Will arrange for a car to be waiting to take the meds to the hotel for us.
Let me do that.
Emmanuelle burst out laughing. It was laugh or pull her hair out. Did Ricco think she was incapable of arranging for a car to meet them at Giuseppi’s home? She glanced in the mirror, making certain her hair was in a tight weave and her suit was locked down. She was tired, but getting Valentino’s medicine shouldn’t take long.
Dario hadn’t answered her yet. She considered texting him again. He always answered. He was in the same suite, in one of the bedrooms close by. Or was he? Had he come back from the interrogation room? She hadn’t stayed down there. Both Valentino and Stefano had asked her to leave. Had they ordered her, she might have resisted, but seeing the man tied to a chair and having been with her brothers before when they questioned someone for information, she had decided to comply. Dario hadn’t been in the room.
Just as she stepped outside the suite into the hallway and the guards outside the door came alert, her phone vibrated.
You have someone go with you. Meds in top drawer of walk-in closet in black storage container. You’ve seen them. Do not go alone. Miceli will have someone there. I can’t get there to protect you.
Ricco and Mariko are going with me.
Be safe. I want to know the moment you get back.
Yes, Dad.
She got a bird emoji. That made her laugh. “I have a sick sense of humor from growing up around too many men,” she explained to the bodyguards. “I’m heading out, but Ricco and Mariko are meeting me, so no worries. You can text them if you need confirmation, Drago.”
“I’ll have to confirm with Emilio. He’ll text Ricco.”
She looked at the two men waiting by the elevator. They were both in suits. Both Valentino’s men. Both assigned to protect Valentino and Giuseppi, although they didn’t look as if they were going to step aside.
“Mrs. Saldi? I have to get a confirmation from either your husband or Dario that it’s okay for you to leave the suite,” one said.
This was one of several recruits Dario had trained himself. She remembered him talking to Valentino about it a couple of years earlier at the lake house. They hadn’t wanted anyone to know. Dario had been on the lookout for men he believed would be good to make up their own personal soldiers, men they could count on, not recruited or made by Giuseppi or his capos. Dario wanted a small group of trained men he believed would be loyal to Valentino and him, with no ties to Miceli or any other crime family. Dario was suspicious of everyone, but these were the men he’d trained in secret and the only ones he allowed to guard Val if he wasn’t around. Even then, he was very aware Emmanuelle and her family were watching over him as well.
She remembered the two guards’ names—Lando Regio and Pace Detti. Neither was married. Both were in their thirties. It was clear they were ex-military. They held themselves the way Drago and Demetrio did—as if they could handle themselves. Lando was busy texting, as was Drago.
Emmanuelle decided to do a little texting of her own to Mariko. Not only do I have to answer to my husband, Dario and every one of my brothers, but also a set of Saldi bodyguards who have to check with either Val or Dario and a set of bodyguards who have to check with either Emilio or in this case Ricco. Testosterone much? The dark ages appear to be alive and well in our family.
She couldn’t take her phone into the shadows. She tapped her foot in front of the elevators, waiting for permission from a multitude of men, vowing she would just grab shadows from here on out. She would be honest and take back any promises she might have inadvertently made to her husband because this was ridiculous—hilarious, but still ridiculous—and she knew herself. She didn’t have the patience for it.
“Dario gave you the okay,” Lando said.
“How very generous of him,” Emmanuelle said, flashing Lando a smile. She looked up at Drago as the elevator doors slid open. He stepped on with her while Demetrio stayed behind. “I suppose you got the okay as well, because I’m not grown-up enough to make decisions all on my own.”
“Emme,” Drago reprimanded. “I do my job. I’m thorough. I keep you alive.”
“I told you Ricco was backing me up.”
“You’re a wild card, woman, you always have been. It isn’t like we all don’t know that. You get pissed and you go your own way. Every one of us knows you’re the most difficult detail.”
“I am not. Stefano is.”
Drago shook his head. “You are. By far. Emilio purposely trains the newbies with someone experienced on you because you’re going to give them hell every time. You’re going to give them the slip so many different ways. You’re the best training tool we have.”