“Did you get the license plate on the delivery vehicle?” I ask right away.
“Yes, sir. Standard procedure. We’ve got it on camera.”
“Run it. Now.” I don’t bother hiding the edge in my voice. “I want to know who it’s registered to, where it came from, everything.”
I don’t know why I’m bothering. The kid seemed like he was legitimately about to shit himself, and he didn’t give me the impression of being a criminal mastermind. No, he’s nothing more than a pawn.
“On it, sir.”
I pace the library while I wait, the cigar box a black hole on my desk, pulling all light and warmth from the room.
The phone rings less than three minutes later.
“Mr. Russo, we’ve run the plates. They’re… they’re not coming up in any database.”
“What do you mean, not coming up?”
“The plate number doesn’t exist in the system. It’s a fake.”
Of course it is. My dad would never be so careless as to leave an obvious trail. Not even to a pubescent driver who has no idea what he just delivered.
“Double the perimeter guards,” I order. “Full property sweep, now. I want every inch of the grounds checked.”
“Yes, sir. Right away.”
I end the call and stride from the library to my office, my mind already shifting into crisis mode. The wedding is less than twelve hours away. The church, the security arrangements… everything needs to be reassessed.
Inside my office, I open my laptop and start a secure group call with all my cousins, not caring that it’s after midnight.
Remus answers first, his voice alert despite the hour. “What’s happened?”
“We have a situation,” I say without preamble as Enzo and Matteo join the call. “Andrea knows about the wedding.”
A beat of silence follows, heavy with understanding.
“How?” Enzo asks, his voice tight.
“I don’t fucking know how,” I snarl. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I force myself to calm the fuck down. “Look, I just received a box of cigars with the wedding date on them. Oh, and a note of congratulations from him.”
“Shit,” Matteo mutters. “How did he find out?”
“That’s what I need to know,” I reply, struggling to keep my voice level. “And more importantly, what else he knows.”
“Is Alina safe?” Remus asks, cutting straight to the heart of the matter.
“She’s upstairs sleeping. But if he knows about the wedding…” I trail off, the implications hanging in the air between us.
“You think it’s a threat?” Lorenzo’s tone is measured, calculating.
“It’s Andrea,” I respond. “Everything he does is calculated for maximum impact. Why send this now? Why the midnight delivery? He could have sent a normal gift, a normal note.”
“To rattle you,” Matteo suggests, and I can almost see his single eye narrowing. “To throw you off balance before your wedding day.”
“Or to warn me,” I counter. “To let me know he’s watching. That he knows who she is. What she means.”
I am such a fucking arrogant fool.
Right now, it seems like another lifetime when I taunted Andrea and told him I was getting married. Back then I didn’t care about Alina, sure. But I never considered that she could be in danger. Why?
