“I’ll be right back,” I tell Vanessa. She smiles at me as I follow him.
“Okay.”
Juliet and I pass each other on the stairs. She leans in and whispers, “Don’t worry. We took good care of her.”
“Thanks,” I say with a smile. She continues down while I head up.
“Let’s go into my office,” Gino says.
“All right. Could you at least put on a shirt?”
He snorts. “Who knew you’d become so bashful.”
“Bullshit. You know you’d never be caught dead like that.”
“A year ago, sure,” he says, glancing down the stairs where Juliet and Vanessa are still standing. “Now I’ve realized I need to chill out more.”
I step into Gino’s office. It looks exactly the same. Same desk, same chairs, same décor. The only difference is the stack of paperwork covering his desk. I walk over and scan it, realizing it’s all contracts and legal documents. The kind I should’ve been handling. I wonder if he’s brought in a new lawyer while I’ve been gone.
“All right, let’s get to business,” Gino says as he walks in behind me.
“Thanks for putting on the shirt,” I snicker. I’ve never seen him dressed this casually so late in the day.
“What? This is my house, you know.”
“I know. You just never work in sweats and a T-shirt.”
“Like I said, I need to chill out more,” he says casually.
I lift a brow. “Mmm, okay. Whatever you say.” I’d bet good money it has something to do with the dark-haired woman downstairs.
“Take a seat.” He points to the chair across from him. “As you can see, I have no fucking idea what I’m looking at. But since I took over all of the Russos’ shit, I need to make sure everything transfers correctly.”
“What do you mean, transferred?”
“After they took you, I decided we needed to stop playing pretend and actually act like a mafia. Do some damage.”
I stare at him, shock written all over my face.
“Relax,” he adds. “We didn’t kill just anyone. Only the people who were trying to kill us.”
Jesus. He did more to find me than I ever realized. There were so many days I thought they’d stopped looking, or that they weren’t trying hard enough.
“So,” I say slowly, “who did you kill?”
“Me? No one,” he says. “But the guys took down Lorenzo’s operation three days ago. And they killed a few of the goons that were guarding you.”
He exhales. “It wasn’t easy. It took days to find a way in. The place was secured and secluded. Like a military base.”
“Walk me through it,” I say, unable to stop myself.“Please. I need to know everything.”
Gino sighs. “We spent months digging through every property they owned across Italy and came up empty. I leaned on some old contacts my father had, had them scour the country for you. Nothing.”
He shakes his head. “The first six months were nothing but dead ends. Every lead Drew found turned out to be bullshit.Anytime Lorenzo called, he was nowhere near where he was holding you. He used his father’s villa as cover.”
He takes a breath before continuing. “When Vanessa had the twins, I knew I couldn’t let other people handle it. They were taking too long to get me information, so I took matters into my own hands?—”
I cut him off. “Did you go over there yourself?”
