Page 166 of Be With Me
“It will be easier now, with Gino Ferraro dead.”
My eyes shot open.Gino. Rom had lost his dad. “He was the single casualty?” I asked, lifting my gaze.
Dad nodded. There was a smirk on his face. “My first campaign promise came true before I’m even elected. But I’m not done. We’ll focus on his sons next.”
Focus.What did that mean? At this point, I wasn’t sure if he wanted to launch an investigation or if he just wanted to take them out, guilty verdict or not.
Ask him. Do it now.
“Dad, how did you know the explosion was going to happen?”
A flicker of shock passed over his expression.
I thought of the recorder and hoped I hadn’t accidentally blocked the mic when I shoved it behind the bed.
“You were waiting to see my reaction to the news,” I continued when he stayed silent. “The guards were ready to stop me from leaving. How did you know?”
He looked down at his hands.
I licked my lips. “You know who’s behind the explosion, don’t you?”
Silence.
“Dad, I’ve worked tirelessly for you this past year. I want you to win. Even if I've made mistakes, I still want you to win.” My nails dug into the palms of my hands. “Romolo told me his parents suspected you have a connection to some of their enemies.”
His head snapped up, and his eyes hardened.
“Is that true?” I asked.
The words hung there, thick with tension.
I waited.
Waited.
Waited.
He swallowed, then he reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “It’s just a temporary arrangement.”
My heart pounded in my chest. It was working. “With who?”
“Rena Santoro. A friend from college.”
Santoro. I racked my brain. Then it hit me like a bolt of lightning. Two years ago, when Dad sold the family grocery chain business…
“Weren’t they one of the investors who bought the business?”
He cleared his throat. “Yes. The business was bankrupt.”
What?I didn’t know that. “You said you sold it because you wanted to do something new.”
“Also true. But we were in trouble, Mia. The market had turned against us. We lost money for years. Rena Santoro approached me two years ago with an offer that she’d find investors to buy the business at a premium price, and in exchange, I’d run for mayor on a…certain platform. It was a good deal. If I hadn’t taken it, my father’s business—one he built from the ground up—would have died.”
I was reeling. So this—his entire campaign—wasn’t about service. It was about salvaging a mess he’d made with the business that had been handed to him.
“A certain platform?” I forced out. “To hunt down the Ferraros?”
“It’s a platform I wholeheartedly agree with. The Ferraros killed your uncle. In the decades since, they amassed excessive power in this city. They are due for a reckoning.”
