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The payroll fraud.
The assassinations.
They had all been interconnected. And all of them had come unveiled, just as her aunt had predicted, once Ana told Gio about the guard’s attack. Gio had been determined to seek out justice for her, and through that investigation, he had stumbled upon Vitello’s operations.
Not just Vitello’s.
Her aunt’s too.
Ana watched her as though she were a stranger. “Did Vitello force you…? Or blackmail you?” Searching for some logic or reason for all this.
But Auntie scoffed derisively. “No. I was just naïve,” she said bitterly, gazing unseeingly out the shut windows. “After your uncle passed and Father retired, the burden of this house fell on me. I had no clue about investments, so I ran to Father’s closest friend for help.”
Her lips twisted. “Claudio told me how he’d been getting these returns…and that he would set up dummy payrolls for me too. So I jumped in headfirst. And things were great at first…We were thriving; we expanded our staff…got two betrothal offers from the Boss’s family.”
Neither Gio nor Gabi’s interest had anything to do with the Mancini wealth, but Ana kept her mouth shut as Auntie beamed with pride.
“Then it all came crashing down two years ago.” Her thin face contorted into regret. “When the old Don extended the betrothals, I had no idea that he was secretly investigating us.”
Ana blinked. “Gio’s dad found out–?”
“Everything. He found out everything. All because Claudio got scared and spilled his guts when the Don confronted him,” she seethed.
“Is that–is that why he killed them?” Ana whispered.
“Claudio?” Auntie’s voice dripped with scorn. “He has no backbone. He wanted to flee the country and sneak out to Sicily. Leaving me to deal with the shame and ruin. So I did what I had to do.”
She didn’t realize she was shaking her head in denial until her aunt nodded vehemently.
No.
Vitello was the one who had masterminded the murders. Her aunt had merely been swept up in the tide; she had to have been.
But the matriarch regarded her with unwavering conviction. “I had to protect our legacy, Ana, and I found the right guard to do the job.” Robert Lilin. The monster. “Vitello went along with it after I convinced him. But he didn’t know that he was being set up…just like he set me up for failure.”
Her aunt smiled. A cold, cunning smile that cast her face into the shadows. “When everything is done today, it will be him who takes the fall for it all. And I will finally be at peace.”
There was nothing but the sound of harsh breaths in the dining hall as the two women faced each other. One triumphant and the other terrified.
Floored by the magnitude of her aunt’s ambitions.
Just how far did her aunt’s plan extend? She thought back to an hour ago, when Reggie had failed to reach the guard stationed by Vitello’s home.
Had her aunt already trapped Vitello?
Was he even alive?
Ana gripped the straps of her purse. “What have you done?”
Her aunt observed her pitifully. “I could not leave any loose ends, Ana. Not when Vitello knows. And now Gio does too.”
“No,” she denied breathlessly.
“I’m sorry,” Auntie said simply. “He would not let go of his parents’ deaths. I thought for some time that he would be content with you and distracted enough to move on. But that was just my naivety again.”
Bile rose in Ana, along with panic.
“Gio was always careful to stay away from Pittsburgh, though. But you made the impossible happen. He finally planned a long enough visit here–for you.”
