“What did I say?” Malcolm said impatiently.
“Fine. Sorry. Please proceed.” I slouched down in the chair, crossing my arms under my chest.
“Okay. I want to start with Luca’s dad and then work our way to current day. These five men are Dante Moretti’s inner circle. Gabe Ricci, Alessandro Russo, Giuseppe Moretti, AntonioBruno,and Stefano Romano, your shadow for the night. All these men were raised in the lifestyle.”
I leaned forward and traced the pictures with my fingertips. “Gabe works with Luca now,and Giuseppe is his uncle.” Frowning at Malcolm, I asked, “Lifestyle?”
“Organized crime. The Mafia, Sasha.”
I laughed, but Malcolm’s expression remained grave.
“But they own Moretti Properties and a million other businesses. Why would they be involved in the mob?”
“Money, power, thrill, take your pick, Sash. It’s not uncommon for the rich to have illegal dealings. In this case, Dante Moretti built his legitimate empire on dirty money.”
Shaking my head, I couldn’t believe it.
“Let me show you.”
Opening another folder, he placed a stack of financial documents in front of me.
“I did a little digging on the family’s financials.”
Despite knowing all my interrupting was pissing him off, I couldn’t help myself. “What exactly do you do for a living, Malcolm?”
Letting out a little laugh, he shook his head. “You never listen to me, do you?” I shrugged. “I’m a forensic accountant. My brother-in-law’s a P.I., and I work with him sometimes.” He pointed to the top page. “Now, let me explainwhat I found. After going through all the legit business and personal accounts, I found this account named DM. It has a steady stream of cryptocurrency deposited in and a few wires from accounts that I was able to trace. Nothing too exciting there. It wasn’t until I dug into the wires and deposits from about a decade ago that I found something.”
He flipped the pages, fanning them out in front of me. “Deposits from business owners and politicians, most notable to you, Senator Cooper.”
“Beth’s mom?”
Malcolm nodded. “The frequency of the wires suggests they were most likely payments for blackmail or extortion. And this isn’t the only account like this.”
“Fuck.”
“Indeed.”
“And Luca is what? The head honcho?”
“I believe they call it a Boss, maybe Don. The preference seems regional.” I wanted to smack the smug smile off his face.
“How? I don’t . . . It’s hard to believe. I was expecting insider trading or something equally douchey.”
Malcolm finally sat down, opening the last folder and sliding it my way. The picture on top was of a bloody crime scene. “What do you know about Dante Moretti, II?”
I scanned the photo,taking in the numberofmarkers surrounding a body riddled with bullet holes. “Just that he was threatened and then killed. Luca made it sound like a stalker or something.”
“A rival group killed Dante. I believe you know one of their associates, Dimitri Chronis.”
“Sorry, what?”
“I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve somehow involved yourself in an old-fashioned turf war.”
“But Dimitri’s just a harmless fuckboy.”
“You’re not too far off. He is just a small-timeblack marketart dealer, but his big brother, Cy, is the one that called the hit on Dante. I suspect he’s behind the shooting last month at Moretti’s and is working his way up the ranks.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out.