“That’s what we need to find out. I want you to talk to DiMarco,” Nicco said.
“Hang on a minute, Boss. You really think that’s a good idea?” Enzo glanced between the two of us.
“In his own way, I think DiMarco cares about her. Or, in the very least, he’s infatuated with her. Matt can appeal to that side of him.”
Enzo snorted. “Or it’ll send DiMarco straight off the deep end.”
“He’s the only tangible connection we have to Caitlin right now, and if he didn’t take them, maybe he knows something that might help us find out who did.”
“What about the girls that work here? They knew her, someone might know something,” I said.
“Already got Lucino and Stefan on it.”
Good. That was good.
“Do you think you can talk to him?” Nicco levelled me with a sympathetic look.
What choice did I have?
If Zander had information that could help us, I had to put my anger aside and reach out to him. Man to man.
“Yeah,” I breathed, hoping to God I was right. “I can do it.”
“Good, come on.” Nicco got up and waited for me. “Michele.” He glanced back at my father. “Keep in touch with Tommy. I want to know what he finds out as he finds it.”
He nodded. In the short time we’d been here, my father had already aged. Arabella was the apple of his eye. It would kill him if anything happened to her.
It would kill all of us.
I followed Nicco through the door marked ‘private’ and down the hall to Zander’s office. Nicco went in first and then beckoned me inside.
“Matteo wants to talk to you,” he said.
“Matteo can go fuck himself.” Zander was nursing his broken nose with a bag of ice.
“Caitlin is missing,” I said.
His eyes went wide. “You know Caitlin?”
“I… yes.” I pulled a chair closer to him and sat down.
“I’m not sure I follow.”
I looked to Nicco, and he nodded, silently giving me permission. “Last year, I met Caitlin when we were here in Providence. I had no idea she was one of your girls, or even knew you. She told me she worked at a diner called Stella’s. We… we spent the night together.”
I gauged Zander’s reaction, but his stone-cold mask gave nothing away.
“It was one night. I went home to Verona and never saw her again… until a couple of weeks ago, when the hospital over in Pawtucket called Enzo. We were on our way to see you but detoured to the hospital where we found Caitlin...”
As I remembered what it was like to see her lying there, in that hospital bed, it took everything inside me not to pounce on him. But I had to keep myself in check if we were going to get the information we needed. Caitlin and my sister came first; they trumped my burning need for vengeance.
The bastard didn’t even flinch.
“We took her back to Verona County with us,” I went on. “Gave her a safe place to stay.”
That got a reaction. Jealousy and anger blazed in his eyes. Yeah, the fucker didn’t like the idea of someone else looking after his girl.
It sent a sick thrill of satisfaction through me. Especially knowing he would never get to lay a hand on her again.
“Earlier today, Caitlin and my sister went missing.”
“What?” he spat.
“Now you can see why we suspected it was you.”
“I didn’t… I swear to you, Bellatoni, this wasn’t my doing.”
“Strangely, I believe you. But you need to tell us everything you know about Cait so we can try to piece together who might have taken them.”
“I… fuck,” he heaved a deep sigh. “I don’t know what to say. I found her on the streets about four years ago. She was cold and hungry and needed a place to stay.”
“So you took her in?” It came out harsher than I intended, and I felt the weight of Nicco’s stare burning into the side of my face.
“She was new to the area; I was a girl down at the club. It was a win-win.”
Yeah, right.
“At first, she worked the floor, taking orders and serving drinks, that kind of thing. Until one night after closing I saw her fooling around backstage with a couple of my dancers.”
My spine went rigid as I listened to him recall those early days with Caitlin. The day he’d discovered her love of dancing.
“She was good,” he said. “Really fucking good. So I offered her a spot, told her she could make a decent wage dancing for me. But I quickly realized the error of my ways. Caitlin was a little too good. Men queued up for her and it drove me in-fucking-sane.” He looked me dead in the eye as he said the words. “I almost killed a guy for touching her. I was completely bewitched by her. But she fought me at every turn, determined to keep things strictly professional between us.”
“So you took what you wanted instead.” My voice was low, deadly. Rage like I’d never known it coursing through my veins.
“Matt,” Nicco hissed.
I forced myself to take a deep, calming breath. I could do this—I could do it for her.
“None of this is helping us,” I said. “We need to know about her life. Friends? Family? Did she ever talk about anyone important in her life? Or her past?”
“Never. And I never asked. Most of the girls who end up working for me are running from something.”
Wasn’t that the truth.
But it didn’t help us.
“So there’s nothing?”
Zander shrugged, but I caught the glimpse of regret in his eyes. “I can’t think of anything.”
My patience began to wane, frustration bleeding into my voice. “You’ve known her all this time and you can’t think of anything that might help us?”
“I… Wait, there was something. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but when Dominic Cabrioles and his men first visited the club, he took an immediate interest in Caitlin. Offered me a lot of cash for a private audience with her.”
“I thought you said she didn’t dance no more.”
“She didn’t, but business is business.” He shrugged again, as if dealing in sins of the flesh was a normal occurrence.
And maybe it was for assholes like DiMarco, but I couldn’t stand the thought of Caitlin being forced to dance to line his pockets.
Nicco stepped forward. “Did Cabrioles say anything else?”
“He backed off pretty quickly when I made it clear she belonged to me. But now that I think about it, he was unusually interested in her.”
“I’ll be back.” Nicco got straight on his phone and strolled out of the room, sending in one of his guards to no doubt make sure I didn’t overstep my orders.
“You love her?”
DiMarco’s question caught me off guard.
“I… I care for her very much.”
He gave me a small nod, but I still couldn’t gauge where his head was at. This wasn’t the sleazy, cocksure asshole I was used to. But then, he was tied to a chair with a broken nose and no hope of being released.
“You killed Shaun to find her.”
“He took something from me,” he quietly seethed. “He betrayed me.”
“He protected her, and you had him murdered in cold blood.”