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LEONA

T he next day, I found Ciel and Obi after breakfast so we could start getting some answers on the account numbers. My father kept this information for a reason. It had to tie to something.

I hoped it would give us answers as to why Max allied with Tommaso, and how Chiara got involved.

The three of us gathered in Ciel’s room, pulling in extra chairs so we could huddle around his desk.

“My banking contacts traced the account numbers back to these corporations, but they did not have the ability to take it further,” Obi said as he typed something on his laptop. A whoosh sounded when he dropped it to Ciel’s computer. “We need to understand who owns them.”

Ciel’s screen dinged, and he opened a document with rows and rows of data. He scrolled through it, eyes scanning the columns. I tried to count the names that continually popped up, but immediately felt lost.

“There are at least twenty different corporations here.”

My mouth parted. Damn. Why had my father been making payments to each of these accounts? “Can you trace them?”

Would this even be relevant? Maybe this was a wild goose chase. Maybe we were wasting our time.

Ciel sat back in his chair. “I can try. But these are probably just the tip of a very deep iceberg. These have to be shell corporations, which then trace back to another corporation, and then another, before we even get close to who owns them. Everything gets filtered through three or five other places; that’s how these organizations keep their assets safe.”

Obi closed his laptop. “You need time.”

“Yeah.”

“How long?” Obi asked.

I scanned the rows, my eyes catching on something. I frowned.

Ciel cracked his knuckles. “A few days, maybe. Sometimes this is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. If I can find a thread and pull, the rest will untangle. I need to organize the data first.”

“Fine. Get started and let us know if there are any up?—”

“Wait.” I pointed at the screen. “Wait. Look there.”

Ciel followed my finger. “ Piccolo Fiore.”

“Little flower,” I whispered. I folded my arms over my chest. Would he really do that? Use something so personal?

“What is it?” Ciel asked. “You know that name?”

“Don Vincenzo used to call Chiara his little blossom,” I explained. Our fathers were affectionate men—when they cared to be. When they weren’t using us or hiding things from us. My eyes scanned over the rest of the data on his screen, finding at least six other instances of payments to the corporation Piccolo Fiore. “Little flower.”

“You think this business belongs to Tommaso?” Obi asked, standing to crowd behind me and get a better look at the data. I could feel the heat of his chest against my back. He stared at the screen as if he were trying to put together the same puzzle I was.

I shrugged. It was a long shot. “No idea. It just rang a bell.”

“I can start there,” Ciel offered, starting to type. “See what I can trace.”

We watched as more screens flitted across his computer while he typed command after command. Eventually Obi sat back down and started working again, frowning at his laptop screen, but my eyes were locked on Ciel’s work.

We were on the cusp of something. I knew it. Whatever this was, whether it was connected to Vincenzo Tommaso or something else, it felt important.

Dad, what were you doing? Why?

I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever was hidden in these account numbers would give us the answers we needed.

I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, watching. Ciel pointed out what he was doing as often as he could, trying to teach me the different commands and programs he ran. I chimed in when I recognized something, but I couldn’t stop the anxiousness causing my foot to tap.

Eventually, Obi left and returned with glasses of water for both of us. I downed mine, then forced Ciel to take a break and do the same. He never took care of himself when he got caught up in work.

More searching. More data.

I was just about to call it, to suggest we all take a break and come back to it later, when Ciel straightened.

“Shit,” Ciel breathed as one of his search results returned to his screen. “You’re right, Leona. It’s Tommaso. These assets belong to the Tommaso Family.”

I exhaled, feeling my heart pick up speed. “How many of these companies? Just that one?”

Ciel shook his head. “I’m finding three other corporations that trace back to him, but the others are still unknown. I’ll have to keep looking.”

“But we know he was connected with Don Vincenzo.”

“Yes. Your father was making huge payments to Tommaso, and it looks like some funds were going from Tommaso back to your father.”

Obi sat straighter. “Luciano was paying Tommaso. For his help in covering his tracks?”

