Page 65 of She Belongs to Me

I gave him a look that told him in no uncertain terms to let it go. I wasn’t here to debate. I wasn’t here to discuss and come to a consensus. What I said as Don of the Marciano family was all that mattered.

Even if it meant shedding my nice guy clothes.

“We need to look at this differently,” Luca suggested.

I nodded, the glass in my hand too full. I took a sip.

“Okay. What are you suggesting?” Lucian, one of Domino’s men asked. They’d had a rivalry for years, as if they needed to get into a boxing ring. I wasn’t going to tolerate their sandbox antics. We didn’t have the luxury or time to waste.

“What about Gio? The visit you had the night Alexandra called?” Luca ignored him. Good for him.

I narrowed my eyes as I looked at the man. Often, he had damn good ideas that were right in front of me when I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

“What is he talking about?” Domino asked.

Chuckling, I lifted my glass toward Luca as a slight sign of respect. “I had a visit from Gio Strombali the other night before all this shit started. Literally, fifteen minutes before I received the call from Alexandra. He was balking at being the middleman with the crates of olive oil and other goodies heading to America. He was also insinuating the terms of the contract would need to be altered.” I was formulating my own thoughts about whether I’d been wrong about him.

Including all the hefty security checks that had been done prior to doing business with him years before.

Domino walked closer. “He came to the house?”

“He did and late at night. I got caught up in the moment of his ignorance in obeying the rules. He was acting like a weasel, which also surprised me. He was trying to pull out, telling me his client had gotten nervous.”

“And you didn’t take that so well,” Domino said.

“Hell, no. Not the visit at ten at night. Not his attitude. And certainly not what I heard.” I rubbed my finger across my bottom lip as I moved toward the massive window on the other side of the room.

I could feel the men calculating ideas in their heads from where I stood.

“You’re thinking it was nothing more than a setup, perhaps a test to see if Alexandra had called you yet.”

Domino was a little ahead of schedule. “I don’t think the timing was right at that point, nor did anyone plan on having a witness appear out of the blue. What I do think is that the shipment was never in demand, the clients nonexistent.”

“Plans on hijacking the cargo shipment,” Domino said in passing.

“Possibly. Either the interested enemy would sell the party favors and make millions or the police would be tipped off.”

“And you think Gio Strombali is an associate of Mattia Russo?” Luca laughed after putting the limited pieces together.

“I worked with Gio before you did,” Domino mused. “Yes, he was a weasel, but not a turncoat. I didn’t think he had it in him.”

“Maybe for a price or to fend off a threat.”

Enzo had a good point, but I wasn’t buying anything yet. “Mattia isn’t normally like that. He fashions himself to be a mirror image of my world. In fact, he’d touted it in the press. Look what the great crime syndicates can do with the right leaders. I always thought the man should run for public office.” And I was serious about that.

“Do you need a deep dive into Gio?” Domino asked, already grinning. He knew when my wheels were spinning, I was pulling shit together.

And God knew I hadn’t had my shit together over the last forty-eight hours.

Alexandra.

The name rolled off my tongue even if I hadn’t said it out loud.

“Yes, I do. Have him followed, but be extremely discreet. I don’t want him tipped off that I could be onto him. I just might set up a meeting with him to go over his bullshit contract.” I remembered he’d handed me a new one. Why hadn’t I thought about it before? I’d been so furious I’d shoved it into my desk and forgotten all about it with the crap going on. I returned to my desk quickly, aware the men were studying me. I found the six stapled pages easily, which was light for a contract of the requirements for the cargo.

Since it was going to another country, that meant standards were entirely different. Between being checked at both ports, going through a heavy round of customs and worrying about the rough waters, everything had to be spelled out. I was a businessman after all. Most of what was being shipped was completely legitimate and some of the best products in the world. I took pride in the production of our olive oil as did my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.

Plus, the clients I’d worked with for years in the United States owned a number of four-star restaurants with significant pull with their customers. It had seemed like a win.