Page 234 of Mario
“I will make sure,” he says.
There’s more going on there.
Dante may not be willing to say what now, but I will need to know the whole story. And soon.
Chapter Twenty Three
Victoria
I am not working. Technically.
My laptop is open, and I am sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of tea gone cold beside me, so from a distance, this could look like work. A responsible Saturday evening. A woman catching up on emails. Reviewing notes.
Preparing for Monday like a normal, ambitious professional who definitely has not spent the last twenty-four hours letting a powerful client wine her and dine her, take her to bed over and over and… then send her home with a bag of lingerie.
But I am not working.
I am researching Mario Conti.
I stare at the search results on my screen and feel guilt crawl hot and uncomfortable up the back of my neck.
This is inappropriate.
It is invasive.
It is also completely predictable, because I am incapable of leaving a question alone once it lodges itself in my brain.
Especially when the question has dark eyes, silver at his temples, a house with adult sons, and a dead wife no one seems to discuss in anything more than the vaguest terms possible.
I take a sip of tea, make a face because it is cold, and set the mug back down.
“Just background,” I mutter to myself.
Which is what I said twenty minutes ago.
And forty minutes ago.
And an hour ago, when I first typed his name into the search bar.
Mario Conti.
Mario Conti Napoli.
Mario Conti moglie.
Mario Conti Anna.
Anna Conti.
That one had made my stomach twist.
I have researched him before. Of course I have. Not obsessively. Not like this. But when Conti Enterprises approached my firm, I did what any competent attorney would do. I checked corporate histories, acquisition structures, public litigation, regulatory issues, ownership records, press mentions. Enough to understand the client. Enough to know where the risk might be.
The problem is that Mario Conti does not exist online like normal people exist online.
His Chicago business presence is polished and current. Corporate profiles. Acquisition announcements. A few business journals discussing Conti Enterprises’ aggressive expansion. Mentions of real estate holdings, logistics contracts, hospitality interests.
Before Chicago, everything becomes harder.
