Page 61 of Lily

She rose to show Roselia to the guest room, where someone had put her bags. The rest of the women would scatter to the other guest rooms and the couches.

Roselia hated this—she hated everything about it. She didn’t want to go to bed without Stefano. It made her stomach tight, and she thought she might vomit. She said very little as Kally showed her to her room and pointed out the Jack-and-Jill bathroom. She was a great hostess, providing everything Roselia could need.

And then Roselia was alone for the first time all day. For the first time in ten days. She used the bathroom, went through the motions of showering and brushing her teeth, and then found one of Stefano’s T-shirts in his luggage.

When she finally climbed into bed, she curled into a ball on her side and cried silently. This could not be happening.

Chapter Twenty-One

Stefano leaned over the blueprints for Santo’s house, pointing out every entrance and exit, every possible window that could be used as an escape. He showed the tactical team what room Santo would most likely be sleeping in and the safe room he had off his bedroom.

He left out nothing. He didn’t want there to be a single chance that Santo would escape capture. The man was going down. Knowing he would be arrested and convicted for human trafficking was even sweeter than Stefano’s plan to rob the man blind and leave him destitute.

In the end, that would have been a lonely existence for Stefano. He might have been rich but would have lived on the run from Santo for the rest of his life.

Stefano was exhausted and living on coffee fumes and adrenaline. He’d been grilled all day. He’d told Diane, Jagger, and everyone else everything he knew. He was a fount of information after spending four months scouring emails. While searching for the identities of the women and their possible locations, he’d stumbled upon damn near everything Santo had ever done.

He’d read dozens of emails every evening. Santo had done a shitty job of securing his passwords and information. In addition, Stefano had taken screenshots of hundreds of damning communications.

Santo was so negligent that even though Stefano had vanished ten days ago, the man hadn’t changed any of his passwords. Not that it would have made a difference. Stefano had always been a brilliant hacker. He could break into just about anything.

A team of FBI agents had spent the entire day scouring emails in an effort to establish a paper trail to as many people involved in this human trafficking ring as possible so they could move in to arrest them all in a coordinated effort.

When it was go time, Stefano was grateful to Diane that she trusted him enough to allow him to watch from a distance as Santo’s compound was stormed and the man was brought out in handcuffs. It was a beautiful sight.

Also arrested were the fake police officer who had kidnapped Grace and Summer, the men who had kidnapped Kalinda from the strip club in Vegas where she’d worked, the men who had abducted Roselia from her apartment, as well as at least a dozen men who’d frequented Jovani Russo’s home where he’d trained the women to serve a future Master.

It was after midnight when they all reconvened at FBI headquarters to debrief, and shortly after that, Stefano found himself sitting in Diane’s office across from where she sat at her desk.

This was it. She was largely in control of his fate. He’d known that from the moment he’d entered the building fifteen hours ago.

She tapped her fingers on her desk and stared at him. “The list of things I could use to nail you to the wall is long.”

He nodded. A knot formed in his throat. He would accept her decision without argument. He’d made a lot of mistakes. Too many to count.

She leaned forward and set her forearms on her desk. “Faking your death was a stupid move. You should’ve come in, shared what you knew, and let the FBI handle Santo.”

He nodded.

“However, it wasn’t illegal. You didn’t cause anyone to claim insurance benefits, and you aren’t wanted for a crime.” She sighed. “It was a crazy hair-brained idea to siphon that asshole’s money into offshore accounts for fifteen years, but I’m not sure what you could be charged with for stealing blood money, and technically, you never touched any of it, so it’s really just…misplaced. One could even argue that you moved it to protect your boss.”

He couldn’t breathe. Was she going to let him go?

“You’ve proved invaluable to the efforts to solve this case. Without you, we might never have found Santo, which would’ve meant no peace for the women who’ve been rescued, and Santo likely would’ve continued to traffic women for years to come. Without your intel over the last few months and today, we would have nothing.”

Stefano’s heart raced. Jesus.

She smirked. “You know…I thought about you once when we were first opening this case. When I saw the brilliance that was your communication system through those chips, I thought, Diane, you’ve only met one person who could’ve created such an elaborate plan to take down a trafficker. Too bad he died eighteen years ago in a boating accident.”

Stefano’s chest began to ease.

She leaned farther forward. “It was brilliant, and the FBI can’t thank you enough for your service. If I didn’t think you were slightly unhinged from living eighteen years basically undercover with a solitary mission of revenge, I’d offer you a job. Instead, I think you better look for work doing backdoor hacking for one of the major credit card companies or as a private investigator. Your days working for the government are done.”

Stefano drew in a breath. She was dismissing him? He didn’t want to fist pump, but he was antsy. He wanted to get back to his woman. She had to be out of her mind by now.

Diane stood and waved toward the door. “Go on. Get out of here. I’m sure Roselia is pacing Jagger’s house and freaking the fuck out.”

Stefano rose to his feet. “Thank you.” He didn’t know what else to say.

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