A Cassone does not play by the Roselli rules, at least not anymore.
14
Massimo
My cell buzzes, interrupting Leandro’s update on the Carnal Sins cash flow and the almost certain need to expand the venture into more clubs both in and out of the city.We’re going to be full to capacity soon with no ability to give out any more VIP memberships as people hearing about the club from miles around are now starting to clamor for them without care for the astronomic price point.It’s not a bad problem to have, especially now.So, we’ll expand.
“This is Massimo.”I listen to Jimmy who’s talking a mile a minute, and that right there tells me I’m not going to like what he’s going to tell me before he’s even gotten to finish his sentence.My chest tightens.It was always a risk that my kitten would flee.“Slow down, Jimmy.Did anyone see her leave?”
He’s silent on the other end for longer than my fucking heart can take.I wanted him to slow down, not quit telling me what I need to know.Sophia is not going to leave her sister, especially by herself with the Rosellis.She may have trusted me once, but that trust must be long gone.Six long fucking weeks without taking her calls, watching them come in every fucking hour for the longest of time before eventually they dwindled, coming in every once in a while, until they stopped coming at all.Leandro looks up from his desk as my voice cracks.“Fucking talk to me, Jimmy.Where the hell is Sophia?”
“She’s gone, Massimo.I don’t mean just wandering around the estate, she is fucking gone.I didn’t call you until we had searched every fucking camera, had every man in our employ spread out into the perimeter, we’ve got the spotlights out, and no one knows a fucking thing.Except one person and of course she won’t talk.”
My molars come together so hard that they’re going to crack in half.“Where the fuck is Elsie?”I should have fucking fired her when she helped Sophia the last time, but instead I took pity on her and Sophia.And now because of that mistake, Sophia could be in the worst danger of her life without even knowing it.Again, because I never told her what’s going on, the fucking war we’re enduring and trying to safeguard her from.I close my eyes, inhaling a deep breath, feeling Leandro’s hand on my shoulder giving me fucking strength.“Have the men keep looking.Elsie, she knows something.Take her and make her fucking talk!”
Leandro’s eyes flash a warning and it’s not often that he does, but I’m not fucking walking it all back, no matter his soft spot for the staff or Sophia.“Get the information we need, Jimmy.You handle it but you fucking get what I need.”
Leandro nods as I put my cell away.“She’s gone, Leandro.Left Anna and took off.My guess is she’s gone to find that no good fucking father of hers.The one that let me walk right in and take his youngest daughter to save face with the other families in the state.Who fucking does that Leandro?How do you have a flesh and blood daughter and not fight for her, even afterwards, when everyone knew that he didn’t have anything to do with it, nothing.Because even then he must have had a deal with the evil Gallini bastard.Tell me I’m wrong,” I growl.
I stalk to the closet and get loaded, sliding a sleek Glock into the front of my pants, one into the back of my waistband, and a small revolver and knife into the strap at my ankle before handing Leandro enough weapons to keep him and an army protected as well.“Let’s move.”
We’re halfway down to the car that Jimmy keeps parked on the lower level.“Slow up,” I tell Leandro, using a hand to hold him behind me, surveying the area.“It could be a trap to draw us out too.Who knows with the sadistic fucks?Keep your eyes fucking peeled.You shoot and ask questions later, got me?And call Gino and have him meet us at the gates of my estate.”
He heads toward the driver’s seat, but I gesture him to the other side.“You’re riding with me tonight.”
“Fuck me,” Leandro says, getting his seatbelt tightened up the minute we get into the car.I’ve barely got mine on before laying the gas to the floor.If Sophia’s out of that estate, there’s no fucking time to waste.I call Jimmy and his voice comes over the overhead.“You have those drones up in the air?”
“They’re flying all over this fucking place, Massimo.Not a glimmer of anything that looks suspicious.It’s like she’s vanished into thin air.”
I don’t have time for anything but answers.“What did you get out of Elsie?”
“She’s crying and blubbering all over the place.All she’ll say is that she knows she left.Elsie said that Sophia asked her to keep her secret for at least an hour.It’s been forty-five fucking minutes and that woman won’t talk until then.She and Sophia have become pretty tight these days.”
“Try harder,” I grind out.
“Boss, I don’t think… “
“Fucking try harder,” I growl, in no frame of mind to have my orders questioned or waste a minute of precious time.Not when I know firsthand what Barcelo and the Gallini bastards do to their enemies’ women.The very reason Sophia’s supposed to be safe and secure in my estate, and not out on her own doing whatever the hell she’s trying to do.
Leandro has been quiet.None of us have fully recovered from seeing our mother’s wounds and having to keep her guts from spilling out of her body.I may only be a year older, but maybe I’ve sheltered him from some of the more gruesome hits, or fuck, maybe I didn’t it’s just that it was our mother.Maybe we’re all dealing with what happened to her in the only way we can, each in our own way.
“Sophia went through the laundry again.She had to have,” Leandro says.I don’t think he’s wrong.It’s been on my mind all the way over, especially since none of the drones picked her up.
“I was thinking the same thing.Something must have made her leave.Maybe Anna said something that gave her a lead to where her father is being held.I talked to Jimmy earlier in the day and he said that Anna was starting to talk a little more, and that when the guard checked in on them earlier, they were talking in whispers but stopped when he came in.It’s possible she told Sophia something that gave her some clue as to his whereabouts, and if she fucking knows and is going after him then we need to find her fast.Get on the phone and have our soldiers canvas every single stop that fucking laundry truck makes after it leaves my place.”
“Will do.”
I fly down the roads, the sleet starting to freeze on the windshield and on the branches of the trees.“Of all fucking nights.This day just keeps getting worse.”
Leandro shakes his head beside me as he texts out messages and order after order to our men in the field.“You’re not wrong.I was hoping after we got the lead for Barcelo’s brother earlier today that we’d be celebrating a victory tonight with a Delmar in our hand, not chasing another fucking bogus lead.I swear that reward we put out is causing us to chase our ass more than it’s helping, Massimo.”
One will pay off.I fucking know it.“We keep running down every single one of them, because until I find Barcelo and make him die a slow and painful death, I’m not going to stop.”
“It’s been six weeks, Mass.He’s probably out of the fucking country.”
“He’s not,” I growl.“I can feel it.He’s lying in wait, waiting for a moment of weakness in the Rosellis that he’ll never see now that we’ve taken the reins.It’s a new day, Leandro.We will be victorious.All the families are starting to align.The deals you and Emil are putting into place are going to make us and all of our allies prosper.”
Leandro shifts in his seat.“I don’t disagree.I’m just getting tired of dead end after dead end.He’s like a fucking ghost.Every time we’ve just missed him, or they saw him there but last week, or some other story.It’s like he keeps winning and I want him to pay for what he did to Mom so bad I can taste it.”
