Page 132 of Forsaking All Others

“Because he would benefit from a war between the two,” Finn surmised.

“Yes, I just don’t understand why. He’s Felipe’s rightful heir. Why not just bide his time?” I mused. “And how did he find me? He promised to tell me if I set the Ferrettis on Felipe, but we all know he won’t. Finn, can you find out where the leak is? If Niccolo could find out I was the person behind the mask . . . I shudder to think who else could have access to that information and use it against me and mine.”

That was the real danger of occupying the role I did. It didn’t just put me at risk, but my entire community.

“I’m going to contact Petyr,” I pondered aloud. “The Bratva are connected to security throughout Chicago. If Felipe hired outside support, the Russians would know about it.”

Shielding Petyr from harm years ago after my abduction had been one of the best things I ever did. A mole in the Bratva was invaluable, and though I’d never asked Petyr to compromise himself too badly, he was loyal to me the same way a dog was loyal to its master after a lifetime of abuse.

It didn’t hurt that he had a mad crush on Katya.

“The priority is finding Dario,” I continued, moving some of the photos on my desk absently. “If he’s really in Palermo, it’s going to be a problem for us. I don’t have any contacts there anymore, and I was kept from contact with my aunts and cousins who remained. It’ll have to be Luca who rescues him . . .”

Hank’s chuckle was rough. “You don’t think he’ll want to. Not when he has you in his bed for once.”

“Hank,” I scolded mildly.

“Can’t blame the man,” Finn said with a crooked smile.

I ignored their tomfoolery because something about the photos had caught my eye.

Joey had said they were keeping Dario at the Church of Santa Maria, but he hadn’t expressly said it was in Palermo.

And I’d been to that church before, a few times as a girl, well enough to remember it.

It was officially called the Church of Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio, and it had first been erected in the 1100s. It had all the hallmarks of Italian religious architecture, from hand-painted frescos and mosaics to ornate gold accents and a soaring ceiling over a marble altar. It was opulent, as was befitting a tribute to God.

The church in the photos Niccolo had given me was the antithesis of this.

He was being kept in a bare room built of rough stone, the only thing of note a purple-and-red stained-glass window depicting what looked like the resurrection of Christ.

I recognized the style from a random memory of a fashion shoot I’d gone to with Lily for her magazine Notable three years ago. They were showcasing a local Italian American designer and wanted to use an authentic church for the backdrop.

The Church of Santa Maria, a rundown building that had been erected in the late 1800s by Italian immigrants that had since fallen into such disrepair it was only a matter of time before it was condemned and bought by developers.

I turned to my computer, my long nails clacking on the keys as I typed in the name and brought up an image search.

“He’s here,” I whispered, struck almost mute with shock even though it made more sense than anything else. “He never got on the plane to Sicily, we knew that because of CCTV surveillance. When I contacted Felipe, he said he didn’t even have a scheduled meeting with Dario on the books.”

“He could have been lying,” Hank pointed out.

“Yes,” I agreed, my heart sinking like a stone from my throat to my gut where it settled with distinct unease, stirring up emotions I wasn’t equipped to deal with. “Or Felipe wasn’t the one to abduct him.”

In light of everything I’d learned that day, Luca being my family’s killer, his distinctly threatening email to Dario, and Niccolo’s very alive status being kept from me by the Ferretti family, I had to allow for the fact that Luca could well be behind his twin brother’s disappearance.

He didn’t seem like the power-hungry sort, so I didn’t figure his plan hinged on that motivation.

Like me, Luca just wanted a place in the light.

He wanted love and recognition.

He wanted me above all else.

Didn’t I admire him because of his ruthlessness? The same characteristic that would make it possible for him to stage the kidnapping of his own brother, to maim him, if it meant getting what had been lost to him for so long.

I felt sick to my stomach as I planned the details of my evening with Hank and Finn, calling in Akira, Elijah, and Hank’s boys to hammer out the finer details.

Because even if this was all true, and it seemed increasingly likely it was, I couldn’t shake the extra weight of Luca in my heart.