Page 30 of Code Name: Michelangelo

She rolled her eyes. “It’s dinner, Brand. I’m not having Beluga caviar flown in or anything like that. There isn’t enough time.”

My mouth gaped, and she winked.

“Don’t worry. I know what you like.”

Her. I liked her. More than like, I loved her. A burger would be fine with me as long as I could sit across from her while we ate and sneak glances at her beauty.

Like on our previous flight, Pen slept for the majority of our time in the air but I didn’t. Flick had sent over a brief—as I learned they were called—regarding the Calabrian Syndicate.

It didn’t come as a surprise that they were now considered the largest, most powerful, and most dangerous of the five Italian mafia organizations. Even surpassing the Sicilians.

The criminal organization had been operating in the Calabria region of Italy since the eighteenth century. It was said their narcotics trafficking, extortion, and money-laundering activities accounted for three percent of Italy’s GDP. By some accounts, their annual income was fifty to sixty billion US dollars.

While it was included in the brief, I already knew that, back in their early days, they’d reinvested the money made from high-profile kidnappings into things like drug trafficking, primarily cocaine.

Now, as I also knew, their fingers were in every crime imaginable, with each segment of their business operating like a subsidiary of a corporation, the same way the Sicilians ran their organization.

The Calabrian Syndicate was comprised of approximately one hundred subgroups, called cosche, each of which claimed sovereignty over a territory, usually a town or village. Within Calabria alone, it was estimated that there were six thousand members. Worldwide, that number quadrupled.

According to Flick’s assessment, they were looking to add human trafficking to their long list of criminal activities and had made a move to take over the territories of another crime syndicate operating outside Italy.

The intense scrutiny the other group was under prevented them from focusing as much as they should on business. Which meant they were vulnerable—something both the Calabrians and Sicilians knew how to exploit.

I closed my eyes and rested my head against the seat. If the second half of the mission Doc, Merrigan, and I had discussed deployed, I knew what I’d be walking into as well as what my objectives would be once I got there.

First, to determine which of the two syndicates was behind the forgery scheme that had hit Pen’s gallery so hard. Then use that information as leverage to get the one not responsible to strike back hard, thus crippling their rival.

Once that was achieved, it would be up to me to gain enough of the trust of the capomandamento—aka, the big boss—so other agents could also infiltrate the syndicate deep enough to cripple them equally.

The end goal was weakening the two largest and most powerful criminal entities not just in Italy but everywhere to the point they ceased to function.

If successful, it would literally change the world as we knew it.

My role in the big picture was infinitesimal but vital. If things both moved forward and went as planned, I’d get the information I needed during the first or second auction Penelope and I attended.

After that, I’d leverage what I’d learned, along with the experience and reputation I’d earned during my criminal career, to set the wheels in motion. And when I had, I’d get out. It couldn’t happen fast enough for me. I had no doubt Doc and Merrigan felt the same way.

While Pen’s role would be my entrée into the type of auctions that were invitation only, the more I thought about the mission in its entirety, the more I worried about her involvement.

I’d broached the subject with her once, suggesting she think long and hard about whether she really wanted to do what I’d proposed. However, rather than address that specific point, we’d gotten sidetracked with the friendship pact, as I now referred to it.

Her visible anger was enough then for me to hesitate to bring it up again. Perhaps Sundance or Flick would be able to impress upon her how dangerous the assignment would be and she’d opt out on her own.

I rolled my eyes at my own thought. Penelope didn’t opt out. She stayed the course, accomplished everything she set her mind to, and rarely—if ever—took no for an answer.

“What are you thinking about?”

My gaze met hers when I turned my head. “You.” I sighed. If only I could reach over, cup her cheek, and kiss her. I wasn’t twenty-four hours into my agreement not to, and I was already in agony. “Always you.”

She moved her arm in my direction, then withdrew it as if she was experiencing the same discomfort with our agreement to keep things platonic.

I rested my hand, palm up, on the console between us, and Pen covered it with hers.

“I’m nervous about the meeting. More, the training itself.”

“You’ll likely do better than I will.”

She scoffed.

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