That thought took his smile immediately. He was lonely. He wanted his own family. A wife. Children. Someone to come home to. Someone to care for, to take care of. He needed a purpose. His lifestyle had no balance. He needed someone to become his center, to anchor him. He recognized and owned every flaw he had. He worked to be a better man every day. He found, over time, it was getting more and more difficult to sustain who he was when he had no one of his own. No one to share his life with and to make him realize there was purpose to his work.
“Was Grace at any of the events, Emme?” Stefano asked.
Emmanuelle nodded. “KB Events put on nine of the fund-raisers he attended. Katie Branscomb’s reputation is impeccable. Everyone tries for her first, and she’s so busy, you have to book her over a year in advance. Grace worked behind the scenes at all nine, including the dinners. According to Katie, she couldn’t do what she does without Grace.”
Grace had been at nine events over the last year and half and he hadn’t seen her? Why hadn’t his sixth sense kicked in until last night? His radar should have gone off. At the very least, his shadow should have connected with hers. When there was a group, sometimes it was difficult to sort them out, but the sexual jolt was so strong when his shadow connected with Grace’s there was no way he wouldn’t have noticed.
“We can build off that,” Taviano said. “You met her at one of the events and you fell for her on the spot. She was leery—after all, you have a bad reputation as a playboy, bro, so you courted the old-fashioned way out of the spotlight.”
Francesca laughed. “What is old-fashioned, Taviano? Taking a woman out on a date without jumping her?”
“Jumping her?” Stefano echoed. He brought Francesca’s hand to his mouth and sucked on her fingers for a long moment. “You can’t say things like that, baby. It puts ideas in my head.”
“As if you don’t have those ideas twenty-four seven,” Francesca accused, laughing, leaning toward him.
“I do,” Stefano admitted. “Vittorio showed so much more restraint than I ever could have. He’s a saint.”
Again, his brothers and sisters laughed. The sound made Vittorio’s heart a little lighter. He knew he had a long way to go with Grace, but once he was set on a task, once he made up his mind, he was relentless. He wanted Grace, he wanted to give her all the things she’d never had, and buffer her from the worst the world had to offer. He was tough and knew there was little anyone could do to hurt him, other than those in his family. He didn’t want Grace to have to be like he was. She could be soft and sensitive. He’d provide the armor for her.
“I am a saint to sit here listening to this crap when I could be sitting with her,” Vittorio proclaimed, sitting back in his chair. “Was she seeing anyone?” If she had been, Rosina hadn’t sent him evidence or a name of a man who might be after her because she turned him down.
“Not that Rosina could find,” Emme said. “If she was, it was kept very quiet.”
“What about her relationship with Haydon Phillips?” Taviano asked.
Vittorio’s gut tightened. “What about it? They were in a foster home together. She clearly tried to get him off drugs and to quit gambling.”
“She paid his gambling debts twice, Vittorio,” Taviano pointed out. “It’s possible they had more of a relationship than being thrown together in a home.”
Vittorio shook his head. He knew absolutely the two of them hadn’t had an intimate relationship. “No way. It wasn’t there.”
“He locked her in the trunk of a car,” Ricco said. “He took that woman, ambushed her somehow—she didn’t just climb in for him—and he drove her to the club with the intention of selling her into slavery to pay his debts.”
“He kept saying he deserved a two-hundred-and-fiftythousand-dollar credit,” Vittorio said. “Who in the Saldi family loans money?” He shook his head. “Let’s narrow that down to Miceli’s crew. Ale Sarto and Lando Gori work for Miceli. I doubt that Giuseppi would have used either of them to deliver messages or even to pick up a potential prostitute for them.”
“I’m shocked Miceli used them to deliver his message,” Ricco said.
“No way was Phillips going to live through that,” Vittorio said. “They were there to kill him. If they wanted money from him, they wouldn’t have sent Sarto and Gori. They wanted him dead because they cared more about getting Grace than they did the money.”
“So, whoever loaned the money would have had to sign off on that,” Stefano concluded. “That narrows things down, doesn’t it?”
There was a moment of silence. “Let’s get Rosina on it,” Stefano added.