Page 75 of Urgent Vows
I cannot deny it. I sigh. "I'd like to continue discussing these attacks if you don't mind."
I wait to see how Severu and Miceli react to this.
Surprise flares in Severu's espresso gaze, but he nods. "We will adjourn to the living room though."
Aria excuses herself to make some phone calls, but Giulia, Raffaele and Miceli join us.
SEVERU
I carry my wife into the living room, and she doesn't even try to convince me to let her walk. Which is a good thing.
Because although I have put on a calm façade, rage is a consuming fire inside me. Seeing her succumb to the memories, her skin going pasty, her beautiful hazel eyes filled with horror caused a feeling I have no experience with. Helplessness.
Putting her in my lap was the only way I was going to control the murderous fury exploding through me.
Her father is already dead, but the men who worked for him still breathe. His head of security should have had a detail of at least six men on her and her sister when they travelled to and from their mansion on Long Island to the City. Her aunt and uncle, who were complicit in her father's abuse through their silence, still live.
Catalina will be devastated if I kill them though. Damn it to hell.
"You have a ferocious expression on your face." She brushes my face with her small hand. "What are you thinking about?"
"Our enemies." It is not a lie. I consider every adult in that household who stood back and did nothing while my wife was subjected to Francesco's violence my enemy.
I sit down in my favorite armchair and settle Catalina sideways on my lap so I can see her face.
"What do you want to know about the attacks?" I ask her, fully aware that I cannot share certain details, including the fact I tortured a man we believed a member of the Irish mob for information when he tried to burn down one of our warehouses.
"We'll get to that, but first I want to make an observation."
"Yes?"
"We know that my father valued my sister more than me and was unlikely to pay a ransom to get me back, but how did the kidnappers know that?"
"It's possible your father was the rat." I don't mention that whoever hired the Albanians considered her to be unimportant and told the thugs to leave her.
"You think there's an informant working with our enemies?" she asks.
Miceli says, "These attacks show inside knowledge to our operations."
"And you think my father leakedla famiglia'ssecrets to an enemy?" she asks, her voice drenched with disbelief. "Nothing was more important to him than the Cosa Nostra."
"You forget that he betrayed his don." He was a rat, even if he wasn't the informant.
"I don't," she says immediately. "But that was his arrogance, not a lack of loyalty. At least he would never have seen it that way. But selling the Cosa Nostra's secrets?" She shakes her head.
"You said it yourself, the would-be kidnappers knew that he did not value you as much as he did Carlotta." Which only shows just how deluded Francesco was.
"Which means either someone who did know that is the rat, or that the instructions were to leave me behind and the men who attacked us decided to take advantage of an opportunity."
I should not be surprised she guessed the facts of the situation, but my wife never ceases to amaze me.
"That's what the Albanian said."
"I thought the attacks were being staged to look like the Irish mob are behind them. Do you think the attempted kidnapping is separate from the other attacks on the business?"
I tell her, "The Albanians were hired anonymously."
"Hmm…" She's silent for several seconds and then frowns. "Looking at this objectively, it's a no win situation for the Shaughnessy's mob. They control about the same number of boroughs as the Genovese mafia, but we have some unique businesses. So do they. Going to war with the Cosa Nostra would cost them more than they could hope to gain."
