“Did you check inside the garage?”
Ricco nodded. “Two large vans and a truck along with several of Miceli’s SUVs. I’m not certain we can safely get Val’s meds out, Emme. How important are they?”
They were pretty important, as far as she was concerned, but it wasn’t like they didn’t have pull with doctors. They could get the medication in a safer way. Just not tonight. “I would like to get it for him tonight, so he’s good to go for certain tomorrow. That could be important, but if we can’t, we can’t.”
“Here, use one of the burners Henry stashed outside the gates for us. Text Vittorio the information. Tell him it’s imperative we get the meds. Ask him to get on it, ASAP. I’m letting Stefano know we have a situation here.” Ricco handed her a phone.
Emmanuelle took a deep breath. She couldn’t very well tip off her family, without letting Dario and Valentino know as well, even if technically her family was allies. She detested waking Val if he was asleep, but he had to know. She sent a group text to Dario and Val apprising them of the situation and that Ricco, Mariko and she were going to investigate further. She added that Vittorio would be getting the much-needed meds just in case there was a problem that had to be dealt with immediately at the Saldi estate. She thought that was a very tactful way to put it.
It didn’t surprise her that Henry had managed to stash a few burner phones right under the noses of cameras and guards. He would have been driving the car taking the meds back to the Ferraro Hotel. No way would Emmanuelle have asked him. She had made up her mind to cut all ties with her mother. Sadly, that meant cutting ties with Henry as well. She had planned to ask Emilio to send one of the bodyguards. Henry was like a shadow though. He might have been getting up there in age, but he’d worked for the CIA at one time, and he clearly hadn’t forgotten his training. No doubt he was close by, several streets away, waiting to make certain all three of them made it out safely before he left.
Keep us informed, Dario returned.
Get the fuck out of there, Emme, Val texted.
On it, Vittorio said, no questions asked.
Emmanuelle took a breath, stashed the phone under a scooped stone, gripped her brother and sister-in-law’s hands and then chose a shadow that would take her into the large, gorgeous house. She’d been in it on several occasions. She knew her way around. Ricco and Mariko would each choose a different way in. All of them had studied the blueprints. They knew what to expect with the layout. They just didn’t know what to expect from Miceli or his sons.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Greta’s beautiful great room, the one she had always been so proud of when she entertained large crowds of their friends and relatives, had been transformed. Valentino barely recognized that it was the same room. He stared at the screens, his gut churning, for the first time almost grateful that his adopted mother was dead. This violation of everything she had ever created for her family was an abomination.
Giuseppi and Greta had always wanted children. They’d dreamt of having a large family. Giuseppi had often told Val and Dario that they had talked of having as many as a dozen children. Greta had had multiple pregnancies, but she had lost every child, some early, some later, some at term, when they were stillborn. Eventually, when they were barely thirty, they had realized she couldn’t have children, and they gave up trying. They both had been heartbroken. Greta had urged Giuseppi to divorce her and find another woman who would give him the babies and family he deserved. Giuseppi told Val and Dario he would give up his life before he would give up Greta.
Greta had created a world of beauty, a home, for Giuseppi and eventually for Valentino and Dario. This house, with this great room, with the stone fireplace and overstuffed sofas and chairs that invited company to sit and stay to visit: she had done that for them. Everywhere one went in Greta’s home, there were loving touches that said she welcomed you there. There was none of that now.
The great room was enormous, and it had been transformed into a cold, unfeeling den of pure debauchery. There was a makeshift “stage” with stairs leading up to it from either side where a teen could be brought up and displayed to those waiting to bid on her or him. The teens were clearly being held in rooms near one of the master rooms that had access to a passageway that led to the great room. The prisoner would then be escorted to the stage via the passageway.
Those doing the bidding had tables on the floor below the stage, with waitresses serving them drinks, drugs and food from trays. The waitresses were topless and wore tiny mini-skirts with nothing underneath. Several of those that were waitressing had already been manhandled and abused, forced to their knees, their breasts slapped with hands or crops, while others at the table laughed and sneered. No one tried to stop anything done to them.
On the stage, for the entertainment of those in the audience, men and women were brought in to perform all kinds of sexual kink. The audience members were invited to participate if they desired. Several took part as the evening continued and more drinks were consumed. Val understood what the idea was. If Tommaso could get the clients totally uninhibited, feeling as if they were entitled to do anything they wanted, they would pay any amount of money to have their own sex slave in the form of an untouched teen that they could train to do anything they wanted. Eventually, when they tired of her or him, they’d simply sell the teen to someone else and come back for more.
Valentino could barely stand to watch the abuse of the waitresses, but they needed all of the clients inside. Once Tommaso closed the doors and had the outside gates locked, that would signal that the bidding would start soon. The Ferraro family was in the shadows looking for the teens, trying to get numbers and what kind of shape they were in. They needed to know how many guards were on them as well.
Tommaso was taking no chances that he would be hit here at the Saldi estate. They needed the money from the auction desperately. They were sparing no expense to get the clients to feel safe and comfortable. The streets were patrolled outside the gates. The guard stations were manned at all four points of entry. Inside the gates were roving patrols. Inside the house were soldiers dressed in suits, but obviously armed. They stayed to the back, but the walls were lined with them.
The security screens Bernado had pulled up showed armed men in every room of the house. Some were seated at tables, eating, but most were on alert. There were more on the rooftop, the balconies, even in the sunroom off the main verandah. Tommaso was leaving nothing to chance. He had dim lights on outside in the gardens, not wanting to draw the eyes of the police or security in the neighborhood. He might have done better to create the atmosphere of a party since he had numerous cars arriving throughout the evening.
“Stefano’s people will be clearing a way for our people to get in through the rear. As soon as they locate the teens and have their numbers, they’ll let us know,” Valentino informed Dario. “We want Tommaso to lock the place down before we go in and take over.”
“I don’t understand how they can get through that many soldiers without anyone knowing and we can’t,” Severu said, looking closer at the screen. “Doesn’t make any sense, Val. I’ve tried watching that family for a few years now, trying to learn something from them. I know they work out a lot, meaning they beat the hell out of anyone that’s stupid enough to ask to train with them, but we do that, too.”