“Genius,” I growl. “The Bernardis are an old enemy. My first thought, in fact.Thisis the help you have to offer?”
Teddy clicks into another thread. “Flakjack, he has the other main theory—that it was the Espositos.”
“The Espositos?” I haven’t considered them at all, and I see no real reason to consider them now. Run by a woman, Anna-Vittoria Esposito, they work under different traditions than ours. They’ve never sought allies and keep to themselves. But they’ve never been actively opposed to Castellani business, either. “For what reason?”
“Well, it’s complicated—”
“Uncomplicate it.”
He swallows. “Well, he thinks their Boss—you know she’s a woman?”
“I’m aware.”
“He has this conspiracy theory that she’s working with the FBI.”
“Why would she do that?”
Teddy cleared his throat. “I mean…look, Flakjack is kind of a jerk, I’ve had to suspend him twice recently—once more and he’s perma-banned—but he thinks women aren’t cut out for crime. He thinks their hearts get in the way.”
I can’t help my bark of laughter. “If that poor fool ever met my mother, he’d die of shock.”
“Well—he thinks the Esposito Boss is sleeping with someone in law enforcement, and to help them out, she had your dad killed.”
I glare down at Teddy. “This is a ridiculous theory. Anna-Vittoria Esposito is no more likely to sleep with law enforcement than I am, and even if she was, her Family would be more likely to killher. What else?”
I can hear Teddy’s breath getting faster as he clicks into another thread. Still nervous. Good. But as I lean over the desk to look more closely at the screen, I can’t help glancing at the way my robe opens at his throat, the golden skin there looking soft and sweet. I could reach out, slide my hand into that space, feel his warmth—
I turn my attention back to the screen.
“Okay, well…this guy, Gut_and_run—um, we just call him Guts, usually, but anyway,” Teddy is saying, his voice thin and high, “uh, he suggested that maybe the motive was more personal? Like, your father’s lover was the one to kill him, maybe if she—or he—” His eyes slide sideways to mine, then back to the screen. “—thought your dad was getting ready to cut them off?”
“That’s not a theory, that’s a wild guess. And my father did not have a lover.” That I know about, anyway. He has had them in the past, disposable women who all looked so much like his dead second wife that I pitied him displaying such weakness.
Teddy seems to be getting desperate. “Pepperoni_lover—he hasn’t been a member as long as the other three, but personally I think he’s more reliable. He’s had alotof tips that turned out to be good. And he thinks it was the Pacific Syndicate. He says your father insulted them because he would never consider an alliance with them, and he left them out of some high-level meetings.” Teddy looks up at me. “This guy is also the one who DM’d me about the meeting last night.”
In Italy, under my mother, I learned to keep my face still. The one good thing about my scar is that it has reduced further my ability to show emotion. So I give nothing away to Teddy. But I am disturbed to hear our Family business so accurately reflected in the words of some internet persona called Pepperoni_lover.
“PacSyn are dogs,” I say. “A pack, as their name suggests, who run around together—but in the end, they each work for themselves, and will turn on each other for the right price. They couldn’t organize a fuck in a brothel, let alone assassinate a man as powerful and protected as my father.” Still… “Who is this man suggesting PacSyn? How did he know I would be there last night?”
Teddy gives a helpless shrug. “He could be anyone. He could be ashe, and she could be anywhere in the world. Most of the forum users have VPNs to mask their location. We know it’s dangerous.”
I let out a short laugh. “Dangerous? Sitting around opining about the underworld from the safety of your mother’s basements?”
“Hey, that’s not fair! That’s a stereotype. Just because we have a common interest, and we like to discuss it—”
I take the mouse from him, and click into another thread I saw before:Hard Hotties. “Oh, I see what you and your internet friends like to discuss.” The thread contains picture after picture of badly Photoshopped images—Mafiosi heads pasted onto porn star bodies. Unfortunately, I recognize the old Morelli Underboss, Angelo Messina, as one of them. “Jesus.” I click out of the thread.
Teddy has gone so red I almost feel sorry for him. Perhaps he is just what he says he is, an awkward young man with an obsession.
“Show me the message you got from him about PacSyn,” I say, keeping my voice neutral.
He obediently, silently, clicks around until he gets to his inbox, his ears still scarlet. I read the message from this Pepperoni_lover. There are other messages from him that are also accurate, though I don’t tell Teddy that. But there are more than I have time to look at now.
“Write down your log in and your password here,” I tell him, pulling over a pad of paper and a pen.
He looks up, aghast. “I can’t do that—I can’t let you have access as Site God. If you change anything you’re not supposed to, the whole forum could go down.”
I tap my finger once on the pad, without bothering to look at him. I’m still busy scrolling through all his messages. There are tipoffs about every Family around the United States. Most will be bullshit, I know that.
