Chapter 5 - THE ONE-EARED CONFIDANT
Damiano didn't hesitate. With terrifying speed, he drew his .45, kicked the library door open, and swept the corridor.
The long hall was empty, the heavy velvet drapes stirring faintly from an open window at the far end. Rain was lashing against the glass. A single drop of mud marked the parquet floor near the archway.
Damiano stepped back inside, locking and bolting the heavy reinforced library door. He holstered his weapon, his mind calculating variables at lightning speed.
"He knows," Damiano said, turning to Elena. "Marco knows you told me."
Elena pulled Lucia tighter against her chest, her breathing shallow and ragged. "He will kill us, Damiano. You don't understand what Marco has built behind your back. He isn't just your underboss. He’s been working with the Valenti syndicate in New Jersey. They want your port routes."
"Let them try," Damiano replied, his jaw set like iron. "This house is a fortress."
"A fortress doesn't matter when the guards belong to the traitor," Elena pointed out, her voice breaking.
Lucia tugged on Damiano's trouser leg. He looked down. The little girl held up her stuffed rabbit, pointing its single fuzzy ear toward the wall vent near the ceiling.
"Uncle Marco has a walkie-talkie," Lucia said calmly. "He was talking to the vent earlier. He said, 'The package is in the west wing, move the trucks at three.'"
Damiano stared at the vent. It connected directly to Marco’s personal quarters in the adjacent wing.
"How long have you known about that?" Damiano asked, kneeling beside her again.
"Barnaby hears everything," Lucia said, tapping the rabbit’s ear. "Barnaby told me Uncle Marco is a liar. He told Mommy he was going to buy us ice cream yesterday, but he was putting black boxes on the cars instead."
Black boxes. GPS trackers.
Damiano realized with sickening clarity that Marco wasn't planning a quiet hit. He was planning an extraction—or an ambush. The realization that a three-year-old toddler had uncovered an international mafia coup using a one-eared stuffed rabbit would have been comical if their lives hadn't been hanging by a thread.
"Elena," Damiano said, standing up and grabbing his satellite phone from the desk drawer. "Go to the safe room behind the wine cellar. Take the service elevator, not the stairs. Do not open that door for anyone except me."
"Damiano, what are you going to do?" Elena asked, her eyes wide with dread.
"I'm going to have a conversation with my oldest friend," Damiano said, racking the slide of his firearm. "And then I am going to apologize to you properly."
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He watched them enter the hidden access panel behind the bookshelf before he turned off the library lights, stepping into the dark corridor to meet the storm.
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