Page 40 of Wanted Twins with the Mafia Boss

“That’s weird. But wouldn’t the money go to Matteo? If it’s his and he no longer wanted Gennaro incontrol of it... Do you think Matteo did it on his own? Grabbed the money and ran with it?”

“Maybe, but Gennaro was the one who had to authorize the transaction himself. I don’t think there was a way around it.”

I furrow my brow. “But Matteo probably has his money somewhere too, right?”

“Yeah. There’s no way he doesn’t, or he wouldn’t have been able to do anything on his own.”

“What if Matteo forced Gennaro to give him that money, and that’s why Gennaro picked you as his heir?”

Adriano shrugs and opens one of the boxes. “Maybe they made some kind of deal, and releasing that money was part of it. Gennaro liked to keep all his contracts in one place, so if it exists, it should be somewhere among all these.”

“Wait, what?” My eyes widen as I look around the room at all the boxes. “All of these are Gennaro’s deals?”

“Yeah, he had a lot of them.”

“But wasn’t he afraid they’d be used as evidence against him if the cops or someone got their hands on all the contracts?”

“Not really. These were under heavy protection. It took a while for me to get to them, and it was only because Gennaro created a set of rules thatallowed me to enter the room too. If anyone else had tried or they used force, the whole room would’ve exploded.”

“What?” I gape at him. “Really?”

“Yeah. For a second there, I thought it was a trap too, but Gennaro showed it all to me when I was young, so I knew how to look for any warning signs.”

“But your men haven’t seen Matteo anywhere, right? Does that mean Gennaro paid him off to leave?”

“I doubt it. Matteo wouldn’t just leave, not after everything.”

“Well, then bring me one of the boxes.” I’m looking forward to solving the mystery.

“This is weird,” Adriano says.

We’ve been going through the deals for hours, and some of them were... quite interesting. Murder, money, drugs, weapons. Gennaro was doing all of it.

“What?” I ask.

Adriano sits on the bed next to me and shows me a contract. “It says here Gennaro took a loan from another mafia family, but they’re using an alias instead of their name. It’s weird because I can’t imagine Gennaro ever needing a loan.”

I study the contract. “That’s a lot of money. Like, really a lot.”

“Yeah, and he was supposed to pay it off in twenty years, or they’d come for his territory and everything else he had.”

“What does that mean?” I point my finger at one of the lines. “Aside from money, they also want a payment in blood?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they wanted him to kill someone for them. If they’re using an alias, maybe it was their own family member.”

“But what if it’s something else? Like marriage?”

He shakes his head. “But Gennaro marked it as completed and paid, and this was signed after he married.”

I take the contract and flip through the pages. “Huh. Where does it say it was paid? Maybe he put it in the wrong box?”

“Those twenty years they agreed on were up last week.”

I meet his gaze. “Was that why he named you his heir? Because he thought something might happen to him?”

“But he didn’t mention any of this. I never knew he took a loan.”

“Was his business doing really badtwenty years ago? Maybe he didn’t want anyone to know out of fear his enemies would use that against him.”

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