Flight 12: A Sloane Monroe Thriller (Flight 12 Begins Series Book 4) (5 page)

Daniela’s eyes doubled in size. “You…will? Are you serious?”

“No offense, but Misty didn’t deserve to die for your father,” I said. “I’ll help, on her behalf, not his. Before I do, I need to know something. How did you know I was at the hotel?”

“The butler for her room,” Daniela said. “He also works for us.”

“Where was he when she was being murdered?”

Daniela grimaced, her face flushed, embarrassed. “Smoke break.”

“Great timing,” I said.

“When you were being interviewed by the police, he managed to snap a couple photos on his cell phone. He forwarded them to us. We didn’t believe it at first, but there you were. Within five minutes, Giovanni sent Vincent and Cesare to pick you up. It all happened so fast, he never really communicated who you were before they—”

I raised a hand in the air. “We’ve moved past all that now. What I don’t understand is—how could you send Misty to deal with Rocco alone? The room should have been bugged. You should have been listening.”

“Misty’s not just some girl, she’s an ex-cop from Washington. She quit several years back after she witnessed a teenager die in an armed robbery. Guess the kid was someone she knew. She never got past it. Bottom line, she knew how to defend herself, knew how to use a gun.”

Not well enough.  

“Who else besides you two knew I was in Misty’s room last night?”

Daniela shrugged. “Nobody. Everybody. We don’t know. They could have had someone on the inside just like we did.”

I thought about the surveillance cameras I’d passed on the way out of Misty’s room, and my stomach turned. The phone on Giovanni’s desk buzzed. He answered it, listened, set the phone back down again.

“We weren’t taking chances then, and we’re not taking any now,” he said.

The door opened. One of the muscle men glanced at Giovanni.

“Show her in,” Giovanni said.

“Show
who
in?” I asked.

Maddie entered into the room, a wide grin on her face.  

“You were supposed to wait for me at the hotel,” I said.

She gestured to the muscle man who walked in behind her. “Tough Guy here met me there, told me you were with Giovanni, and said it wasn’t necessary for me to check in.”

“Why not?”

“He said we’d been invited to stay with Giovanni.” She glanced at Giovaani. “Right?” 

Wrong.

“I’m not staying here.
We’re
not staying here.”

Giovanni interlaced his fingers, pleased he’d regained control, taken the upper hand. “I gave you a chance, several chances. I asked you to leave the city. You said no. Until you decide otherwise, you’ll remain here. You’ll
both
remain here, as my guests.”

“Your guests or your captives?” I clasped Maddie’s arm. “I’ve changed my mind. We’re leaving. We’ll fly out tonight.”

“You’re staying,” Giovanni said. “Do you really expect me to believe you’ll leave now after fighting so hard to stay?”

“You can’t keep us here,” I spat.  

He crossed his arms in front of him, grinned. “I can, and I will.”

I festered, fumed inside one of the many guest bedrooms in Giovanni’s house. “The nerve of him! He never stopped me in the past.”

Maddie crossed one leg over the other, reclined back on one of six gold and black designer pillows plumped across a California king-sized bed. She looked at me like I was overreacting. “This is different.”

“I don’t see how. It’s not the first time I’ve been in danger, if I’m even
in
danger, and it won’t be the last.”

“You two aren’t together anymore. It changes things.”

Even if I tried to leave, the house was dripping with Giovanni’s men. Too many men. Even for me.

“We need to get out of here,” I said.

Maddie raised a brow. “Have you considered Giovanni’s position in all of this?”

Of course not. It wasn’t worth my consideration.

“He needs to find out why this Misty chick died, how Rocco found out what she was up to,” Maddie continued. “Besides, it’s not like he’s going to hurt either one of us.”

“Why aren’t you concerned? You have a class to teach tomorrow. How are you supposed to do that when you’re stuck here?”

She grinned. “Oh, I’m not stuck. We worked it out.”

“Worked what out?” I asked.

“The guy that picked me up today will be my escort tomorrow. I’ll teach my class, and then I’ll come back here.”

“
One
guy makes you feel safe?”

“From what he says, he was some kind of sharp-shooter in his past life. I’m not worried.”

It was just like her. She never worried about anything. Balls of fire could be pelting the earth, and she’d still be sitting half-naked on the bed filing her nails. My life, on the other hand, was usually spent in a constant state of restless paranoia.  

“Sloane, maybe you should take something … you know … to calm you down. Get your OCD out of overdrive.”

