Blackwood's mouth curves into a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "Perhaps we've been overlooking our most valuable asset in this operation." He gestures vaguely toward me. "Vitale clearly has a particular interest in you."
My spine stiffens. "Sir?"
"It hasn’t escaped your team’s notice that Vitale has an interest in you.” Blackwood leans against his desk. "Maybe it's time we leverage that interest."
Heat rises in my cheeks, not embarrassment but anger. I’m not sure which bothers me more.
That he’s talking about me to my team or suggesting that I pull a honey trap on Dominic.
"Are you proposing I seduce a suspect, sir?"
He looks at me with amusement. “Honey traps are nothing new. Men like Vitale have egos. They love conquests. I'm suggesting you use whatever tools are at your disposal to get close to him
"With all due respect, sir, my breasts are not a tool.” I keep my voice level despite the fury roiling inside me. "It's not just ethically questionable, it's ineffective. Dom Vitale didn't build his empire by thinking with his dick."
Blackwood's expression hardens. "All men think with their dicks. I might add that your team seems to think you like Vitale’s attention.”
“Observing and assessing him is part of my job,” I counter. "And my professional assessment is that Dominic Vitale won't fall for such an obvious play."
“Well then, we continue to poke at them, figure out their weak spots.”
I know from the past that weak spots are usually people we’ve identified as potential informants, but that hasn’t gone so well.
Nearly everyone I’m aware of is dead or missing, likely at La Corona’s hand.
We targeted some of the women in the family, who ended up becoming more loyal to the families, marrying into them.
I leave Blackwood's office with my jaw clenched so tight it aches. Back at my desk, I unlock my bottom drawer and pull out my personal case notebook, the one filled with observations I don't trust to our digital systems.
Flipping through the pages, I trace the timeline of La Corona investigations over the three years.
Something doesn't add up. Hasn't for a long time.
My thoughts drift to the Rocco Vitale Monti kidnapping nearly a year ago.
Six years old. Snatched from the winter festival La Corona families participate in each year.
Someone had balls of steel to even attempt that.
The family didn’t call the police or FBI for help. Of course they wouldn’t.
So it’s odd that I got the call about the child’s location.
The child was alone and thinking I could help his mother, Elena Vitale, escape mafia life with Rocco and her two other children, I arranged to reunite them. But she didn’t want out.
She’d brought Luca Monti, the children’s father, and Dominic, her cousin to the meeting.
At that time, Dominic looked at me like I was a burr up his butt.
With the child returned, I went to file my report, but Blackwood told me not to. “It wasn’t an official investigation. No report is needed.”
I'd followed orders, but it has never sat well with me. A child kidnapping is federal territory, regardless of who the family is.
And the directive not to document it?
That violated every protocol I knew. Especially since we knew La Corona has their own sense of justice. If they found whoever took the boy, that person is dead and gone.
Did Dominic pull the trigger? Dispose of the body? The whole incident disappeared as if it never happened.
