Page 45 of Sacred Vow

Massimo was firing rapid Italian into his phone. I called Tony and was about to hang up after a dozen rings when my brother picked up, and before either of us could say anything, the sounds of screams and gunfire came through the line.

“Tony, where’s Vittoria?” I demanded. “Tony! What the fuck is going on?”

“We were attacked,” he rasped. “Inside job. I was knocked out and I’m just coming to. I don’t know anything, brother. I’ll call you back when we lock this shit down.”

Massimo was still firing rapid orders in Italian. Cazzo! I was done waiting for status or damage reports and called my pilot. “Get things ready. I want to leave in half an hour,” I ordered, and hung up at the same time as Massimo. “Well?”

“Leo and Ardo are the same man. Leonardo Calogerà.”

Curses tore out of me. “How the fuck did we not know he existed? Who is he, a cousin? Nephew?”

“I don’t know yet, but Simon confirmed once he and Fausto found the missing footage and got a hit on this guy. Simon is still digging.”

“And how did our estate get infiltrated without Simon being alerted? Or was he in on it? Whoever the hell Leonardo Calogerà is, he obviously had help.”

He was about to answer when a call came through from Tony. “Get everyone to the plane, we’re leaving,” I told Simo, and to Tony, barked, “Speak to me.”

“At least five of our men were in on it,” he said without preamble.

“Simon?” I guessed.

“No, but he’s alive.” Julius, who came to see him and said something about clearing Vittoria to leave the grounds, and claimed you’d already approved it.” Simon tried to call and confirm and got his skull cracked. He’s sitting up now and talking. Fausto is looking over the footage now.”

“Take care of Simon,” I said, feeling a twinge of remorse at how quickly I’d suspected him. And Julius, a mole! I’d known the man my whole life, one of my father’s closest confidants. I would have trusted him with my life, and had, many times. “What else?”

“We managed to take one of them alive. We’ll keep him on ice until you get here.”

“Vittoria?”

But somehow, I already knew. If she’d been safe, he would have led with that.

“She’s gone, brother. And not just her. They managed to get a hold of Vinny as well. We’ve got feed showing them being thrown in a van.”

I calculated the time it would take to fly back and was about to issue orders. They knew I would be away, they knew how long it would take to fly back, and most importantly, they knew I would come back for this. They weren’t running. They were dangling bait and waiting for me to act carelessly.

“Tony, we need as much information as possible before we act. Have Simon turn on all the trackers for Vittoria.” There was one they would never find, but he didn’t need to know that right now. “Then have him find all Calogerà businesses in the area, even the shell companies. While he is working on that, pull all your men that you trust from wherever they are stationed and bring them to the estate. We need a thorough check for bugs and devices. They could be listening to our plans, right now. Start the search in Simon’s office and when it’s safe, have him call me directly.”

“Got it, boss. Anything else?”

“Yes. Be careful, proceed with caution, and keep your communications written until the house has been thoroughly searched and every last man accounted for. Oh, and one more thing. Find Vittoria’s call log and see who the last person she talked to was, and bring them to the house.”

“Okay, boss, on it.” Tony hung up and like magic, Massimo was there with the car. Our driver made record time to the airstrip while I worked on the phone. I typed a message into my phone and showed it to Massimo.

He nodded and silently had the men search for listening devices. Before the plane left the ground, we found them all, seven in total. Porca puttana!

“This has been in the works for a while, Romeo,” Massimo commented.

“A good long while. Our defenses were never intended to guard against an inside threat. We’ll need to take another look at how we do things in the future. For now, we play their game. They timed this, they’ll know when we land and that’s when they’ll make contact. They probably also know we took a captive, who most likely knows nothing, like the last ones we took. I bet those fuckers are congratulating themselves right now on pulling one over on us.”

Silence held until Simon called.

“What did you find?”

“Leonardo is Don Santo Calogerà‘s son. Vittoria’s brother.”

“Cazzo!”

“There’s more, boss. We haven’t been able to confirm if Vittoria knew about the attack.”