“No more staying in this apartment,” he ordered. “You need someplace more secure.”
She looked on the verge of protesting, but as usual, she said nothing.
“I agree,” I said. My phone vibrated with a message from Vinny. He had lost their trail and was heading back our way. Fuck.
“Lou,” Brielle grated out.
“We’re going to get her back,” Tore promised.
“Ricco?” I asked.
“They took him in the ambulance,” Boyan said, pointing south, in the direction the ambulance had gone, where a crowd now blocked the street.
“Okay, we’ll worry about that later.”
Police officers came over with questions about the events. Brielle signed her answers, and Boyan translated. Vinny never came up, but Tore started fidgeting with his lighter when she listed Ricco as her boyfriend. She made a point not to mention Lou, which meant Ricco had probably coached her on that before the paramedics arrived. This situation needed to be dealt with internally, without police interference.
When the officers asked where her roommate was, Brielle told them Ainsley had gone out with her sister. With a spa day and a trip to the movies, both had turned off their phones.
Halfway through the interrogation, my phone rang with Natale calling in, and I excused myself, but with the crowd, I couldn’t hear anything.
“Say that again. I didn’t hear you.” I kept walking until the street cleared.
“Massimo’s the mole. He set us up,” my head of security rasped. “He’s got her.”
“What the hell do you mean he’s got her?”
“The Greeks. They hit us. Soon after you left. I had Ainsley head for the panic room, but Massimo intercepted her. He and Alfie took her.”
My heart skipped a beat. My ears rang. I shouldn’t have left her.
“Boss?”
“Find her. I want a track on their cells. Get everything you can, and get it now. If even one hair is missing from her head…”
“I know. And boss, Dimakos is dead.”
“What?” I covered my ear not pressed to the phone. I must have misheard.
“Ilias Dimakos is dead. He led the team down here. There’s no mistaking the body.”
I frowned. “Focus on Massimo. We’ll worry about that later.”
I hung up, my mind already processing the series of events. Massimo must have given up the information about the bar ambush. He must have also divulged the safe house location after arriving, since only Tore, Vinny, Natale, and I knew of it. My gaze flitted over the street—the people, cars, houses. I focused on everything and nothing at the same time. With Ilias dead, why take Ainsley? Why attack Ainsley’s apartment? Why Lou? Unless this was the plan of Dimakos’ backer. Dimakos could have simply been a pawn or distraction.
If that was the case, the abductions were the focus. On whose orders? Massimo’s? No, he stayed loyal to the Iannellis for two decades. During the roughest patch for the outfit, he stepped up by Tore’s side. So either he betrayed us because of a grudge against me, which had never come up before my arrest, or Dimakos’ backer offered him what I refused to give. Only another outfit could offer him the position he wanted, and only one of Italian descent would accept him. But Massimo was deluded if he believed any decent don would want a fence jumper as their underboss.
While Tore had a rocky relationship with the Costellos in Chicago in the early years of my incarceration, that dispute was put to bed years ago when Vinny married one of them. That left only the Giambrones. It made sense.
Francesco Giambrone wanted access to my ports through marriage. I defied him and married another. At least, that was what the paperwork said. There was also the fact that my men had killed his daughter. It wasn’t far-fetched at all to conclude he’d want to work against me. If he still wanted the ports, the easiest way to obtain access was to remove the obstacle in hispath—Ainsley—and then force the contract. Then why take Lou too? Unless the girl was collateral.
I dialed Francesco Giambrone. The phone only rang once.
“Renzo, my boy. I’d almost given up hope that you understood the severity of the situation, and that I was going to have to extend a helping hand.”
“Trust me. I don’t need anything from you, Giambrone.”
“Good. That means you know what’s at stake.”