“How could you think—”

Daniela entered the room. She looked at me. I looked at her. My mouth closed.

“Don’t be mad at me,” she said. “It’s not my fault my brother’s bullheaded.”

“If you two hadn’t sent Misty to do your dirty work, she’d still be alive,” I scolded.  

“Taking cheap shots at me won’t change the past. I blame myself for what happened. Misty was my friend.”

“I wasn’t taking a cheap shot. I was being serious. Have you ever heard the saying about a chain only being as strong as its weakest link? You attacked Rocco, the strongest link, the one that doesn’t budge for anyone. What you should have done was start with someone who’s high enough in the family to know inside information, but weak enough to talk under the right circumstances.”

I didn’t have to say her childhood wooer’s name for her to know who I was talking about.

“The right circumstances being …?”

“I don’t know … drugged?”

I couldn’t believe I’d suggested it.

“Drugged, as in, temporarily?”

It was the kind of conversation Maddie couldn’t resist. She brought her knees in front of her, propped herself up on a pillow. “It’s easier than you think.”

“You talk like you speak from experience,” Daniela said.

I managed to crack a smile. “She does.”

“I don’t know,” Daniela said. “We don’t have any of the information we were supposed to get. Earlier I said I wanted your help, and I do. I’m just not sure where to go from here.”

“You have one main objective,” I said.

“I know. Rocco.”

“Not Rocco. The information he can give you.”

“We still don’t know where the drugs are coming from, how they’re getting here, or who’s supplying them.”

“Wrong.” I dug into my pocket, lifted out the copy of the plane ticket. “We have this.”

“Where did you get that?” Daniela asked.

“Inside the glove box of the car Misty was driving,” I said. “Are you saying you didn’t know about it?”

Daniela shook her head. “The last time I talked to Misty, she told me she had information that would lead us to the answers we needed. She didn’t want to discuss the details over the phone. She had something to show me. She planned to see Rocco one last time, and then we were supposed to meet up the next morning.”

“That might explain why she was killed. This flight document is a copy. It had to be printed or scanned from somewhere. Maybe Rocco’s computer.” I pointed to the destination on the ticket. “He’s flying to Rome.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow. Midnight.”

I pointed to the name penned at the top of the page. “Do you know anyone who goes by the name Dashner?”

She shook her head. “Never heard it before.” 

“Before Johnny plunged to his death, he asked me if I was working with her, if I’d hired her. He seemed confused.”

“If Rocco doesn’t know we’re involved, maybe we can still find out what he’s up to.”

“Whether he knows or he doesn’t, you need to be sure,” I said. “If Rocco plans an attack, a retaliation, you need to be ready.”

“Trust me, Giovanni didn’t want to alarm you, but … we’re ready.”

As if the men weaving in and out of his mansion weren’t an indication.

“Why didn’t you give us this information before?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Didn’t seem like the right time. Now it does.”

It was a polite way of saying I didn’t feel Giovanni deserved the information, so I didn’t give it to him.

“What else did you find in the car?” she asked. “Anything?”

“A napkin from a nightclub.”

“Essence?”

“How’d you know?”

“Rocco owns the place. It’s one of five clubs he operates in the city, but it’s the only one he frequents.”

“It’s not like it’s some kind of secret though, right?”

“Anyone who’s anyone knows he’s there most nights. He’s highly guarded. No one can get to him unless he wants them to.”

The napkin from the night club was important. But how? “Tell me more about the heroin.”

“What more do you want to know?”

“Heroin usually comes from Colombia, doesn’t it?” I asked.

“Colombia is the primary supplier, but there are others.”   

“And yet, Rocco’s not flying to Colombia. He’s flying to Italy. Who’s in Italy?”

“Family. Only about a third of the Romano family lives in the states. The rest live on a private island in Rome. The fact he’s flying there tomorrow means nothing to me. He flies there all the time. Misty must have assumed the plane ticket was a big deal, although I can’t see why.”

“What about the family businesses?” I asked. “Do they operate together or separately?”

“Together.”

One family, two bases of operation. Did one distribute the heroin to the other?

“We need to find out where this laced heroin comes from. Even if we don’t have a specific manufacturer, we should at least be able to find out what country we’re dealing with.”

“What do you mean,
laced
?” Maddie asked.

I filled her in on the heroin conversation the rest of us had before she arrived.

“I know exactly what you’re talking about,” Maddie said when I finished. “They think some of it’s being made right here in the US.” 

Daniela shook her head. “It can’t be. Are you sure?”

