“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ricco asked. “That’s insane.”
“Where are they?” Giovanni asked.
“Upstate New York,” Vittorio said with some satisfaction. “Our territory. We can turn over the investigation to the cousins there. See what turns up. No way have they stopped what they were doing, not with that kind of slap on the wrist.”
Stefano nodded. “It’s already done. The New York branch of the family is on it.”
“That’s so terrible, Vittorio,” Francesca said. “I can’t go see her in the hospital, but when you can, please bring her here.”
“Dr. Arnold explained they wanted her kept in intensive care for a long stay with round-the-clock nurses,” Stefano said gently, “but we’ll bring her here as soon as they tell us it’s okay to do so.”
“She’s in our private suite, eyes on her all the time. An artery had to be repaired and the shoulder is in pieces. If you see the damage done, the bone was shattered. Dr. Arnold doesn’t want to move her. The first few days he’ll keep her as sedated as he can. Then, once they bring her around, they don’t want any movement until those bones begin to heal. She has enough plates and pins everywhere, trying to hold her together. She’s going to have a long rehab, honey,” Vittorio explained to Francesca, “but I’ll definitely bring her to you when I can. In the meantime, I have to convince her I’m the one for her.”
“There’s no doubt she’ll think you’re amazing,” Emme said staunchly.
The other women nodded their heads. “She’ll be so lucky to have you,” Mariko said.
Sasha remained silent, but her eyes met Vittorio’s and he could see the knowledge there. She saw inside him. She knew what kind of man he was. What he needed and would insist on. His woman had to be very courageous—and very trusting. You didn’t get the latter trait living in the kind of home Grace had lived in and then being betrayed by the one person you probably thought of as family. He had a long road ahead of him to win his lady.
“What else do you have on her?” Giovanni asked.
“She works for an event planner, a woman by the name of Katie Branscomb.”
All four women nodded their heads. “Katie owns KB Events and is the number-one event planner here in that industry,” Emme said. “Everyone we know uses her.”
“Grace is her personal assistant and according to Katie, she’s the force behind the real planning. She makes things happen. They’re very popular with customers because Grace always gets the customer exactly what they want.”
“Why would the Saldis think they could kidnap a woman with a reputation like that?” Taviano asked. “Her boss would come looking for her. She had customers that have all the money in the world at their disposal. Those customers would most likely help Katie Branscomb find her absent assistant.”
“Do you think they were after her specifically, or that’s who Phillips had to offer for his gambling debts?”
“It sounded more like it was very specific and they were going to take her regardless of what either of them said. Phillips was too far gone to read them accurately. They were going to kill him the moment they had her in the car,” Vittorio said with absolute certainty. He’d spent his life reading others. He knew Sarto and Gori were there to kill Haydon Phillips. “Miceli never sends those two out without a reason. I’m afraid that reason is Grace.”
“She stands out,” Stefano said. “Even with blood all over her, and her face as white as a sheet, you could still see the beauty there. Someone noticed her. Maybe Miceli, but if not him, maybe someone he owed a favor to. If Grace was that favor, is she still?”
Good question. Vittorio had to consider that even with Sarto and Gori in the hospital, but in police custody, Grace might still be in danger.
“If she disappeared, the last person to see her would have been Haydon, and he would have been dead. No one would have a clue she was taken by the Saldis,” Emme said.
Vittorio knew what it cost her to state that. He dropped his hand to the nape of her neck and massaged gently to ease the tension out of her. He couldn’t give her back her heart, but he could let her know he stood solidly with her.
“I know Grace is the one for me, even though I didn’t connect with her shadow first. The lights in the parking lot had been deliberately broken, most likely by Sarto and Gori. Or Phillips. The camera footage will tell us when Rigina recovers what we need.”
“We have a remote backup that feed goes to,” Stefano pointed out. “What about that?”
“Rigina has access to it, even though the original was wiped,” Ricco said. “Fortunately, no one but our family knows about the backup. When she finds the right footage, whoever is selling us out to the Saldis won’t know we’ve discovered what they’re doing, and we might have a way to use them.”
“Maybe,” Vittorio said, his voice mild. “But whoever it is was aiding human trafficking, and the woman he helped them take was mine. That makes this very personal.” He ignored the way Stefano’s head came up, his gaze suddenly sharp and assessing. Vittorio doggedly continued, “The fact that they can wipe the security feed and slip Saldis into the club along with a junkie—it has to be someone high up in management we trust.”
“We’re going to handle this, Vittorio,” Stefano assured. “When it was Francesca’s life in danger, or Mariko’s, or Sasha’s, for that matter, we took care of the problem ourselves. We’ll find out who’s behind this without jumping to conclusions.” His gaze touched Emme’s face just for a moment. “We aren’t going to make any mistakes with this one.”
Emme’s fingers tightened around Vittorio’s. He knew she loved Val Saldi and that wasn’t going away anytime soon—even though she knew his family were criminals. When the Ferraros loved, they did it wholly, and they did it once. This exact scenario had always been the thing they’d feared the most for Emme—that the two families would end up in a war.
“Who was on last night, managing the club?” Ricco asked.
“Martin Shanks,” Stefano said. “He’s been with us as a manager for six years, worked an additional four in the club. Rosina is looking into his financials. Shanks went home around midnight very ill. There were witnesses to him being extremely sick. His assistant, Timothy Vane, took over for him. Vane had been working for the club about three years when he was promoted to assistant manager. That was two years ago. So, he’s been in the club for a good five years. These are not new employees. They’re paid extremely well, receive bonuses and have been with our family for a lot of years, so they receive profit sharing as well.”
“Who was at the door?” Emme asked.
“Clay Pierson. He’s been one of our bouncers for ten years,” Stefano said. “Emilio and Enzo trained him. Again, he’s long-time employed, makes good money and receives profit sharing.”
“I saw Peter Franks,” Vittorio said. “He’s hard to miss. He was on last night as well. Not working the door, but inside.”
“I don’t know who that is,” Francesca said.
Sasha and Mariko both indicated they didn’t know him, either.