For now, his confession would suffice. He loved me. I had someone I could hold, kiss, and talk to—and he loved me.
That was enough reason to drop every guard I had put between us.
Enough to prepare myself to reveal why exactly I had left Sicily. I trusted him, and we were already working toward the same goal.
It wouldn’t hurt to have him be on my side and in my plans, even if it meant finding another way to help Vitale.
It might not be wise, it might be foolish, but for once in my life, I was taking the risk.
And I knew in my heart that it would be worth it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Zahra
It took weeks, but we narrowed the coordinates on the map for Milan down to three locations.
We’d stormed the first one, but it had been an empty warehouse, a fluke to throw us off our game again. Two days later, we set out for the second location and were attacked by three other groups looking for the painting—there, we learned that our movements were being monitored. We’d expected it. Elio had clarified at a meeting that though we had the map, we shouldn’t be naïve to think people didn’t know we had it.
Then again, he’d also said it wasn’t a matter of who had it, it was a matter of who had the most firepower. If we were being monitored, we needed to have enough arms to protect ourselves.
I knew all this before he raised the awareness.
I knew many things—things I was scared to speak about because the consequences meant losing more than I bargained for.
At the third location, we found absolutely nothing, like I’d suspected. And then a few days ago, Upper had cracked another coordinate that happened to border with land that was in Arturo’s name. The records of the purchase were buried so deep it took Upper a while to pull out all the information we needed.
I had no doubt that the gold and flash drives were sitting pretty somewhere on that property.
Those damned flash drives.
While I’d come to Milan to investigate the flash drives’ whereabouts, I’d also been spying on P. Deluxe Corp.
Leaving Sicily at nineteen, I’d had one thing in mind. Bring down P. Deluxe Corp—the organization behind the trafficking ring or at least, that’s what I thought they were called. From the different transactions, placement documents, and payment receipts I had found in Manuel’s records of the time he had been in the Conti Serpent Society, all executive orders came from this P. Deluxe Corp.
I had done my research about them.
Public records indicated that the corporation was a private research facility owned by a man called Pedro Lombardi, who was now deceased.
Vitale had told me that finding the corporation was too easy—and something was amiss. But I had looked at every directive and intel from spies I had in different places, and they all pointed at P. Deluxe Corp.
A week ago, Elio also mentioned their name when he told me of his findings. These were things I already knew.
We couldn’t take up the matter with authorities or make a case against the corporation being a false research facility, but we could destroy it.
As for Elio, I was going to tell him everything today—I knew he would understand why I held back, and I knew he would be by my side because if I was frank with myself, I couldn’t do it alone. Destroying this organization had been a massive part of my life since I had discovered myself. Who I was, what I wanted, and what I would die doing.
I wanted no child or adult to go through what I did. I knew stopping this particular ring wouldn’t stop pedophilia around the world, but it would prevent children from being born into the business.
Vitale already had our people on standby, waiting for my word to bring down the operation. But I wanted to finishhere first, get the flash drives to Elio, tell him everything, and hope to God that he let me have the flash drive I needed. It held the information Vitale’s people required to get into the organization’s system, finding every branch and house, before blowing up the building and bringing down those bastards.
My heart was in my throat, and I was nervous.
I had to get it right if I wanted a chance to salvage all the relationships that might be destroyed today.
Right now, Devil and I were on our way to the new location, and a long convoy of Marino SUVs was behind us. Ready with arms in case any other group decided to join the fun.
Dog was in one of the SUVs with Marino’s people, and Milk and Upper were working behind the scenes, as this location required several invisible eyes rather than physical bodies.