“There are two different versions,” Maddie continued. “Pharmaceutical grade and non-pharmaceutical grade. Most of the dealers in the states are pimping the non-pharmaceutical stuff, probably being made in a clandestine lab in Mexico. There’s a lot more of it, and it’s easier to get. The newer, updated strain sells for a lot more. It’s rumored to be made in the states, only no one knows where.”

I had an additional theory.

“What if it’s a trade-off? What if the Romano families here and in Italy are working together to distribute this strain of heroin?”

“What are you saying?” Daniela asked.

“One side provides the heroin, the other provides the fentanyl.”

“It’s possible,” Maddie said.

“If I’m right, Rocco’s not just smuggling it
in
,” I said. “He’s smuggling it out.”

I removed the napkin from Essence nightclub from my other pocket. Looked at it. Front and then back. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I opened it. After fanning it out into a perfect square, I made an unusual discovery.

“What is that?” Daniela asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Looks like a piece of tape.”

She held out her hand. “Can I see it?”

I handed it over.

She lifted the taped section to her face, inspected it. “There’s something under here.”

“Beneath the tape?” I asked.

“Yep.”

She gently tugged on an edge of the tape, inserted her finger beneath it, pulled it back out, stuck the tiniest sliver of white powder into her mouth.   

“Yep, it has a kind of vinegar-like taste to it,” Daniela said.  

“Heroin?”

Daniela nodded.

I didn’t ask her if she was sure, or how she knew she was sure. Looking at her face it was obvious there had been a time when she, herself, chased the dragon. “Looks like we know where they’re storing it.”

Between the printed flight document and the napkin laced with smack, somewhere along the way, Misty slipped up.  

“Now that we’re on to something, the question is—what are we going to do about it?” Daniela asked.  

I lifted a finger. “I have an idea, but I’ll need your help.”

Daniela curved her lips into a smile. “All right. Let’s hear it.”

Giovanni invited me to meet him in the dining room for dinner. Given the uncomfortable circumstances between us, I had every intention to decline were it not for wanting to see the look on his face when my plan was put into action.  

Maddie had been whisked away by Daniela, which was fitting. She hadn’t been invited to what I assumed was only a two-person dinner party. He wanted to see me alone. I wasn’t sure why he bothered. At this point, there was nothing more to say. Not on my end. Why reopen a wound after working so hard to close it? 

In the time we’d been apart, I escaped inside myself, shut everyone out, taking several months off from accepting new clients in order to consider my life choices—the good, the bad, the horrendously ugly. As people go, Giovanni fell into all three. I wondered which side I’d see tonight.

I walked into a stark white room, sat in a chair opposite him even though he’d pulled out a chair to his right. We may have been several feet apart, but the way his eyes drilled into mine made it feel like mere inches.

“You look nice,” he said.

I was wearing a frumpy, multicolored tank top, a shawl, and leggings. There wasn’t anything
nice
about it.

“You cut your hair since I saw you last,” he continued. “It’s short, darker than I remember. What do they call that style again?”

A pixie cut, you idiot. Stop fishing.

I didn’t respond, instead shifting my gaze to a bowl an older woman wrapped in a stained, white apron had just placed in front of me. It was soup. Reddish-orange. Some kind of creamy tomato from the tangy smell of it. I took a sip, behaved like I was the only person in the room.

“You’ve decided never to speak to me again,” Giovanni asked. “Is that it?”

I released the tight grip I had on the spoon in my hand. It clanked against the side of the bowl. “Do you have any children?”

He thought about it, which answered the question better than words ever could. He did have children. No explanation needed.

“A daughter. Allesandra.” 

“In all the time we dated, you never mentioned her to me. Why?”

“I didn’t see how it was relevant,” he said.  

“You didn’t see how it was
relevant
? How is it possible someone as intelligent as yourself doesn’t understand how a normal relationship works?”

“If we would have advanced further, I would have told you.”

If we would have
advanced
? The nerve of him. Even then he wouldn’t have told me. The timing was never right. Not when it came to revealing details about himself. For someone who was once so warm, he’d grown incredibly cold.

Daniela had yet to show her face and make the announcement we planned. I was through waiting. I tossed the napkin on my lap onto the table, backed the chair up, stood.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Away from you.”

“Wait a minute. Allow me to finish the conversation.”

“We weren’t having a conversation. Enjoy your evening, Giovanni.”

“She’s dead.”

She’s. Dead.

I pivoted. “What did you say?”

