Page 69 of Traitor

He lowered his voice. “You know it’s only me and Gallo on your side now. The Luccheses have swept this place over and turned a lot of your officers.”

“I’m well aware of that, and thank you for the update. But, with all that we have? You and Gallo will have my full protection as we proceed forward.”

I heard a door close on his end of the line. “What exactly do you have?”

I shrugged. “You name it. I’ve got hours of video footage on my phone from his auctions. I’ve got stacks of surveillance pictures with him shaking the hands of felons you’ve only recently let out of prison.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“We’ve also got boxes of documentation that we know reside in Lorenzo Lucchese’s home in town. All we need to do is raid his house to retrieve it, and you have a treasure trove of documents from prices on the girls’ heads to who they were sold off to. You could bring down the entire ring if you can get a warrant to raid his place.”

He sighed. “You know damn good and well there’s going to be pushback, man. It’ll be hard to get a warrant from a judge that hasn’t taken a bribe from that family at least once.”

“Your job is to find that one judge. Our job is to give you everything you need to shut them down for good. You in?”

There was a long pause before he cleared his throat. “Yep. Just got Gallo to nod his head. We’re in.”

“Great. Stay by your phone. I’ll call you once we have a plan in place.”

“This better work, Emiliano.”

I chuckled. “Trust me, it will. But, don’t you ever address me like that again unless someone is walking by and you need to put on a face. Got it?”

“Got it.”

I nodded. “Good. We’ll talk soon.”

And after I hung up the phone, I gave myself a second to soak up the moment. We were one step closer to getting the Luccheses off this island for good. One step closer to reclaiming the life of this island that they had sucked from its very grounds.

All people had to do now was play nice.

28

Charlotte

The longer Isat in that bath, the clearer my mind became. My mother’s cold, dead eyes faded away and my rational mind came rushing back. I turned over all the information I had on the Lucchese Family and realized a case would hinge on whether or not we could get to that documentation in Lorenzo’s place. And for all I knew, he’d already destroyed those papers. If we didn’t have that paper trail, all we had were some pictures and a bunch of ‘he said, she said’ nonsense.

The court could be lenient on him, especially if he had the judge paid off, and then he’d have more reason than ever before to come after our heads.

You have no more life back home. And you have a life here that needs to be protected.

I turned everything over in my mind, wishing and hoping that there was some other way out of this. Because I knew if the plan forming in my mind was the only route we could take, it would change me forever. I’d never be able to go back. If I did this—if I protected Teo and this empire the way I wanted to—I’d never be the same again.

I’d cement my history on this island and forever abandon my life back in the States.

I know what has to be done.

I slipped out of the bath and enticed Teo into a nice round of sympathetic sex. It wasn’t as hard and sweaty as it usually was, but it got the job done. The thing about Teo is that sex took it right out of him. If I made him orgasm more than once, he was out like a light after all was said and done. After our spent bodies collapsed against our shared bed, I heard him snoring within minutes.

And that was my cue to slip out of bed.

I raided the walk-in closet that now housed my clothes as well as his and looked for the right outfit. Everything, down to my jewelry, needed to be planned out for something like this.

Then, I tucked the pistol and extra ammo Teo gave me into my clutch purse and headed for Lorenzo’s place.

Driving on the opposite side of the road was a bit weird, especially when I had to sit in what I considered the passenger’s seat of a car in order to drive. But, I took it slowly and made sure I approached with my guard down so Lorenzo’s soldier boys would let me up the drive.

And when I knocked on his front door, it quickly whipped open.

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