Page 54 of Gin & Trouble

“In the Batcave.” My stomach knotted. I didn’t want to ask, but I had to know. “What’s this about?”

“Your girl.”

The way he’d gone squirrelly when he’d seen Julia on the viral video, her reaction to our conversation about Abruzzo, her lack of reaction to about the mafia. It all came together in one nice neat package.

She has something to do with this.

“What do you know?”

Marco sighed. “I’ll be there within the hour.”

“Tell me now, damn it. She’s living in my apartment, for fuck’s sake.”

“I think she’s Francesca Abruzzo. Tommaso’s youngest sister.”

I laughed because the alternative would leave me under my desk in the fetal position. “Bullshit. Julia is as American as they come. You and I both know it’s next to impossible to lose the Italian accent.”

“She was sent to boarding school in Connecticut when she was young.”

Adrenaline flooded my system along with the urge to punch something. “That lying, scheming…”

Every good lie starts with a kernel of truth.

Julia had told me she’d been born and raised in Connecticut. Hell, she’d told me she’d attended a boarding school near Hartford. I rested my head in my hands. “I’ll deal with her.”

“No. You won’t. She’s the daughter of a formercapo, and sister of his successor. There are rules about how these things are handled.” Marco used his big-bad crime boss voice, but I wasn’t impressed. “I need to be there when you talk to her.”

“The same rules that allowed Sophia to get away with cold-blooded murder?” My laughter sounded maniacal even to my own ears. “I’ll bring her to you when I’m finished with her.”

This time when he spoke, he sounded more like my brother and less like acapo. “Are you in love with this girl?”

I hesitated to answer, but I couldn’t deny how I felt about her. He’d see right through my lie. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean—”

“It means you’re not thinking straight. Sooner or later, your anger is going to change to pain. The last thing you need is to add regret to the mix.” He drew a deep breath. “Find out what she’s been up to and why before you crucify her.”

I knew he was right, but I wasn’t ready to deal in logic. The first woman I’d fallen for had…what? Pretended to care about me to get to my family? Set us up for God knows what? Manipulated her way into my freaking apartment…and heart?

“Screw that. I’m not going to regret a damned thing.”

“Calm down. Do some deep breathing or something. And for Christ’s sake, wait until I get there to confront her,” Marco said.

“This is personal. Between me and her. I need to talk to heralone. I’m not going to lay a finger on her and break any mob rules. I swear it.”

“Promise me she won’t leave the building.”

Leave the building…There was no ex-boyfriend. It was Tommaso-freaking-Abruzzo.

She was afraid because her brother was in New Orleans. But why had she stayed after she knew he’d left the States? What was her game?

The more I thought about the situation, the more questions came up. If I had any hope of getting straight answers, I needed to talk to Julia—no, Francesca—alone. “Done.”

“Don’t make me regret this.”

“You have my word.” I disconnected and pulled upMiss Carpenter’semployee file.

Other than a fake name, address, references, and a falsified background check—everything appeared to be in order. Julia, Francesca, whatever-the-hell her name was, had done a damned good job of creating an alias.

I opened a log of her PC activities and found the answers—not easy ones to swallow, but answers nevertheless.

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