“Allesandra. She passed away.”

“What? When? How?” 

“Years ago. It was a time in my life I’m not proud of, a time long past. I no longer talk about it. I’m sorry if that’s not good enough for you, but it’s all I’m willing to say on the subject.”

Before I could even consider how to respond, Daniela entered, proving herself the queen of bad timing.

“I’ve arranged a dinner party for tomorrow night,” she declared.  

Giovanni’s expression hardened. “Without speaking to me first?”

“I don’t need your permission.”

“I never said you did. I would have liked to know about it before you made plans.”

“You do know about it,” Daniela said. “I just told you.”

“Who have you invited, and why?”

Daniela broke eye contact with Giovanni and looked at me, clearly implicating my involvement in the scheme we’d hatched.  

His attention diverted to me. “What have you done?”

“She hasn’t
done
anything,” Daniela said. “I’ve invited the Romanos for dinner. Not all of them, just Rocco, his brother, Rocco’s wife, their children. They said yes. It was easy.”

“You did
what
?”

“They’re family, Gio.”

The words “they’re family” clung to my face like raw humidity on a hot day. What had she meant by that?

“As long as they don’t know we hired Misty, they have no reason to suspect a thing,” Daniela continued. “If they do know, we won’t be able to hide from it anyway, so why not find an excuse to clear us of any wrongdoing, and get it out in the open?”

“Why would you do this?”

“I want the chance to speak with Benny. Alone.”

“And what am I supposed to do with Rocco in the meantime?”

“Talk business,” Daniela said.

“We don’t ‘talk business’ between families. You know that.”

Daniela’s shoulders bobbed up and down. She stole an olive from a bowl in the center of the table, popped it into her mouth. “You’ll think of something. You always do.”

The more enraged Giovanni became, the faster I walked to the door, deciding it would be best to allow brother and sister to hash out the details themselves.
Some
of the details. The other specifics would have to remain between us three girls until our plan had been carried out.  

A shrill, high-pitched squeal tore through the room, stopping me from making my exit. “Hellooo? Giovanni? You here?”

Daniela stiffened, all except for her eyes, which jerked in my direction.

A woman entered the dining room. She wore a fitted black dress with a plunging neckline that cut between her breasts, studded stiletto heels, and glossy, red lipstick. Her skin was tan, her hair long, wavy, the same dark-chocolate shade as mine. The woman looked at me, smirked. She knew who I was. And yet, I didn’t know her. Not officially. I’d seen her once before sitting beside Giovanni at Carlo’s funeral, but I’d slipped out before we were introduced.

“You weren’t supposed to return for another three days.” Giovanni attempted to speak in an even tone, even though his nervousness was apparent.

“I decided to come home early. Is that a problem?” The woman extended an arm toward me, pointer finger extended. “Will someone explain to me what
she’s
doing here, in
my
house?”

“
She
has a name,” I said.

“Oh, I know your name,” she said. “Allow me to tell you mine. It’s Valentina Violeta Romano Luciana.”

It took me an entire minute to process those four little words. It took even longer for me to accept them. It felt like the room was spinning and I was about to plunge down the rabbit hole. “Romano? Any relation to Rocco?”

“Ah, I see you know my brother.” She leaned in to Giovanni, smothered his mouth with her lips. When she pulled back, an oily smudge remained. He brushed it away.

“I understand you also know my husband,” Valentina said.  

A kid I didn’t know about, followed by a wife I didn’t know about. Fantastic.

“How long have you two been married?” I squeaked.

“Let me put it this way,” she said, hand on hip, “long before the two of you ever met.”

My breathing stilled. I braced myself against the edge of a wooden chair by the door. Not seeing the potential for the situation to get any worse, I inhaled a lungful of air and steadied myself, just in time to see a young boy’s head peek through the door.

“Daddy, daddy!” he screamed.

The boy, who couldn’t have been much older than three, ran to Giovanni, wrapping his stick-like arms around Giovanni’s leg.

Unless Allesandra had risen from the dead, aged backward, and changed sexes, I’d just met Giovanni’s second child.  

Giovanni ran a hand through the boy’s soft, brown hair, cupped the boy’s cheek. “Run along and play, Marcelo. I’ll come find you in a while, and we can talk about your trip.”

Marcelo’s face saddened as he realized he was being turned away. He walked past me, his bottom lip jutting out, face stuck on the ground. I followed him out the door.

“Sloane, wait just a—”

I half-turned. “No, Giovanni. Spend some time with your
wife
.”