She was silent for a very long time, staring straight ahead into the darkness. She didn’t cry. She simply sat still. It made sense. Casimir hated that it made sense. He was more than certain he had it right. If the Porcelli family had decided to murder the Abbracciabene family, they would have started with Luigi, multiple sclerosis or not. He was the biggest danger to them. No way would they have allowed him to live.
“I have always trusted the information Tio Luigi gives me. I don’t have very many other resources. I found Belsky myself because I didn’t want to involve Tio Luigi in my hunt for the Sorbacovs just in case I missed. That’s why I took a chance on such a lowlife double-dealing weasel like Belsky. I was protecting Luigi.” She tapped her fingers on her thigh, her body very still, as if she held herself that way to keep from flying apart.
Casimir couldn’t imagine what she was feeling. Her only blood relative, the man she’d trusted all those years, had betrayed her parents and used her to get what he wanted. “Tell me what you want to do, Giacinta,” he said. “Whatever that is, I’m with you.”
She drew her legs up slowly until she could trace the horrendous scars crawling down her calf, shin and ankle where the dogs had ripped chunks of her flesh away. He covered her hand with his own, feeling her fingers brush lightly over the deep scars.
“We need information before we make a move. If you’re right about him, he won’t make his try for me until after I’ve dealt with Aldo. He’ll give me Aldo’s information and where best to hit him after I’ve taken out Cosmos. He’ll give me a story about how it’s now or never to get to him. Aldo would be the final hit.”
“What about Arturo? He had to have known. He’s been with your uncle for years. All the other guards talk about him like he’s the biggest deal to ever hit Italy.”
“He would have known,” she agreed. “But he’s totally loyal to Tio Luigi. He’d defend him with his life. If anything, because I trust him, he’d be the one to kill me, unless my uncle wanted to make certain I was really dead and planned to do it himself. Both of them would know he would only get one try at me.”
For the first time he realized that she might just be sitting beside him very, very still, but beneath the surface, a volcano was shimmering. It was there in the room with them, the heat rising so that he actually felt little beads of sweat forming on his body. A shimmer of light danced along the floor leading toward the door. He circled her ankle with his hand, keeping his eyes on the flame.
“You can’t set the house on fire.”
“Of course I can.”
He took a breath, willed her to breathe with him. “Not yet. We’ve got to make certain this isn’t all conjecture. No matter what Luigi did, Cosmos and Aldo were involved, and they need to go down. I can question Cosmos before he meets with his accident. He’ll talk.”
She shook her head. “Not if he’s loyal to Luigi and Aldo.”
“Never forget who and what I am, malyshka,” Casimir cautioned. “He’ll talk.”
She turned her head and looked at him, her eyes searching his. He didn’t know what he expected. Weeping. Anger. Shock. Anything but the determination he saw there. She was more like he was than he had first realized. She prized loyalty, and if her uncle had done such a horrendous thing as to have entered into a conspiracy with the Porcelli family and order the hits on her family, she was more than determined to see him pay.
“We have to be certain,” she said softly. “Angeline is a common enough name. We have to find out the name of Aldo’s sister and then find out if it’s the same woman my uncle is married to.”
“I can do that. I have many sources. We’ll find out the information fast.” His hands went to the messy topknot in her hair. She didn’t protest when he took it down and slowly slid his fingers through the thick weave of her braid until her hair spilled free. “I brought your brush in.” He picked it up off the nightstand. “Sit in front of me.”
“I can brush my hair.” It was a halfhearted protest.
“I know you can, but I want to do it. I wanted to do it from the first moment I saw you boarding the plane. You looked so proper, your hair all up on top of your head, twisted into that perfect style. I knew then I wanted to see you all messy, your hair spilling across my pillow and your lips swollen from my kisses. That want grew into a need, and now I’ve got you with me and I intend to indulge in every little fantasy, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant.”