Page 14 of Forging Caine

My chest constricted and I gripped Samantha’s forearm too tightly. I mouthed,Fiori.

Her eyes grew wide and she hauled out her phone, unlocking it and typing furiously.

“We met last September outside of Sorrento. You and your girlfriend visited my boat, moored off Capri.”

“Yes, of course,” I said. “How could I forget your kindness?”

“Good, good. I’m in Detroit for a few days and I remembered you live in the area. I was hoping to see you again.”

Samantha showed me her phone, with a note-taking app open. She’d typed,What does he want?

I held up a finger, shaking my head.

Fiori continued, “I know it’s short notice, but are you free tonight?”

He sounded so calm, so friendly. It was the same as when we’d met him and his doctor had taken care of Samantha’s injured ankle after a hike gone awry. Cristian had told me in January that they feared Fiori was after Samantha as revenge, since she’d brought the authorities down on several crimes he’d been involved with. The last we’d heard, she was safe.

Now here he was.

Samantha’s face squirreled up, exaggerating the confused reaction I was having underneath the layer of panic.

If he was trulyafterher and wanted to hurt her, why call in advance?

“Tonight?” I asked, staring deliberately at her. “I’m heading over to a friend’s house right now, so I can’t—”

Samantha jabbed at her phone.

“Are you sure?” asked Fiori. “I was hoping you could bring your girlfriend. Samantha, yes?”

“Yes, it was—I mean, it is—I mean, we have dinner plans with family tonight. Detroit is too far a drive.”

Samantha returned to typing and held up her phone. It read,He wants to see us? Say yes!She’d been so focused on getting to her sister’s earlier, but Investigator Samantha was taking over from Devoted Sister Samantha.

“How about desserts and drinks after that?” said Fiori. Why was he so insistent? What did he truly want? Surely it was not simply to catch up with old acquaintances. “The Ferraro’s business is in Brenton, yes? And you live there?”

Samantha gestured with her hands, with her chin, with her whole body.

I tipped the phone away from my ear slightly so she could hear better. “Tomorrow might be better?”

“No, no, tonight. Is there a place in Brenton you think I might enjoy?”

Samantha nodded vigorously and pointed from the phone to her and back again, as though she wished to speak with him. That was not about to happen. Heaven knew what she’d promise.

“Let me discuss it with Samantha. Do you have a number so I can call you back in fifteen minutes?”

“I’ll call you back in twenty.” Fiori hung up.

I sat still for a moment, while Samantha’s eyebrows climbed progressively higher. Fiori—the man behind Samantha’s ex appearing at Giovanni’s, whose goon tried to shoot me in January, who my cousin feared wanted Samantha dead—he was nearby. On the very day I returned from Napoli.

“Antonio?” Samantha nudged me and I snapped to attention. “He wants to see you?”

“Us,” I said. “He specifically mentioned you and was quite insistent it had to be tonight.”

“Why?”

I pressed the phone against my chest, as though he were still listening. “I don’t know. It can’t be a coincidence that the only day he can see us is the same day I get home.”

“I don’t like this.” Yet she tapped her fingers against her lips, one of so many tells I’d learned from her.

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