Page 83 of Urgent Vows
Today I have revealed enough.
Chapter 27
CATALINA
"I need to talk to Big Sal again before we go back to the City." Severu leaves the room without telling me if he wants me to accompany him.
Since he didn't tell menotto, I follow.
Big Sal is going through files in my father's office. He looks up when we come in. His face is set in grim lines, and he shakes his head. "Francesco's idea of security was to have locking filing cabinets. I could have picked those locks when I was three."
Severu looks around the office. "I always assumed the more sensitive documents were kept somewhere else. That isn't the case?"
"Nope. He's got stuff in those files that could sink us if the FEDs ever raided his place."
"Fuck."
"My father was an arrogant man," I say. "He assumed no one would ever breach his inner sanctum and that he was too smart to be caught by any level of law enforcement."
"I'm not a trusting man, and yet I put too much trust in him," Severu snarls.
He's so angry, I find myself taking a step backward. But then I remind myself that his anger is not my enemy. He is not like my father, and I force myself to move further into the room, away from the door.
Severu pins me with a dark glare. "How did you get my phone number when you called me that time to bust my balls about Carlotta?"
"I wasn't busting your balls," I say, indignant. "I was only pointing out that a few dates might help ease my sister's worries."
"It didn't work," he says, sardonically.
"I'm not sure anything would have. Not if she was determined to run. I know Carlotta was good at playing the part of the submissive daughter, but she was even better at getting what she wanted."
Which I never minded. Women in our world have few weapons at our disposal. One of Carlotta's was manipulation. I cannot judge her for using it. In the end, she'd had to run away to gain the freedom she wanted, which means the two of us aren't so different after all. Because that was my final planned move on the chessboard too.
I won't run now because I don't need to. I'm safe. Deeper feelings than lust for my new husband don't come into it, I tell myself.
"How did you get my number?" he asks me again. "I thought you asked your father for it."
But now he knows how unlikely that would have been. Both for me to ask and for my father to actually hand the number over.
"I snuck into his phone while he was in the shower."
"You knew his passcode?"
"I knew a lot of things my father thought I didn't," I acknowledge.
Severu and Big Sal are both giving me speculative looks and fear makes my hands clammy while a flush prickles over my skin. "I'm not the rat," I say loudly.
Severu frowns. "I never said you were."
But Big Sal, who must be the new consigliere, is still looking at me like he's trying to see into my head.
"Why would I work with the Gutierrez Cartel?" I ask them.
"You think that's who is behind the attacks?" Big Sal asks my husband. "Since when?"
"Since my wife pointed out that they've done something similar in two other port cities on the East Coast and are behind the bratva double cross in Detroit."
"You did?" Big Sal asks me. He doesn't sound impressed; he sounds suspicious.
