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“So, he could have pulled off all of the hacking,” I said. “And he would have knowledge on the Russians that had been involved in the killings of his men, that makes sense. Would he be capable of pulling off the killings?”
Alessandro and Vinny exchanged a look that I couldn’t quite read. I waited as patiently as I could for one of them to answer me.
“He could do it,” Vinny said finally. “He’s getting on in years, but he has the experience and the strength to manage it.”
“He might have other accomplices too,” Alessandro pointed out. “Either way, this is something he could easily do.”
“It seems like we have our answer then,” I said. “The only question remaining is, why?”
“I spoke to a few people close to him,” Vinny said. “They agreed that something has been eating at him recently. None of them seemed to know why, but he has been distracted and unhappy for a while now.”
I nodded thoughtfully. It made perfect sense to me. In a way, this was my fault, as I feared.
Antonio must have done this because he was angry about the end of the war with the Russians. If that was the case, he probably wasn’t thrilled with Tallon for marrying a Russian. He targeted Tallon because of me. I inhaled slowly and held my breath for a moment before I exhaled.
“What is he likely to do if we confront him?” I asked.
“It’s hard to say,” Vinny said. “If he’s capable of all of this, then I don’t know if we can predict how he’ll behave.”
“No,” Alessandro agreed. “He may accept that he’s been caught, he may try to fight us off. It’s hard to say. That’s why Vinny and I need to go deal with this ourselves.”
Alessandro stood and Vinny hurried to stand with him. Without another word, they turned toward the door.
“Hold it,” I ordered.
Vinny stopped right away, and Alessandro turned to face me after a few more steps.
“This isn’t up for debate,” he said. “This is a dangerous situation. Tallon would never forgive me if I let you get hurt.”
“You’re right about one thing,” I agreed. “We aren’t debating this. “I’m coming with you. Tallon is to be my husband. In his absence, it is my responsibility to take care of the family. We have a traitor that is putting the entire family at risk, and I will not sit idly by and wait for the problem to be dealt with.” I wanted to cross my arms, but I worried it would look too childish. Instead, I stood with my shoulders back and looked Alessandro directly in the eye.
If he thought for one second that I was actually going to let them go alone, he was insane.
“Think this through,” Vinny said. “All three of us can’t put ourselves at risk. Tallon is locked up, if the three of us were taken out, what would happen to the family?”
Silence fell over us again. Vinny had a good point. Alesandro was the next in line to be Don, and Vinny was the Don’s right hand. If all three of us were to die, the family would descend into absolute chaos.
But what were the odds that he could kill all of us before we took him out?
“You make a good point,” I said. “But I’m not staying behind. That bastard put Tallon’s life at risk and took his freedom. He risked the entire family by doing so. The police could have found any number of things when they arrested Tallon. If he wasn’t so careful about his communications and what he does on his phone, there’s no telling what could have happened.”
The police could have destroyed the Valentino family if they had gotten the wrong information from Tallon. Antonio had risked more than he realized in his search for revenge. It was reckless and hateful what he had done, and it would not stand.
“She has a right to be there,” Alessandro said softly.
“I don’t like this,” Vinny muttered.
“Neither do I,” Alessandro agreed. “But what can we do?”
“We’re outranked,” Vinny sighed.
“Hilarious,” I said with a roll of my eyes.
They were teasing me. Despite my annoyance, I felt myself smiling.
“Let’s get going,” Alessandro said. “Antonio will probably still be in his office. It’s not far from here.”
“Lead the way, then,” I said. “Antonio forfeited his freedom the second he acted against the family. Whether he knows it or not, he’s been living on borrowed time and that time is up. Let’s go get him.”
*Natalia*
I wasn’t sure how so much time had passed, but it was the middle of the night by the time we left Alessandro’s house.
It felt like everything had been happening so quickly, but that just went to show how warped by fear and anxiety my perception was. It made me all the more nervous about confronting Antonio.
I would have preferred to do this with a level head, but it just couldn’t wait any longer. We had no idea what else Antonio might have planned, and we couldn’t give him the time to do any more damage.
I rode with Alessandro and we took his car, since the warehouse that Antonio was currently working out of was under Alessandro’s direct supervision. Seeing his car pull up wouldn’t raise any alarms.
Vinny followed behind us in his own car. We had him on speaker phone so that we could discuss our plan on the way.
It was a terribly simple plan, and it made me incredibly nervous to move forward with it.
It didn’t take long to get to the warehouse. We could see that there were lights on inside and there were a couple of cars parked outside. I had a hard time believing that he would really be here this late at night.
“Are you sure he’ll still be at work?” I asked nervously.
“That’s his car,” Alessandro answered, indicating a nice deep blue car parked near the main entrance.
I took a deep breath. This was really happening then. We were going to confront the killer that had set Tallon up.
We got out of the car and walked confidently towards the entrance.
I reached into my purse and pulled out a rectangular device. I pressed a button on the device, and it clicked loudly. I replaced it in my bag and zipped it securely. Now, all I could do was hope that this plan worked.
Alessandro let us in, and I looked around the warehouse nervously. I didn’t see a soul around, but the main level lights were on and there was music playing from somewhere.
Alessandro motioned for us to follow him, and we headed upstairs. He took us directly to the manager’s office and banged loudly on the door.
Someone inside cursed at the abrupt knock and the door swung open to reveal a tall, older man with gray hair and a scraggly beard.
His dark eyes went wide when he saw the three of us standing before him. After taking a second to process, he stepped back and motioned for us to come in.
“It’s late,” he said gruffly. “What brings you all out here?”
“I think you know,” Alessandro said in a tone that could only be described as disappointed.
I stood beside Alessandro and tried to keep my expression neutral. It was difficult given the stakes of my conversation.
In my purse was an old-fashioned cassette tape recorder. Alessandro had it in his car, for reasons that he refused to elaborate on. Our plan was to get Antonio talking. If he said something to implicate himself, then I could take the recording to the police and use it to get Tallon released, hopefully. It was a long shot, but it was the best chance we had to end this without more bloodshed.
My top priority was getting Tallon home, and I prayed that this would be enough.
“What’s wrong?” Antonio asked with concern. “There haven’t been more arrests, have there?”