My lips thinned as I locked eyes with Obi. “This is how he stayed under the radar of the other Families and of our own. It has to be. He paid Tommaso to help him and then filtered money through Tommaso so it wouldn’t show up in his financials. The other Dons didn’t know what they both were doing.”

This is exactly what we thought we’d find. But Tommaso was also paying my father. Why? For drugs? For help with trafficking? Something else?

“There has to be more,” Ciel said. “There are still dozens of other corporations that belong to someone else. Some of these were making pretty big payments to your father.”

I bit my lip, pacing behind the desk, trying to get all the pieces to slot into the place. It felt like we were missing something big. “My father was involved in a lot of shit. There have to be others. Important people.”

“Look into the other Dons,” Obi said. I nodded alongside him. “Whatever we cannot trace back to the Italian mafia might be tied to?—”

“The government,” I finished for him. That was another huge part of this puzzle, one that loomed over our heads like an unseen ax about to drop. “My father was selling guns to the CIA. These are the records. Payments received.”

Obi nodded. “Exactly my thought. This could be proof of their connection.”

We hadn’t had the time or energy to even consider what my father was doing with the US government—or why. Shit. It was just another layer to peel back.

Eventually this had to make sense, didn’t it?

Ciel gusted a breath. “That’s going to take some more time, especially if the government is involved. They would do everything they could to cover their tracks.”

“Damn.” I rubbed the back of my neck as I sat on the edge of Ciel’s bed. My hand ran over his ridiculously soft comforter in the time I took to process. “If we still had those boxes from my father’s study, we could cross-reference the information. See if we can find more connections to help narrow it down.”

We had to leave all that behind when we ran from my father’s house. Which got me thinking…

“I’ll look through your father’s laptop again,” Ciel said.

The thought smacked me across the face. I sucked in a breath and looked to Obi. “Max left those boxes out for me to find. It showed us what my father was doing. But do you think there’s another reason he wanted me to see the truth?”

“What do you mean?” Obi asked.

“He obviously knew my father was stealing drugs from the Russians, trafficking people with the Albanians, and selling guns to the CIA. He killed him for it. Do you think he knew that Tommaso was involved too?”

Obi’s eyebrows knit together. “So then why form an alliance with Tommaso if he knew?”

I swallowed. “To take him out.”

He wanted to be a trojan horse. He wanted to get involved with Tommaso to take him down from the inside out.

It sounded insane in my head, but it also sounded exactly like what I would do. And if I had this thought, I knew Max did, too. Max was ten steps ahead of us.

“Which is exactly what we did,” Ciel added. “We paved the way for Max to take full control over the Tommaso Family.”

My blood went cold while my brain raced. “Max said something to me that night at my house.”

“What?” Obi asked.

“He was talking about his father, and he said something about ‘There wouldn’t need to be Five Families. Just us.’ ” I looked at Obi. “What do you think he meant by that? Especially after allying with the Tommasos?”

His look said he was thinking the same thing I was. “Volpe wants New York.”

I nodded as my mouth went dry. “He wants to take control of all the Five Families. The whole mafia. I think he knows something more—something we’re not seeing yet.”

The three of us were quiet as the words settled in.

“The answer has to be in these numbers,” Ciel answered. “Blackmail, to start. He must have blackmailed Tommaso, knowing that Luciano had been paying him. Maybe he has leverage over the other Dons, too.”

If he had leverage against the other Dons, he could turn them against us, too. And if that happened, it wouldn’t matter what alliances we forged or how much we tried to chip away at Max’s power. With all Five Families against us, we’d be done. It would be over.

We had to get in front of this.

This only confirmed we needed to get to LA and secure this trade with the arms dealer as soon as possible. We had to start distracting him or bleeding him or doing whatever we could to gain power against him.

“We need that leverage,” I said. “Whatever Max knows, we have to know, too.”

Obi rubbed a hand across his chin. I could practically see the thoughts turning inside his head, but he didn’t say anything else.

“I’ll find it,” Ciel said. “Just give me time.”

I kissed his temple, squeezing his shoulder. “I trust you, Ciel.”

His hand covered mine, and our fingers looped together. “I’ll keep you updated.”