Page 96 of Twisted Obsession

Moving the phone in my hand to nearer the laptop, I pressed play on my Mac and let him listen to the recording Marco had presented me.

The sound of a woman moaning filled up the small body of the aircraft, and I waved the stewardesses away, after watching their eyes open wider at the obvious sexual noises. Then the unmistakable voice of Ricco filled the air.“I’m fucking them over from the inside out and taking back the money that’s rightfully ours. It’s time for you to apply pressure from your end…”

‘Bastardo!’ Salvatore’s voice grew in strength. ‘Do you thinkyouknow who he is talking to.’

‘No, although Marco traced it to Calabria. But my gut has me thinking it’s whoever…’

‘Whoever gunned down Alessio.’ Salvatore finished my sentence.

‘Does Ricco have any family?’ I questioned.

‘Lorenzo— whowasGiovanna’s fiancé,’ Salvatore answered and went into a tirade of Italian expletives. ‘I will kill them both with my bare hands.’

‘Was? Shewasengaged to Lorenzo, her bodyguard, but isn’t now?’ I asked with disbelief, my head was spinning with the facts being unravelled.

‘Yes. Today he asked my permission to bring their wedding forward. He said they were too much in love to wait any longer.’

‘And you refused him permission?’ I was ecstatic to hear it, but needed to know why he’d already refused.

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Before I gave him my refusal, he also said that Giovanna would sail back into Calabria today. Do you have any idea when?’ He didn’t answer my question and steered me back to what he wanted to know.

‘In about four hours.’ I’d twisted my arm around to check the time on my watch, before I interrupted him. ‘Ariti’s boat is just off Sicily now.’

‘And you know this how?’

I swallowed before answering truthfully, no longer caring about his anger, and only about her safety.

‘My wife and I were together last night…’ I paused, letting my words sink in.

‘My sister?’

‘My. Wife,’ I corrected. ‘When she left this morning, I placed a tracker in her engagement ring, that’s how I know where she is. I would never have let her go if I’d had any suspicions about Valentina.’

‘FANCULO!’

‘I have a boat with eight of my best men aboard following them,’ I added, knowing it wasn’t nearly good enough.

‘At least that’s something.’

‘It’s something,’ I agreed, wishing it was so very much more. ‘I have no reason to believe Valentina knows Giovanna met with me yesterday, so she should be safe for now.’

‘Do you think you deserve my sister, Dante Giordano?’

‘No. But I know I deserve her as much as you deserve my sister, Salvatore De Luca.’

A few silent seconds passed between us.

‘Touché,’ he eventually laughed.

Then I heard him exhale loudly. When he spoke again, it was with the cold, ice tone of anger that he tried to keep under wraps.

‘Valentina and Ricco.’ I heard Salvatore speak his thoughts out loud, followed by an almost whispered and emotional, ‘Mama and now Gi. I swear while there is breath in my body that you won’t take her too.’ And I knew he wasn’t talking to me.

Interference crackled on the line and looking out of the window I could see we were circling around the edge of the storm that had been forecast earlier.

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