Page 124 of Devil's Vows

“So you were there the day he died and his compound got torched?”

“Yep, got out well before the whole place was turned into a pile of ashes.”

Interesting. “Are you aware two other people survived that day?”

I can almost hear him grind his jaw.

“My inside man was responsible for the scorched earth side of the job. I didn’t know if there were any other survivors.”

I need to come clean. If I really want to look out for Gabriella’s safety, I’m going to have to trust her brothers.

“Your mole survived, but so did one of Randazzo’s people. A woman by the name of Mara. I believe your mole is keeping her captive. She used to do tattoos for him, to mark his prostitutes…and probably other people he trafficked.” I leave out the piercing part; let Matteo figure it out in his own time. “If this woman was involved in marking your sister, then we need her to help us identify the Russian. Gabriella says she’ll probably recognize his voice, but not his face. I know she’ll definitely recognize the tattoo artist.”

“Fuck me,” he says, and that follows several beats of silence. “You mean The Mole has Mara and you want them to come to the States? To Boston?”

The way he saysMaratells me she is no stranger to Matteo Scalera. “Yes, because I’m not taking Gabriella to Italy. The risk is too high.”

“Agreed.” He sighs into the phone. “Fuck knows how you have all this intel, Petrov, but I’m going to figure it out before we’re done.”

“We’re never going to be done.” We’re connected now, in for the long haul. I’m grateful, because this is what I was looking for.

“Yep. This is going to take a team effort,” he says. “And probably some time. I’m not sure how keen The Mole would be to travel.”

“We can’t waste time. I’ve found, with the right incentive, people will do almost anything.”

“Right. How much did you pay for all this intel?”

I chuckle into the phone. “Just look and learn. In some respects, we Russians are way ahead in the game.”

Matteo laughs drily. “Maybe. Just one thing…Why do you think Gabriella is being hunted? This thing with Mother Lucia hit her hard, but we didn’t make a connection at the time.”

“Apparently, there is more of the same going on, which confirms that someone is trying to track her down. Gabriella told me last night about a friend she’s worried about.” And the distress in her voice was real, similar to the night with the girls. Fuck knows what’s happening there. “Dominic is on the job,and I’ve asked Yuri to dial in. Let’s see if we can combine resources and cut straight to the core.”

“Hmm, he mentioned something to me but now it’s cast in a different light. Fucking dirty business if you ask me.”

He’s catching up.Il Consiglio’sbusiness has become too clean in the last decade or so, since the brothers took over. They haven’t been subjected to real dirty play like I have these past ten years.

“The question is why.” he says on a sigh.

“The usual reason why people are hunted: they have something the other desperately wants.”

“And what does she have?”

I place my hand on Gabriella’s Bible, for the first time putting trust into people I don’t know enough about but listening to my gut instincts. “The Bible Randazzo gave her that day has highlighted words that could be code, which is what they could be after, but I don’t have the manpower or the skill to figure this one out.”

“Markings? Code? Like in a secret key?”

“Exactly.”

“Sounds like job for my brother Benedict?—”

“TheBez lica. Thought so.”

“TheBez lica?”

“The faceless one,” I translate. “I haven’t met him. He is basically an enigma, and for all the world knows, doesn’t really exist.”

“He exists, all right,” Matteo says, “if in his own world. He’s a genius, annoyingly so, but handy. He’ll crack the code for you, and then we’ll know what the Russians are after. And then, maybe then, I can finally put this whole fucking shit show behind me.”