Breaking another human being down, destroying him completely so he was willing to give up anything in order to stop what was happening, so he was willing to believe the pain would end, was long, exhausting work. It required stamina and the ability to disassociate completely.
Valentino had spent hours on the first two, who he was certain weren’t going to have much for him. They didn’t, other than to confirm that Angelo and Tommaso were up to their ears in the muck. His two cousins sent closed vans to collect freight in the dead of night and drop it off at the back of one of the auto repair shops, switching vehicles. More than once, one of the men had heard crying. The voices sounded very young. He hadn’t gone to investigate because it wasn’t his business.
The auto repair business looked legitimate but was a front for high-end stolen cars. The list of specific cars was brought in every fourth Thursday night, quickly turned over and taken by trucks to be shipped out to buyers. It was nearly impossible for anyone to catch on to what was happening in the shop as every other day of the month, the shop and workers did legitimate repairs and their work was impeccable.
Bernado had already discovered the illegal business in the way he had everything else Miceli did: by tracking the money. He had moved it from Miceli’s accounts, and when they raided the garage, they found the secret vault in the well beneath what appeared to be an oil reservoir in the cement. They took that as well.
In the corner of the shop, with a bundle of old dirty rags, Dario uncovered a threadbare blanket. It was clearly a child’s. Purple and green with a monkey in a tree. There were oil stains on it now. Dario retrieved the little square of material, swearing under his breath, his eyes going colder. Folding it, he looked around a little helplessly, as if he wasn’t certain where he could put it. Valentino held out his hand. With some reluctance, Dario gave it to him, and Val tucked it away until they got into the car and he could lay it on the seat so neither would forget it. They would do their best to clean the damn thing and find its owner.
They hit business after business and found the same thing. Extra cash. A ton of it. All bundled and ready to be sent out. Rumors of children having been in one or two briefly, but only for a few minutes, never seen, only heard by a couple of those they spoke with before they killed them. Miceli lost the majority of his soldiers, and they came up empty-handed with no real information to show for their work.
They had prisoners, key members of Miceli’s inner circle, ones Valentino hoped would give him what he needed to find the girls and children before Miceli and his sons could sell them. He spent long, hideous hours interrogating the two men just to find out they’d heard the children, confirming what that little blanket had told them—the children had been at the auto repair shop.
The other place the vans had been where someone had heard crying was a paint and body shop. That had surprised Valentino. The shop was located, not in one of the warehouses known to be used as a cover for Miceli’s dirtier work, but in the business district near Ferraro territory. Not in it, but very close to it. The shop was owned by two brothers who hadn’t had any affiliation with the organization.
Bernado had looked into them. Their books had been easy enough to hack. Valentino and his crew had raided the shop and found no evidence of the children or teens, but they had found the brothers. After four intense hours, Severu had gotten it out of them that they had actually seen children, both boys and girls, but no teens. The children had been there briefly, a pit stop only, and then they had been taken away.
Valentino was done for the night. Exhausted and discouraged that he hadn’t gotten any closer to getting to those children. He’d seen the look on Dario’s face. He felt the same. He took the private elevator upstairs to the suite Stefano had given him, ignoring his bodyguards, not wanting to talk to anyone.
It was late enough that he knew Giuseppi would already have gone to bed. He was normally good about giving his father updates, but not tonight. Not after the raids and interrogations and coming up empty. He should have tried to focus on the fact that they’d managed to free the women they had from the cages beneath the dungeon, but for him, it just wasn’t good enough. He’d failed those children yet again.