Chapter 20: Chapter 20

The view from my office is serene as it overlooks the hustling city of Manhattan. Millions of people simply moving around in their lives without a care in the world has my mind wandering to the quiet moments of laughter, pockets of joy that I shared with Lia after what could have been a traumatic night.

I run my tongue over the scab on my lip. It’s healing fast enough. The flashes of Lia taking her anger out on me does something visceral to my body. It gives me a jolt of anticipation. I can’t wait to tell her the good news.

When Cecilia walks into my office, I’m almost certain it’s about business. Barten business, not family business. Although I’ve had her busy the past few weeks working with Lia’s parents, I’m sure she’s happy to get back to her regular duties as well.

‘They’re situated. I don’t know where, before you ask,’ she huffs, taking a seat in the chair in front of my desk. ‘From every source I could tap, Saul’s none the wiser either. The most he might hear is that the Southern District of New York is building a RICO case on him with hidden witnesses under a federal judge’s lock and key.’

‘That’s nothing new. They’re always building cases on us.’

She folds her arms over her chest. ‘That’s not a good thing. Jeff says that you’re barely skating by. Don’t get too wrapped up in whatever it is you’re doing behind the scenes to throw mud at Caputo. You might dirty yourself in the process.’

‘Thankfully for me, I have some of the best housekeeping with Armande. We don’t like to leave messes just lying around for anyone to find. There won’t be any mysterious bodies floating to the surface of the Hudson. At least, not from my family. Besides, Jeff needs to mind his business. I can make his life difficult in case he’s forgotten that I’m Valentino Barrone, one of the largest political campaign donors in the state. If I even sneeze a word that he’s bedding a lawyer involved with his witnesses, how does he think that’s going to go down?’

‘And just throw me and my career under the bus, right?’ She rolls her eyes. ‘I hope you don’t think that I’m going to simply work for my family for the rest of my life, Valley. I love you dearly, and it’s because of that I’m probably going to change companies, or fucking careers. I’ve touched criminal law with this Bonetti situation and I take it all back. I’d rather stick to boring corporate stuff.’

‘What? Are the cloak and dagger movements of federal law enforcement too scary?’ I tease her.

‘It is actually. They have more gray areas than La Familia. How does it make sense, morally, to give up on a kidnapping victim because it’s going to make the case they’re already building too difficult to try in court?’

‘At least she’s safe,’ I tell her.

Cecilia gets up to close the door. She looks around and asks the question. ‘Secure?’

I push a button under my desk that lowers the automatic window blinds and sends out a signal to every piece of electronic equipment in the room. It effectively turns my office into a lead box that no one can listen in or record.

I nod once I’m sure the process is complete.

‘Tell me again what you did. Because when I spoke to Jeff this morning, he was more scared of you than Caputo. He actually said he thinks you’re CIA.’

‘Barten Security has been known to do contract work on foreign soil for various government entities in the best interest of national security. As far as this Saul and Bonetti situation, do you want me to break it down from the beginning?’

She narrows her gaze. ‘I know about the feud between the families, so no, not the beginning. But this shit about Lia being kidnapped? You are way too calm for it to be a legitimate threat.’

‘The night those first three assholes broke into her home to snatch her, they didn’t get the job done. Instead of reporting their failure, we found the guy who hired them, some asshole named Jimmy out of Brooklyn. We’ve been holding him up until Saturday. We had Jimmy call Saul and convince Saul he’s been holding Lia this entire time.’

‘Why would Saul believe that?’ she asks.

‘Jimmy told Saul that it was never explained that Lia belonged to me which puts Jimmy’s life in danger. He was very right. While we held Jimmy, and kept Lia in hiding, I had my intel teams digging up as much dirt on Saul as possible to document his crimes of extortion, racketeering, and running a criminal enterprise.’

‘You gave the New York prosecutor their RICO case.’

‘In exchange for putting Lia’s parents in witness protection. Once we had that deal solid, I had to stage the kidnapping. I mixed the evidence from the night of the real kidnapping attempt to the one I planned Friday. That evidence is really for La Familia to sanction a hit on Caputo. Me and Saul had an agreement that Lia was protected so long as I stopped interfering with her parents. He should have called off that original kidnapping but he didn’t. Not only did he not call it off, but when Jimmy finally reached out to him on Friday, he demanded the Bonetti family sign over their business and for me to give him five million for the ransom.’

