But I suppose it makes sense, given what Teresa told me about the situation.
The reason I’m here is the very reason I suspect there isn’t any human security. A possible rat in the operation. They may be working at a minimum on security, limited only to those they areabsolutely certain they can trust. And I know there are quite a few members of the family to cover.
At the moment, I’m the only one coming to work this job, but there’s a possibility for a much bigger job here as well. I may be able to bring more of my men in if they find themselves short on security.
I roll the SUV toward the steps that lead to the front door.
Teresa told me that she and Vito had stayed in his apartment before moving to Pennsylvania for the year, in order for Vito to complete his Master’s degree—something that I can admit had shocked me—but that they would be looking at houses while they were there, and they’d be coming back to Atlantic City as a family of three.
She said it like it was practical. Like it made sense. Like I wasn’t supposed to hear all the implications packed inside that single detail.
You don’t bring a woman into a home like this unless she belongs to you in some way. By blood. By marriage. By necessity. Sometimes all three.
My jaw tightens.
Last spring, Teresa vanished.
Just like that. It took a while for anyone to realize something was wrong because her professional contingency plan had been activated, so all her patients were covered.
But then time passed, weeks without a word. Calls unreturned. Messages delayed.
I was out of the country on a covert op, so I didn’t find out until I arrived back in the US, and she’d already been gone for weeks at that point.
I hit the ground running and was going to fly out to New Jersey the next day when she suddenly showed up again. Back in Atlantic City, she’d called me.
She said she’d had a professional emergency. She said she’d been pulled away unexpectedly. She said everything was fine.
I didn’t buy a second of it.
Somehow, on her ‘professional emergency’, she’d come back pregnant and in love. She tried to play it off like they were two separate things.
Like, she was back from her work emergency, but she also happened to be in love and getting married soon. She spoke about him as if he hung the moon.
That didn’t reassure me.
I started digging.
Teresa was always the one in the family who could soothe people with a calm voice and logic. It worked on a lot of people. It’s never worked that well on me.
I found enough.
Enough to know her emergency hadn’t been professional. Enough to know she’d been taken. Enough to put a name to the man responsible.
Vito Conti.
Future Don of the Conti crime family. Luca Conti’s heir. Violent reputation. Short fuse. Smart enough to be more dangerous than hotheaded men usually are.
The kind of man who could smile at a dinner table and then break the jaw of the man sitting across from him if he said something wrong.
I checked everything I could from where I was in Texas. Financial records where I could get them. Property transfers. Marriage license after their quick jump into it. Public appearances. Photos. Snippets. Names. Threads that didn’t tie off neatly.
I found nothing that proved she was being held or threatened. Nothing that suggested she’d been forced into the marriage after the initial abduction.
I never found enough to justify getting on a plane and forcing the issue.
We’re cousins in a not-so-big family, so we’ve always kept up a relationship with each other, but not the type where I can drop by any time without raising suspicion.
Especially from all the way across the country.
