“We’ll find her,” Savio murmurs, pouring himself vodka and cranberry.
“Hell, forget the juice, Savio,” I tease. It’s been a long and complicated day.
I flip on the TV and find the local news channel to keep my mind occupied and there is live coverage of a restaurant on fire, and they mention the address.
“Oh shit,” Francesca announces.
“What?” I ask, turning it up.
“That’s Luciano’s restaurant. It’s an address I know, it came up under De Luca’s name today. I ran it for additional places to watch.”
“Now we don’t have to, that eliminates one place, though it would have been stupid to use it, although it has food and a bathroom.” Micro shrugs and I hit him on the back to tell him he’s an ass.
Meanwhile, Gambino is in his storeroom on the camera I watch with Francesca, and he’s on the phone; he gets money from a safe and leaves.
“We need to trail him; he’s paying someone for dirty deeds.”
“Yeah, let’s go, Francesca, you can stay here,” Sal suggests.
“Like hell, I’m not missing out on any action,” she says and closes her laptop, grabs a jacket and is the first to the door.
Micro drives and we pass by the building and Gambino is meeting with a man in the alley.
“That looks like—” Francesca pulls up social media accounts. “Yes, that’s Marco, Laura’s fiancé. Damn, Valentina is one popular woman. She’s been the target all along.”
I clear my throat, although I know she doesn’t mean any disrespect from it.
We drive by like we live on the street and wait until Marco leaves. Gambino goes back inside; he’s alone, but we don’t know who might show up next. There could be more than one person milling around. Chances are higher he’s not alone, not when a war to take over the island is at stake.
“What do we do?” I ask.
“Let’s take our weapons and find out. We’ll get more information kicking in doors than knocking on them. I’ll disable their cameras, so they don’t see us coming.”
“I’m so in love with you,” Sal says to her and gives her a sensual kiss.
She pulls her tiny backpack on over her jacket, puts her Beretta in a holster covered by her jacket, and we all arm ourselves.
I pack some C-4 just in case shit goes sideways. We’re not on our home turf and I’m not leaving anything to chance. With the fire going on down the street, it will take up valuable resources from the town and I doubt there will be any police driving by, besides, they’re all on someone’s payroll and there are no others who would come here to do what we’re doing.
Sicily keeps to themselves unless it involves crimes that are tried in Rome and are huge cases that could gut them.
We line up and carefully walk down the alleyway leading to the back door that Federico Gambino just walked through.
There are two new arrivals in the alley going to the same door.
Francesca sneaks around the cars like a cat, jumps, and kicks the largest man in the chest knocking him to the ground.
I’m behind her and take the next goon, throwing a punch at him and connecting with his jaw. His head turns and I throw up an opposing elbow to swing his head back towards me as he puts his arms up to defend himself.
I use the taser on the ring I collected, it tases him and he falls to the ground where I pistol whip him unconscious.
I turn to see how Francesca is doing and she is punching the shit out of the man’s face. Sal is by her side, telling the man to give up the location of Valentina.
“Fuck you,” he spits.
Francesca whips out a knife and runs it though his shoulder, separating it from the bone, and the man cries out in excruciating pain.
“Wanna try that again?” she asks in Italian.