‘Fuck. Where’s Lia now?’

‘The beach house in the Hamptons. I’m going to move her out of state for a while. I had Underwood do some nasty work with some lady corpses to make it look like Lia Bonetti died while captured by kidnappers. The police did a full court press of arresting Caputo for it after her parents pointed the finger at him.’

Shock blankets her face. ‘That’s awfully dangerous of them.’

‘If Lia was actually kidnapped, it only made sense for them to blame Saul. Even Saul knows that. So Saul did the song and dance for the media and the police because he believes there’s no actual evidence linking him to her kidnapping.’

‘Jesus, Valley, and that’s what you gave Jeff?’

‘I gave it to Jeff and another don. Like I said, the kidnapping is for me to put him in the ground without the backlash from La Familia. As far as the Bonetti family goes, Saul also understands that they’d shutter their business rather than sign it over to him. He expects them to go into hiding after accusing him of kidnapping their daughter. So there’s a new company working their construction gigs. Bolton something, but that company is definitely one of Saul’s. They’re probably skimming off the top of that government contract right now. It’s going to simply add to the RICO case.’

‘When is Saul out of the picture for good? How long does Lia have to stay out of town? I kind of like her and want to get to know the woman who literally gets to punch you in the face with no repercussions.’

That gets a laugh out of me. But she asked the million-dollar question. ‘The thing with Saul is a delicate play. I don’t want to show my hand and the other dons think I’m making a move to go against La Familia. I don’t want them to think I’m trying to double my territory by taking Saul out. I don’t want anything that belongs to Caputo. I just want him dead so Lia and her family can feel safe in New York, fuck, anywhere. I have to do it in a way that his organization will turn against him. When those pictures and videos of Underwood and Jimmy come out, it’s going to look like they’re brutalizing Lia for something as minor as an extortion beef. He’ll be done and I’ll be given the green light.’

She nods. ‘How much does Lia know about this?’

‘She knows that I’m doing everything I can to keep her and her family safe, but she doesn’t know where the bodies are buried or anything like that.’

‘Are you going to tell her?’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t think she wants to know that.’

‘Valentino, I’m telling you that if this is the woman you love⁠—’

‘Fuck, Armande has a big fucking mouth.’

She smiles. ‘It’s okay to love people and to let people like you, love you, Valley. If this is the woman you love, if Lia is this person, you have to be honest with her in a way that’s beyond intimate. The ugly side of who you are as Don Barrone and as the CEO of Barten. This corporation’s money may be clean, but its hands are fucking filthy. We do a lot of rough and tough shit, Valley. Don’t keep her in the dark too much. Spare her the guts and gore, but bare your heart and soul.’

‘Listen to you sounding like a fucking Hallmark card. I’m going to tell her. I have to get out there today anyhow. I’ve been so busy making sure this plan goes off without a hitch, I forgot to leave her with a phone out there.’

Cecilia swirls her finger in the air as a signal to drop the secure protection around the office. She pulls out her phone once it’s done and frowns. When she glances at me, I feel a pit forming in my stomach as I pull out my phone from a drawer in my desk.

Fourteen missed calls.

‘I have three missed calls, and like a hundred text messages from Armande telling me to get you on the phone,’ Cecilia says with mild panic in her voice.

‘I got it. I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. It’s nothing but a Monday,’ I assure her as she gets up from her seat to leave the office. I know it’s more than that. I just hope it’s work related and nothing to do with Lia.

‘The minute I call Armande, he’s out of breath. ‘Don’t be mad.’

Rage initiated.

‘Go.’

‘She’s gone,’ he says.

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

Armande pants into the phone as if he’s running a marathon. ‘The guys on the boat? They told the guys on the street to go for breakfast and that since you told her not to leave the house, it would be fine.’

‘That’s not how we do things. They’re being paid to do a job.’

Armande groans. ‘Valley, I know that, but they thought it was personal.’

‘It was and is.’

‘They thought she would stay put. The ’69 Camaro is gone and so is Lia.’

I push myself out of my chair, grab my keys, and rush out of the office. There’s no way I’m going to sit around and wait to hear some awful shit like Saul Caputo actually found her. Why the fuck did she leave in the first place?

‘Do we have eyes on her apartment? Or her parents’ house?’ I ask.

