massimo.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to fuck up your vehicle, it’s a nice Mercedes.”
Savio gives me a wry smile. It’s a bad situation. I’m ready to lose my shit and we need to break up the anger welling inside me.
Savio makes an illegal pass on a car ahead of us. It’s risky considering we have weapons and the polizia have the uncanny ability to give out way too many tickets for shit like this. They add more and more officers every year and don’t get me started on the criminal investigations. Pretty soon we’re going to Switzerland with our bank accounts and making inroads north.
I’m a visual person and the roadmap to work with Grandfather is mapped in my head. Even if I piss him off, I’m worth more to him alive than dead, plus I’m family. That would be a huge no-no as the rest of the guys wouldn’t trust him if anything happened to me.
Hell, the Pope could kill me, and my grandfather would be in the hot seat to account for it. That's how respected I am, but today I feel like a jilted lover, and it’s not working for me.
“There, the sign is ahead.” Savio swerves to the right and presses the gas pedal making us take an exit faster than what’s deemed safe judging by the sign posted by the road. We’re on two wheels when we come to a screeching halt in front of the hospital. Savio drops me off in front of the tall new building with a wing the Michelis built and now I’m not as pissed about it. It’s not like the day we discovered we didn’t win the bid to build it.
I run up to the elevator and bump into Micro coming out and my phone ring; he’s calling me, only I’m here already.
“Fuck, that motherfucking man with the ugly as fuck neck tattoo of a skull and needles.”
“He’s Russian, Ivan is his name. Bad motherfucker if I say so myself. Where is Valentina?”
“They jabbed me with a sedative, and she’s gone. I found this.” He hands me her phone.
“Fuck, can’t even ping her. Not that they’d be that stupid.”
“Right, what now?” Micro asks. “I’m sorry Massimo, she’s fantastic, I’d take a bullet for her any day.”
“You bet your ass you would.” I clap him on the back.
Savio circles around and comes back to get me.
I’m so twisted up over the fact that I love her, I can’t think straight.
“We know the Gambinos have motive, he’s the underboss, he has to have help and now we have a Russian. This is larger than just an internal Sicilian takeover. Giovi can’t beat this himself with that kind of money, men, and firepower.”
“I’m sure Dante wants his name cleared. And it appears they aren’t safe with Gabriella waltzing around killing at will.” Savio makes a good point. “Gabriella is still in the wind. Good God, I hope she doesn’t have her.”