Page 21 of The Thief

“He works for the padrino,” Valentina replies. “It was a trap.”

Padrino. She calls him godfather, and it’s another reminder that the man who rescued me ten years ago isn’t the hero of my dreams. He’s a mob boss who thrives, I’m assuming, on violence and bloodshed.

“Well, I didn’t know that, did I? So, I infiltrated the crew that cleans Rossi’s building?—”

“Without telling me.”

“Are you going to let me finish?” I ask pointedly. “I got into Rossi’s apartment and swapped out the real Titian with the fake I found at the museum. Unfortunately, Antonio intercepted me on my way out.”

“And?”

“And nothing. He told me that Arthur Kirkland was pretty close to catching me, took his painting back, and warned me not to steal in Venice.”

“That’s it?” she asks skeptically.

“Pretty much.” I don’t need to tell Valentina that I wanted him to kiss me. Don’t need to tell her about the electricity between us, the tingle that went through me when we touched.

She frowns. “I heard that you were wearing his coat when you arrived at his house.”

I quirk an eyebrow. “You’re very well informed. Who told you that?”

“Dante was there.”

Huh. She’s right. I’d been too freaked out yesterday to register it, but the man at the docks in Giudecca was the same man who was with Valentina when she came to pick me up at the airport. “Does he work for the mafia too? Speaking of which, anything you want to tell me about your own employer?”

“Oh, no,” she says flatly. “I’m asking the questions right now, not you.”

“Sheesh, okay. Touchy much? It was no big deal. I was cold, and he was being polite.”

She gives me a disbelieving look. “Lucia, Antonio Moretti is not polite to the people who steal from him. Hedestroysthem. You arrive wearing his coat, he tells Dante he isn’t to be disturbed, and then the two of you spend an hour together. What the hell is going on?”

Argh. Valentina is like a bloodhound. I might as well tell her everything I know because I have questions of my own. From my experience, I know that the only way to get information out of Valentina when she’s in this mood is to give her gossip of equal or greater value.

“We’ve met before. Once, ten years ago. We met the night I buried my parents.”

I tell her the whole story, and she listens in silence. “Wow,” she says when I’m done. “Well, that explains a lot.”

“I have a confession.” I fish the dog-eared business card out of my purse. “I kept his card.”

My best friend clutches her chest dramatically. “Aww, my heart,” she exclaims. “It’s so sweet and sappy; I can’t take it.”

I flip her off. “And this is precisely why I haven’t told you the story.”

She looks unrepentant. “Oh, come on. When I found out you were with the padrino, I assumed the worst. I need this to make up for my panic.”

“I forgive you for waking me up at the crack of dawn,” I say loftily, ignoring her giggles and getting to my feet. “Come on, I’ll make coffee. And while it’s brewing, you can tell me how long you’ve been working for the mafia and why you’ve never told me about it.”

Her smile fades. “It’s a long story.”

“I have all day.”

Over coffee in the kitchen—Angelica happily watches cartoons on the iPad and doesn’t pay us any attention—Valentina fills me in. “I’ve worked for Antonio for the last six years.” She stares into her mug. “Do you remember anything about the old mafia?”

I shake my head. “My parents shielded me from that stuff.” A familiar pang hits my heart. “They hid all the unpleasant things in life from me.”

“Domenico Cartozzi, the former head of the Family, was terrifying. One moment, he’d be laughing, joking with you, and the next minute, he’d explode. He was unpredictable and had a vicious temper, with a mean streak a mile wide. I fell in love with one of his capos when I was twenty-one.” She fiddles with her napkin. “You haven’t asked me about Angelica’s father.”

“I did, once. You shut me down.” An icy suspicion fills me. “Is it Antonio?”

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