‘I’m pulling up to her parents’ house now. Shit. I found the Camaro. I’m going inside,’ Armande says. I can hear him arming himself and busting through the front door. ‘The place is cleared out.’

‘I know. I had a team put everything in storage for them after they took off with Jeff on Saturday. Is Lia’s car there? It was in the driveway.’

‘No, your car is in her spot. Did we have a GPS put on her car?’ he asks.

‘No, but I have a feeling I know where she went. She’d go somewhere she felt safe and not alone. I can’t believe I fucked this up.’

‘You didn’t fuck anything up, Valley. Tell me where to go. Where am I meeting you and do I need to bring my cleaning supplies?’ Armande sounds like he hasn’t had enough yet. Even though I know he’s spent the better part of the last thirty-six hours dismembering Jimmy.

‘The cousin’s place. Bring something to get that door off the frame. Shit is sturdy.’

‘Copy that. See you soon.’ Armande hangs up and I make my way to the Lower East Side, where a breeze of betrayal feels heavy in the air. I know I shouldn’t have kept Lia in the dark, but she shouldn’t have just taken off. Doesn’t she understand how dangerous all of this shit is? Doesn’t she understand that I’m the only person who can keep her safe?

When I get to Frankie’s place, I have to wait for Armande to arrive and he gets to work on the door.

He stops drilling for a moment, looking at me. ‘Did you see if anyone was home?’

‘Not the time, Armande. Open the door.’

He shrugs and gets back to breaking and entering. A part of me wants his levity to be what I feel, that Lia is holed up in this apartment with her cousin who’s more like a brother because she feels safer here with him than alone in the Hamptons. However, the nagging pit in my stomach is telling me that’s not the case. There’s something else happening here.

The door to Frankie’s apartment doesn’t stand a chance as I break it down. The place is in shambles. Clothes are everywhere. Cabinet doors swing open, almost like a robbery, but nothing of value was taken.

‘What the fuck happened here?’ Armande asks, looking around. His eyes are scanning every surface, just like mine. I’m looking for blood and signs of Lia putting up a damn good fight.

‘I, uh, I don’t know. It looks like he left in a hurry. Frankie, her cousin, packed up a bunch of shit and split,’ I tell Armande as we gingerly step around the apartment.

I don’t want to touch anything, but something white amid the chaos grabs my attention and tears my heart out of its chest. A plain white envelope with my name on it. I pray it’s from Lia and has nothing to do with Saul.

With my pulse thundering in my ears, my hands shake violently as I tear it open and read the letter inside.

My dearest Valentino,

There aren’t enough words to say how thankful I am to you, your friends, your “family,” for keeping me safe. Thank you for coming to my rescue and doing everything you could to get that monster out of our lives. I got worried when I didn’t hear from you, so I tried calling and when I couldn’t get a hold of anyone, I panicked. I’m sorry.

I know you told me to stay in the house, but I couldn’t just leave my family out here, exposed and in danger. Frankie showed me the news clips. I know Saul believes I’m dead, so I think it’s best for all of us to keep it that way. I can’t stay in the city and I don’t want you to go through any more trouble over me. I’ll never ever forget you. I hope your lip heals and maybe when I settle down wherever I end up, I can reach out to you. I don’t want Saul to find me, and I don’t want you to continue paying for my family’s decisions. You are a man I could have loved in a different life. I’m going to miss you always.

Love, Lia

P.S. Frankie says that if you broke his door down, please replace it. His friend is coming by later to move in until Frankie feels New York is safe for him again.

I smash the letter into Armande’s chest and storm out of the apartment. Rage boils from the inside out before I feel the stinging burn of tears welling in my eyes. I pull out my phone to place a call. It doesn’t take long for Dimitri to answer.

‘Yes, Don Barrone, how may I assist you?’

I don’t bother trying to hide the pain in my voice as I put in my request. ‘Get me the bone breaker, Dimitri.’

When I feel Armande’s hand on my shoulder, he turns me around to look him in the eyes. He holds my face in his hands, a stern look of I told you so in his expression, but the words never come out of his mouth. He pulls me into his chest, where I let out a vengeful scream.

‘I’m sorry, bro. I’ll give you a week and then I’ll come get you. Capisce?’

I nod and walk away into the darkness with my broken heart and shattered soul.