“Go on.” he said.
I realized I’d stopped talking. I didn’t know when I’d stopped missing James. He’d been so good, so caring, so protective of me.
“I’d just turned twenty. His birthday was one day after mine. He was thirty, older than I usually dated, but we hit it off.”
“And you knew who he was, what he did, and still fell for him?”
“He shielded me from that side of things. So had my father. I never saw it. And it’s easy to pretend it’s not happening when it’s someone you love whose hands are bloodied.”
Dominic took a bite of his sandwich. “They never found his killer.”
“How do you know so much?”
“It was in the news.”
“Mr. Scava believed it was a rival family, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Victor had his dirty hands in it.”
“That’s quite the accusation.”
“It’s not an accusation if it’s truth.”
“Be careful, Gia.”
“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”
“Tell me how Mateo got involved with Victor.”
“When my dad was killed, Mateo came back for mom and me. He wanted to be sure we were cared for, protected. He didn’t listen to me when I told him to go back to school, that we’d be fine. And then he started to work for Victor. I wasn’t sure at first. If I’d known what Victor was up to, I would have gone to Mr. Scava, but I didn’t know until it was too late.”
“Are you sure Angus Scava isn’t already involved?”
“I’m telling you, he wouldn’t have done this to me. He would never have let Victor…” I broke off, remembering those nights when Victor tormented me, scared the fuck out of me.
“Your mom, where is she now?”
“She was spending time with her sister near Palermo. I don’t know how much she knows. I need to talk to her.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“But—”
“Not now, Gia. Let me think this through. I’m sure she doesn’t want two dead kids to bury.”
That made me stop. He was right. “Victor was always jealous of James. I’d go so far as to say he hated him.” I drank the last of the now lukewarm coffee and turned to him. “How long is the drive?” I didn’t want to talk about this anymore.
“A few more hours.”
“Then what?”
“Then I’m going to find out what the hell is going on.”
“What about me?”
“You do as you’re told, Gia, and I won’t have to hurt you.”
“Did you know Mateo?” I asked out of the blue, remembering that sense of familiarity, that moment I’d thought I’d met him before.
“No.”
He wouldn’t look at me. Why didn’t I believe him? And why would he lie?
“You won’t hurt me,” I said, not sure why I said it.
“Sharing a common enemy does not make us friends.”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know I’m not taking you to the auction? Don’t you think it’d be easier for me to transport a cooperative slave?”
He gave me a moment to process that before continuing.
“Quiet now. I need to think.”
Fine. I needed to think too. I needed to figure out how I would proceed. As much as I wanted to kill Victor outright, wasn’t it smarter for me to use the evidence Mateo had collected and turn it over to the feds? I still knew where the copy of the recorded conversations were: safe and sound in plain sight. What then, though? Go into witness protection and live in hiding for the rest of my life? Could I trust Mateo’s contact? Should I go to Angus Scava, or was Dominic right? That he could be involved too? That he could have ordered Mateo’s murder, my kidnapping? Was I naive to think he’d stand by me rather than his own family, even if he did hate Victor? What was I to him? Nothing. Not now that James was gone.
I needed to think. To figure out what to do. How to proceed. How to make Victor pay and stay alive in the process.
I needed to figure out how to manage my captor, how to align his goals to mine, and ultimately, I’d need to figure out how to escape him. I had no doubt his hands were as bloody as Victor’s, and I couldn’t forget that, no matter how attracted I was to him.11DominicGia fell asleep sometime in the next hour, leaving me in blessed silence as I drove toward Salvatore’s house.
My house.
All my thoughts led to the same place: I needed to figure out the extent of Roman’s involvement, and he was involved. Everything in my gut told me so. Every instinct told me he and Victor were partners in this secret endeavor, at least to some degree.
But I needed to remember he was my mother’s brother. He’d loved her. Franco trusted him. Sergio had too. Salvatore didn’t trust anyone, and it sounded like the last seven years had only put distance between him and the Benedetti family. Me? Roman and I had a strange relationship. He’d known all along who I was—and who I was not. He’d been decent to me, to some extent. Roman was always good to Roman first, though. But hell, same could be said of any of us. Except maybe Salvatore.