She’s good at this.
It tempts me to type back “too good,” but I keep that thought to myself. Instead, I send a different message.
ME
I want to know how he found out where to be and when. Did someone tell him, or has he been hacking?
Since there’s no immediate answer, I lock my phone and slide it back into my pocket.
“Patrick, you know you’re breathing your last breath. Explain to me how you know so much about where we would be and what my aunt and ex-boyfriend were up to.”
“Zorzi hired me to watch you.”
He’s practically wheezing at this point. Blood’s still streaming from his gunshot wound as he presses against his belly.
“Why? What did any of this matter to them?”
“Since Pasquale only has daughters with his wife, Cosima convinced Zorzi that Pasquale would finally acknowledge him as his son and make him underboss.”
I nearly snort with laughter. Vita actually does.
“There isn’t any chance on God’s green earth that Pasquale Borruto would ever recognize his bastard as his heir.”
While I don’t know him personally, I know enough about him. The guy is obsessed with his image of being the perfect gentleman Mafioso. That he’s some kind of Robin Hood. It’s not a well-guarded secret that he’s had affairs, but they’ve gone unacknowledged.
“Okay, so I understand Zorzi’s motivation, but what about myzia? What on earth did she have against me? Why target me?”
“You accepted a job that killed her illegitimate son.”
“What? When the hell did myziahave a baby nobody knows about?”
I swear, Vita’s family secrets could shock the devil.
“When she was nineteen, she claimed to study abroad. Instead, her father banished her for the semester to Marathia.”
“Where the fuck is that?”
“An obscure little village of like forty people in the middle of Greece. She put the baby up for adoption. Turns out, he woundup with a syndicate family in Thessaloniki. Her father arranged it. It wasn’t until seven years ago that she learned where he was and what he’d become. Ten months ago, you took that assignment in Ankara. You took out the Greek representative.”
“What?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose as I listen. I’d close my eyes to picture this gnarled family tree, but I won’t take my eyes off the scene lest Patrick somehow overwhelms Vita.
“That was her son. She found him because she told Zorzi to search. When he discovered who and where her son was, she kept an eye on him.”
“Do you mean she plotted my demise for months?”
“Yes.”
“And instead of working with her, you were in a race to the finish?”
“Exactly.”
Vita’s shoulders slump as she exhales.
“Do you know what my parents might’ve known about my cousin?”
“I don’t believe they knew much beyond he existed and lived in Greece.”
