Page 62 of The Broker

“No, never. I’m telling the truth, I swear. Check my phone.”

“Oh, I will.”

“It’s not Verratti,” Valentina says, throwing Marco’s phone down in frustration. “Look at the timestamp of this text. Seven-fifteen in the morning, four days ago.” She clicks a window on her laptop. “And this is the conversation Salvatore is having with his security chief. Spot anything?”

I notice it at once. “The messages have been sent at the same time.”

“Yes. Someone pretended to be Verratti, sent Marco money and Antonio’s location, and set this up.”

“Revenant again?”

She nods somberly. “Who else could it be? Here’s what I don’t understand. How did Revenant find out about Marco? From all accounts, he was in southern Italy, living a quiet but impoverished existence. He hasn’t stepped foot in Venice in ten years. He’s never been on Antonio’s payroll or Verratti’s.”

“Salvatore knew about the incident on the docks.” I search my memory. “Marco approached Verratti for a job after he got kicked out of Venice. Salvatore called Antonio to find out why.”

“But why would Salvatore tell Revenant about Marco?” she asks skeptically. “Revenant’s been stealing from Verratti. The two of them aren’t working together.”

“None of this makes sense.” I take a deep breath and squeeze her hand. “But Verratti is in jail, and his employees now work for us. Thankfully, all of this will be over soon.”

But we still haven’t found Revenant, and I can’t shake off my lingering unease.

Trouble always comes in threes, my mother used to say.

First, Acerbi was shot.

Then, Antonio.

And the third?

I’ve learned to listen to my intuition, and right now, it’s screaming a warning. This isn’t over. Not by a long shot.

28

VALENTINA

My first reaction when Dante says this will be over soon? I’m skeptical. It feels like we’ve been in danger for so long that I’ve forgotten what normalcy feels like.

But as the days go by and nothing happens, I exhale.

It’s the week before Christmas. While the padrino recuperates in the hospital, Dante systematically dismantles the Bergamo mafia and integrates Verratti’s team into our own, and Angelica and I go shopping for presents.

“It feels surreal to worry about Christmas shopping,” I tell Dante late at night, tracing circles on his muscled chest with my fingertips. “I keep checking my phone to see if there’s another network incursion attempt, but there’s nothing. Revenant’s justgone.He’s not trying to hack into our systems and hasn’t posted on the forums. For all intents and purposes, he’s disappeared.”

“Mmm.”

I prop myself up on an elbow. “What do you think? Are we in the clear?”

“I don’t know,” he confesses. “I want to believe that Revenant’s cut his losses. That would be the rational thing to do. But—”

“But people don’t always act rationally,” I finish.

He nods. “There are a couple things that don’t make sense. Federico’s murder, for one. Salvatore claims he didn’t do it, and I’m inclined to believe him.” He rolls over on his back and stares at the ceiling. “Then there’s Bianca Di Palma and Romano Franzoni. Nobody’s heard from them.”

“What if Franzoni found out the Carabinieri were closing in on Verratti? Maybe he fled, taking his mother with him?”

“It’s a good theory, except Giorgio swore that Bianca Di Palma’s house had been ransacked. Maybe Franzoni faked an abduction, but why?” He exhales in frustration. “Life is messy. Things don’t always slot neatly and tidily into place. Sometimes, there are loose ends that never get resolved.” He shrugs. “My brain tells me this is over, but my gut says something different.”

“I’m surprised you were okay with our shopping trip.”