“What?” Emmanuelle challenged. “That you look like you’re crazy about her?”
“Here it comes, Geno,” Dario said. “Emme is a nuisance that won’t go away. Once she has you in her sights, she’s like one of those vicious little terriers that grab at your ankle and won’t let go.”
Emme snapped her teeth at Dario and laughed. “Admit it, Dario, you’re terrified of me.”
The door opened, and four servers came in to take their orders, two men and two women. They split up, coming to either side of the table and working their way very efficiently down from either end. The room immediately went quiet as all of them studied menus and gave their orders.
Amaranthe realized they watched the servers just as carefully as she did. The feeling of malice had grown over the last hour. It didn’t increase when the servers entered, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to be alert. Although the room was filled with targets, the main ones were Geno, Stefano, Salvatore and Lucca. Four primary targets. If she was guessing, either Geno or Stefano would be an assassin’s dream goal.
Are you familiar with these servers, Geno? None of them are new, are they?In her opinion, it would be ludicrous to allow an unfamiliar person into the room with so many targets available to them.
They’ve all worked in the restaurant for at least eighteen months.
That didn’t alleviate her worry. The troubles in Little Italy had started months earlier.
The Ferraro family acted perfectly normal, interacting with the servers as if they really were at an engagement party and ordering food and drink, not in the least worried their lives might be at risk. She did the same, easily playing the role. She was the ballerina everyone saw, looking delicate and fragile beside Geno. Each time he spoke to her, she would gaze up at him adoringly. That wasn’t difficult to do.
Once the servers left the room, she contemplated the way the beautiful chandelier and the flames from the fireplace cast shadows throughout the room. Every rider had to know exactly where the shadows were. If any of the servers could ride the shadows, they now knew where those shadows were. There were several close to Stefano’s chair.
Did your cousin seat himself there deliberately? That’s the most dangerous spot in the room.
I’m well aware.
Geno’s tone was clipped. He didn’t like Stefano’s choice of seating arrangements any more than she did.
“How did you two meet?” Ricco asked.
Geno sighed. “That’s a tough one to answer, Ricco. I’d like to tell you I was interested in ballet and saw her dance. I did take over for my mother on the board of directors and certainly read all about her. We can leave it at that.”
Emmanuelle’s eyebrows shot up. She exchanged looks with Salvatore and Lucca. “Oh, no you don’t, Geno. That’s not going to work for any of us. That sounds like there’s alotmore to the story. Amaranthe? Are you going to tell us?”
Geno leaned back in his chair and slipped his arm around Amara’s shoulders. “Let’s just say we met under bizarre circumstances and there was a very big misunderstanding. Little did I know there is a will of iron in this little package right here.”
There was no denying the admiration, respect and even pride in Geno’s voice when he spoke of her, and Amaranthecouldn’t help the little glow. No one complimented her, and he did it so casually. It was just his tone, but it was enough to make her feel special to him. She didn’t even mind that he referred to her as a “little package.”
“Not good enough,” Lucca said. “Go on.”
Geno heaved an exaggerated sigh and shot a glance at Valentino and Dario.
Emmanuelle snapped her head up and looked at her husband. “Oh my God! You were there, Val. Dario?Bothof you and you didn’t say a word? You two are total sneaks. We are so going to have a talk about this.” She pinned Stefano with a glare. “That means you were there as well. It was when we were all in New York and you said I could go shopping, no worries, you had Val’s security covered.”
“This is really getting interesting,” Salvatore said.
“I agree,” Ricco concurred. “Now you have to tell us. Val, Dario, Stefano and Geno add up to an interrogation. That would be a very big misunderstanding.”
Nicoletta gasped and turned toward Geno. “You didn’t.”
Geno nodded. “I set a trap to bring those committing the murders to me. Or at least the ones helping them. It was fairly simplistic—a wallet stolen from a man standing right out front of this restaurant. We were just beginning to track it and the wallet started coming right for us. My men bagged my wild woman and took her to the interrogation room. Right from the beginning I felt something was off. Dario, Val and Stefano came at my call. I just had a bad feeling, but I didn’t know what it was.”
Lucca and Ricco exchanged a long look of sudden comprehension. “You knew she was the one, didn’t you, Geno?” Ricco said.
“Not right away. I just knew something wasn’t right with her being in that room. My mind kept trying to put her there, but it was at war at the same time, trying to make sense of what it was saying to me.”
“How did you get the wallet, Amaranthe?” Mariko asked.
“One of the little girls I teach has an older brother andhe had stolen it. She heard him talking to his friends and recognized he was in trouble and very uneasy over the wallet. She brought it to class with her and put into the locker. She was going to talk to me about it after class, at least she told her friends she was going to. I took it out of the locker and was determined to return it to the owner with hopefully everything still in it. If her brother removed anything I could find out and get him to return it.”
“But instead, Geno’s bodyguards took you prisoner and locked you in the interrogation room,” Ricco said. “That must have really frightened you.”
