“I’m good with puzzles, and I want to help.”
Lucien narrowed his eyes at me, and Peter laid a hand on his arm. “Let him do this.”
Angelo’s eyes widened, and I got the feeling Peter rarely contradicted him, but Lucien didn’t look angry. He glanced over at Peter, then nodded.
“Fine. Let’s go to the office.”
I followed Lucien and Angelo down the hall. When we entered the study, Lucien gestured for me to sit in front of the desk. He opened his laptop, tapped at the keyboard, then turned the screen to face me. Displayed were several images of handwritten notes. “One of these has been found at each of the businesses connected to us that have been robbed, vandalized, or burned.”
“Are they in order of where the attacks took place?”
Lucien nodded.
The first note said, “Follow the clues to find me” and had the number five written below the words. The rest of the notes had lines on them like “three dogs lay in the sun” or “the grass lies green on the meadow.” Were they lines from a poem? From several poems? I searched for any patterns. The first thing that stuck out was that the first three had numbers in them and the others didn’t, but I wasn’t sure yet if that was significant.
“I’m going to need to play around with this, see if I can find a way these lines are related. May I take a picture?” I reached for my phone.
Lucien looked at Angelo.
“I trust Cameron with my life.”
His words made my heart race. How did he have so much faith in me when I’d told him I hated him, his family, and all they stood for. I didn’t anymore, though. Not now. I wasn’t sure I’d ever really hated him, and I sure as hell hadn’t understood his family.
Lucien looked back at me. “Take a picture. Work on this as much as you can today and let us know as soon as you learn anything.”
“I will,” I assured him.
“And you,” he said to Angelo, “make sure Devil doesn’t try to take any of this into his own hands.”
“You know I’ve never been able to stop him once he gets an idea in his head.”
“Try.” The hardness in Lucien’s voice made me shiver. How had Peter gotten so comfortable with a man who could look so lethal? Could I possibly do that too? Did I truly want to?
It still scared me to admit it, but I knew the answer was yes.
“Do you have any pictures of the places where the notes were left? I’m not sure there’s any connection between the businesses and the notes, but there could be.”
“Hold on,” Lucien said.
A few moments later, he turned his laptop to face me again. I clicked through each of the pictures. They all showed the businesses in the aftermath of the attacks. Police were on the scene and there were people crowding around to find out what had happened. Nothing stood out to help make sense of the notes, but…
“This man.” I pointed to a tall, slim, dark-haired figure in a suit. “He’s in all the pictures. Who is he?”
“Fuck me,” Angelo said.
Lucien stared at the screen. “How did we miss that?”
“Um… Does that mean you don’t know him?”
Angelo growled. “I fucking think we do now.”
“It’s got to be Sergio. I’ll get our team on this.” He looked up at me. “Thank you.”
I stared at the man who wanted to harm Lucien, Angelo, and the rest of their family. The fucker had tried to burn my bakery down. Maybe I should feel bad about helping the Marchesis move closer to tracking him down and killing him, but I didn’t. Not one bit.
24
Angelo
A week had gone by since Cameron had moved into my house. My family and our allies had managed to head off a few minor attacks, but Sergio had grown more aggressive, making moves on the most lucrative of our businesses. Even with what we believed were pictures of Sergio himself, we hadn’t been able to track him down. It was only a matter of time, though. It was clear from his recent attacks that he was getting angrier, and an angry man would likely take more risks.
We’d captured a few of Sergio’s henchmen, but like the men who’d attacked the bakery, they didn’t know a single fucking useful thing. They had confirmed that he seemed crazy as fuck, but they had no idea where he was hiding out.
Cameron had talked through a few ideas about what the clues Sergio had left us could mean, but none of them panned out. He was sure the numbers were the significant part of the first three notes, but the rest were proving more troublesome.
Several days passed without Sergio making a move, but we weren’t naïve enough to think he’d given up. He was still out there, and he was going to hit us, probably with something big.