“Stefano isn’t the one pullingallthe strings.”
My phone rang. “Yeah?”
“You’ve got company, two guys.” Niccola spoke fast. “Head south. We’ll meet you at the food vendor at the end of the street.”
I tossed my hood over my head and said, “Wait for my call.”
“We’re done here. I won’t do this again!”
I pointed my gun at his temple then wrapped a hand around his neck, squeezing his vocal cords.
“I wonder how your wife will feel when your oldest son doesn’t come home from his next soccer practice. Or when your youngest mysteriously vanishes on her way to school. Or, God forbid, something goes tragically wrong when your sister undergoes her surgery next month.”
“Don’t you—”
I held a pamphlet to his daughter’s private school and watched his pupils contract.
“If you want your family to live, you’ll come when you’re called and do as I say.” I removed his gun from his belt and shoved it in his hand, pushing the barrel toward his mouth.
“I’m not part of any trafficking.” He shook. “I never even knew about it, until they took Val!” He paused and blinked a few times. “They’re going to kill her.” His hands wrapped around the cold steel of his gun. “If not Stefano, someone above him will.”
Don’t react. Another reference to someone above Stefano? Who could be above Stefano?
My phone rang again, and I knew my time was up. I stepped out into the pouring rain, and just as I rounded the corner, I heard a gunshot.
Without breaking stride, I wove my way through the dinner rush on the street, through the kitchen of a family friend and out the back door where I slipped into the waiting car. Niccola checked his mirror to ensure no one was following us.
“Well?” Niccola asked as he studied my face. I closed my eyes for a moment as I digested what I had heard.
“Something either spooked Stefano or he’s preoccupied with something else, because he isn’t sending out a shipment of girls right now. Val is being held at the Grand Hotel, so, Vinni, get your people on that.”
“Sure thing.” He nodded as he turned up the street, beeping at some cattle that had moved onto the road.
“He did say someone else might be pulling the strings.”
Niccola glanced at me, confused. Stefano was the head of the Coppola syndicate, so no one else should be calling the shots. “Could it be hisconsigliere?”
“I don’t think so, and I can’t beat it out of our informant because he just killed himself.”
“No, he didn’t.” He handed me his phone to show a video he had taken. The two men I was warned were coming my way could be seen. One shot him in the head, then they tossed his body in the back of an unmarked truck.
“What are the chances he was fed true information before he came to you?”
“Only one way to find out.” I nodded at Vinni to get eyes on Stefano’s hotel.
I removed my jacket and spent the twenty-minute car ride home mulling any and all possibilities on how to get Val back and wondering just what the hell Stefano was up to.
Vinni handed me an umbrella, and I raced up the steps of my parents’ house and hurried inside. Mama was the first to greet me with a worried expression.
Immediately, I knew something was up. “What’s wrong?”
She pointed over her shoulder and whispered, “There’s only so much a person can take in one day, and I think she might be maxed out.”
I hung my coat up and followed the voices then peered around the corner and spotted Mariano and his mother with Sienna, who looked more than finished. As I moved farther down the hallway, I spotted Wyatt hunched over the bar in the back, looking fit to kill. When he spotted me, his face dropped in relief as I joined him at the bar.
“Everything okay?” I asked quietly as I loosened my tie with one hand and poured a stiff drink with the other. They still hadn’t spotted me, so I took the opportunity to eavesdrop.
“Mariano is trying to convince her to spend the night out with him.” His gaze moved to my bloodstained hands.