“We don’t leave anyone behind. If you’re hit, shout out. We have partners. Your partner is responsible for pulling you out of the fire. If he doesn’t get you out, he’ll answer to me. We let civilians go. His key people die. I want one prisoner taken from his people. Dario will select that person ahead of time and appoint who will take him. We’ll pass him off, and he’ll be brought to the interrogation site. It’s that simple. We take Miceli’s money and we burn his buildings to the ground. We strike fast and we get out even faster. Anyone hurt, we treat at the rendezvous point. We have a clinic set up if surgery is needed. Any questions?”
When there were none, the men moved quickly, drifting through the hotel’s lower structures to the garage to enter cars. Valentino waited until it was only Dario, Severu Catalano, Luca Amato and Quintu Noto, three of the other men they trusted the most.
“Let’s get this done, gentlemen,” Val said, slipping on his gloves. “We’ve got a tight schedule.”
“I’m still not happy with you going, Val,” Severu said. “We can’t afford to lose you.”
“We can’t afford for any of the families to think I’m above spilling blood myself,” Val countered. “I want you to stay back, Severu. I can’t afford to lose you. You’re the man I count on to think things through. We need to figure out our next step.”
Severu shook his head as they made their way to the garage through the underground tunnels. “Not on your life. You go, I go. We agreed to clean the shit up first, and then it would be don and advisor. That was the agreement.”
Emmanuelle suppressed a smile. Valentino had more than his rebellious wife on his hands. It seemed some of his men were just as loyal to him. She saw his face darken. He got that look, the one that said he was the king and the world had better bow to his will. Deliberately, she stepped out of the shadows close to him, scaring his entourage, so that all but Dario pulled weapons on her.
“Damn it, Emme, you could have been shot,” Valentino snapped as she fell into step beside him, walking toward the car.
“Sorry, honey. I needed to give you a message from my brother before you went. It was important.”
“Next time, make some noise,” he groused.
She avoided looking at his men. They would see the woman in the pinstriped suit with her hair in a tight braid woven in a crown around her head. She always braided it as tight as she could possibly get it to keep from feeling as if she were being scalped. She kept her eyes down, the errand girl, the wife delivering a message from one of her powerful brothers. It was an illusion they wanted to keep up as long as possible until they knew who their enemies were.
Dario had fallen into step on the other side of her, shielding her from the others. When had he taken to doing that? She could have texted the information to Val’s phone, but Bernado Macaluso, Val’s resident hacker whiz, had cautioned them against doing just that. He could hack phones, said it was too easy.
She matched her steps to Val’s as they approached the car that would take him to the first of many of Miceli’s businesses. “Stefano says for certain, Marge is holding women somewhere in her strip club beneath her underground dungeon club. Ricco is looking with him, but he says no doubt she would let them burn before she would give up their location.”
Her voice was pitched very low so only he could hear. His gut twisted. He knew Marge was hard, but to allow innocent women to die a horrific death sickened him. The worst of it was, he could see her doing that. Not just because she didn’t want to get caught, but because she enjoyed hurting others. She would want Valentino to know he had killed those women. She would taunt him with the knowledge.
Marge was one of the pieces of Miceli’s trafficking ring, a huge part of it. She had knowledge of it, but she wouldn’t easily give it up. Val could take men apart, compartmentalize, but he couldn’t do the same to a woman. His father could, but he wasn’t built that way. He didn’t like inflicting pain on women.
Not being able to extract information from a woman was a weakness Giuseppi had tried hard to stamp out of him, but had never managed to do. Dario had covered for him time and again. Now, facing the possibility that he would have to take Marge to the interrogation room made him feel sick all over again.
“Wait for me at home, Emme,” he said suddenly, cupping her face between his hands. He looked into her blue eyes. The world was there. His world. He needed something fresh and clean to come home to. “You don’t need to see me like this.” He hated the pleading in his voice.
He bent his head and kissed her. Taking her mouth, not caring if his men waited on him. Not caring if they saw he had a weakness. He held her face between his hands and kissed those perfect lips of hers. That perfect firestorm that seemed to cleanse him from the inside out. When he lifted his head, he traced her swollen bottom lip with his thumb.
“I see the man I love, Valentino,” she whispered. “I’ll always see the man I love. Get going. The others are waiting for you. And stay safe. I mean it.” She turned her head to look at Dario. “You, too. I don’t know why, because you’re an ass who thinks he’s superior to all women, but I’ve grown fond of you, so come back safe.”
She didn’t wait for either of them to reply. She walked away, again without looking at the other three men who stood by a car, doors open. She felt their eyes on her, so she kept her head up. Valentino could break her every time. She rounded the corner and stepped into the first shadow that would take her out of the underground in the direction she needed to go.
Valentino was hitting Miceli’s smallest restaurant. It laundered more money for him than businesses ten times its size. It was very popular and stayed open nearly all night. The back room had a narrow staircase that led to a wine cellar with a variety of Italian wines in tall racks. The staircase was narrow for a reason. It allowed the security people to see anyone coming at them that shouldn’t be downstairs. The illegal gambling was extremely lucrative for Miceli because his very wealthy patrons were allowed to bet on various opportunities, which he provided through closed-circuit screens.
They could request shows and pay for them. Everything from raping women to raping children. There were fights to the death between men and between boys. Miceli provided anything his patrons wanted. Valentino wanted a list of those patrons, but he knew shutting down the ring was the most important thing he could do first.
Valentino had a secret crew in the Ferraro brothers. They would enter the gambling pit through the shadows. He didn’t want Emmanuelle anywhere near those depraved screens. She didn’t need to see helpless men and boys when they couldn’t get to them. That would break her heart and give her nightmares. It was impossible to unsee what one saw. He knew because he’d tried.
His men would go in through the front and back doors, taking over the restaurant, herding any innocents out and closing and locking doors before they proceeded with their grim task. He’d chosen the early morning hours, when the fewest people frequented the place, but the gambling hall beneath was still heavily occupied.
He walked right up to the front door, smiling at the man on the door, who looked bored as hell. He was busy looking at his phone and just reached out to pull the door open without even looking up. Valentino recognized him from his childhood. He’d been in Miceli’s organization a long time. He often had a different woman on his arm every month attending parties and charity events. Growing up, Val hadn’t understood why the women kept their heads down and didn’t respond when anyone spoke to them. Biff would laugh heartily if anyone said anything and say they used their mouths for other things.