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“What kind of news?” Valentina asks without a flicker of concern for his well-being.
What she doesn’t ask is if there’s been an accident, or if he’s okay, or if I killed him on my way upstairs. The sorts of questions one might ask when they hear the words bad news and the name of their spouse in the same breath.
This is tougher than I expected. While it appears that she doesn’t give a shit what I say about him, and on some level she might not, she’s married to him. They’ve been together for several years. That bastard’s end is going to be brutal.
“We have some evidence that Marco’s been involved with the trafficking ring.”
Lexie blinks a few times, like she’s surprised I didn’t out her immediately. Have faith in me, Angel.
“You certainly aren’t obligated to hear me out,” I add, “either of you, but I hope you will.”
Valentina sits up tall, and clasps her hands on the counter, but Lexie is cautious. “What kind of evidence?” Valentina asks.
“A Huntsman server was compromised—the one where we store the backup data. A single photograph was deleted from your devices. But we were able to retrieve it.” The latter part isn’t exactly true, but one of my goals is to shield Lexie, and if it takes lying to Valentina to do that, I will.
“Marco and the man he called his client.” Valentina’s tone is dispassionate.
Lexie was right about her affect being off. Valentina’s normally bubbly, and personable, and a bit impish. She’s also passionate and often wears her heart on her sleeve—or rather, in her expression. I’d say she’s treating this like a business meeting, but her attitude is much too cool and calculating even for that—at least for her.
“We’ve identified the man in the photograph as Philippe Moriarty. He and Marco are cousins.”
Lexie’s jaw falls, but Valentina doesn’t blink. Although she perches forward, giving me her rapt attention.
“We matched Moriarty’s image to a photo from Francesca Russo’s phone.” Again, fast and loose with the truth. “He was her boyfriend—or at least he purported to be.”
I give Valentina a moment to absorb the information before I ask, “Is that name familiar?”
“No,” she replies, absentmindedly chewing on the edge of her finger. “As far as I know, Marco doesn’t have cousins.”
“They’re second cousins. Their grandparents were siblings.” I pause. “Philippe has ties—several ties—to the traffickers, and we think Marco does too.”
She glances at Lexie. Something passes between them, and I’m not sure what it is, but I just confirmed their suspicions about Marco. That’s probably what it’s about.
“I expected this to come as a shock to you.” I turn all my attention to Valentina, gauging her reaction. “But you don’t seem very surprised.”
She shrugs. “Maybe I’m not.”
I wait for her to say more, to tell me about the caterer, or the pills, but she doesn’t. I gaze at Lexie, who’s less ashen, but still cautious—like I’m a wild card.
“Here’s the thing.” I glance from one woman to the other. “We have a plan to round up what we hope is the remainder of the ring, and that includes Marco. But we need your help.” I pause.
“I know it’s a lot to ask, Valentina. He’s your husband. But we have one bite of the apple. I think you know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
From the way she’s behaving, I know it wasn’t necessary to lay it on so thick—she’s done with Marco. But I want to convince her to be part of my plan rather than go off on her own. She needs to fully buy in.
She doesn’t bat an eyelash. “Anything, Rafael. What do you need me to do?”
Lexie shuts her eyes, and I see the relief. She knows Valentina has swerved away from her foolish plan. I feel a great sense of relief too.
“We need the two of you to communicate back and forth, through text. You’ll feed Marco some disinformation—something that will lure him out if he’s actually involved the way we think he is. We’re expecting he’ll contact others with the information you provide, and Tamar can trace the contacts. I’ll be honest, the details of how that’s going to happen are a bit high-tech. I’m sure she can explain it to you, or even Lexie can do a better job than I can. When I came upstairs, the plan was still in the early stages of development.”
They both seem to be in their own heads, and I’d give anything to know what they’re thinking—especially Lexie.
“I need an answer before the end of the day. Time is of the essence, and if you don’t want any part of this, I get it. We’ll figure something else out. If Marco isn’t involved, no harm will come to him.” I add this in case Valentina, who normally has a soft heart, becomes concerned about his welfare. She might be done with him, but that’s different from wanting him dead.
“He’s involved,” my sweet niece snarls. “I wasn’t surprised earlier.”
She takes Lexie’s hand before she proceeds to tell me the story. Caterers, hacking, pills…everything in bloodcurdling detail. It’s no less chilling the second time I hear it.
