“Dario always looks after Val,” Giuseppi assured her, patting her shoulder. “Let me look at you.” He held her at arm’s length, his eyes running over her. “You look scared for him, Emme. Valentino is strong. He’ll pull through.”
She nodded, but Giuseppi hadn’t seen him. There was so much blood. Too much. She wanted to bury her face in her brother’s chest and sob, but they needed to secure the house. “How many men do you have that you can count on to be loyal?”
Giuseppi sighed. “Valentino and Dario shot four that were traitors in our own house. That saddened me greatly. These men were ones I had known most of their lives. I have no idea how Miceli managed to get to them, but I will find out. I would never have believed they would turn on me.”
Looking at him, Emmanuelle felt a small shiver go through her. Giuseppi always seemed to be a sweet old man. He told her stories and laughed with Greta, bringing his wife flowers, sneaking her the occasional doughnut that she wasn’t supposed to have. Right then, looking into his eyes, Emmanuelle saw the killer in him, the head of the Saldi crime family, which he’d ruled with an iron fist for so many years.
“We need to know if Miceli knows about this house, Giuseppi,” Giovanni pushed. “And if we can count on any of your men to aid us if he sends an army after you and Val.”
Giuseppi smiled at her brother—a shark’s smile. “Who would have thought that the Ferraros and Saldis would have to fight together to survive?”
“Why is Miceli so determined to take over?” Emmanuelle asked.
“Human trafficking makes a tremendous amount of money, Emme,” Giuseppi said. “Val tried to tell me some time ago that Miceli was selling women. I thought, at first, he meant the strip clubs. We have plenty of strip clubs. I visited all of them. We have high-class clubs and very raunchy clubs, but the ladies know the score, and no one makes them do anything they don’t want to do. I visited every single one of them with Valentino and Dario. We made surprise visits and talked to the staff and girls. I saw no hint of human trafficking.”
“I thought Miceli had his own territory,” Giovanni said.
Giuseppi steepled his fingers but did so directly over his weapon. “True, but he must answer to me. I checked every one of his clubs. His girls were not treated with the same respect as mine, but they made no complaints, and I made certain to speak to them privately. If they were trafficked women, they certainly did not seem to be, and Valentino didn’t think so, either.”
“Val didn’t drop it,” Emmanuelle guessed. She knew how stubborn Valentino could be when he was certain he was right.
“No, I tried to get him to focus on who was pushing drugs and weapons in Ferraro territory, who was killing and leaving bodies to take us to the very brink of war with Stefano, but he said he was certain Miceli was throwing out red herrings to get us to look at anything but trafficking. I argued with Valentino so many times. Terrible arguments.”
For a moment, Emmanuelle felt sorry for the older man. He looked tired and sad. His wife had been dying, and his son had been angry and accusing his uncle of horrific, vile and treacherous deeds. How many times had Val tried to call her? To text her? She’d blocked him, and he’d found other ways to get around it and had communicated with her until she couldn’t stand it and shut that down as well. He’d needed to reach out to someone he trusted and talk over his worries about what Miceli was up to. She’d been too hurt to listen to him.
Giovanni wrapped his palm around the nape of her neck. “I take it Val found Miceli’s trafficking ring?”
“Someone was abducting beautiful, very young girls, taking them off the streets all over the country. Very young. Underage. Virgins. So, fourteen or fifteen. They would bring them in from other states and hold them in a warehouse. Five to eight at a time. Little, terrified girls, in these tiny, dirty cells for however long it took to bring in five of them, and then they’d clean them up and put them up for auction. Miceli would hold an exclusive event and auction these children to the highest bidder. They’d bring in millions for him.”
Emmanuelle’s stomach turned. “How did Val know?”
Giuseppi frowned. “He knows things. He always has, even as a child. I should have remembered that, but Miceli is my brother, and I didn’t want to think he would do what Valentino said he did.”
Emmanuelle had the feeling the older man wasn’t talking about human trafficking, but she didn’t ask.