Dom joins us. “Congrats, Luca.” He shakes my hand.
“Thank you.”
He eyes me. “You’d have married her with or without my blessing, though, right?”
“Yes.”
“Since you’re all here now.” Roman swirls his whiskey, ice clinking against glass. "I reached out to a few cops on our payroll to see how the Feds got involved. They have no clue but did say it wasn’t them who called.”
“I got a guy with access to the Feds and he says there’s no report,” Dom says.
My brow furrows. “You mean no call to the FBI?”
“Right. Plus, he says Agent Ricci didn't even file a proper report about finding him."
My stomach tightens. “What does this mean?” I can’t quite wrap my mind around it. “Rocco is clear that a man dressed as Santa lured him out. Another man took him. He said Ricci didn’t show up until early the next morning. Who called her?”
“Doesn’t mean she’s not involved,” Marco says.
“Or covering for someone.” Roman looks at each of us in turn. “She works for Blackwood, after all.”
I glance across the room at my children, laughing as they play a card game with my father.
“To what end?” I ask. “How does Rocco fit into this?”
“For two years, Blackwood has been trying to turn family members against each other,” Roman starts. “Not just Isabella or Gabriella?—”
“Or Elena,” I add. “He approached her.”
“We know he got to Sal and Ernie. However, two years in, and we’re still solid. Business is booming. All this bullshit and they’ve got nothing to show for it.”
“We know that he learned, somehow, that Luca was Rocco’s father. And it’s no stretch to think he’s not well enough versed to know what happened with Umberto,” Roman continues. “He wasn’t a supervisor or the agent on the case, but he’d have access to it. He’d know Luca was accused of betraying Umberto.”
I nod, following Roman’s logic.
“So he approaches Elena, trying to use her fear of your taking the kids, but she tells him to take a hike. Again, he fails.”
“So he takes my kid?”
Roman shrugs. “Why not? I think he’s done playing by the rules. He wants La Corona gone and is tired of waiting for it to happen.”
“This, of course, is all conjecture,” Marco says, often the one to rein in Roman’s theories.
“Except the bullet that killed Gio isn’t any of ours,” Dom says. “It was a 9mm. Same as Feds.”
Many others use 9mm, but it is interesting. “Would he be so careless?’ I ask.
“Maybe. Maybe he figured you’d kill Gio or he’d kill you. When you didn’t, he killed Gio thinking I’d believe it was you,” Dom says. “Which I did at first.”
Roman nods. “It’s always about pissing one of us off. Whether it’s Blackwood or Ricci or some other person, we still need to be careful."
Dom downs his drink. “Fuck it. I’m tired of being careful. I say we flip the script. Use Ricci to get to Blackwood. She came to Elena alone in that diner, no backup, no official channels. And there’s no official report. That tells me she's operating outside bureau protocols."
“So maybe it’s her,” I say.
“Maybe, but I doubt it. She’s singularly focused on me. Every time she’s reached out to someone in the family, it was about me, whereas Blackwood wants dirt on anyone. So, I doubt it’s her, but we can use her.”
Marco shakes his head. "Too risky. We start playing games with federal agents, we're asking for trouble."
