Page 31 of The Secrets We Keep

It was just as likely he’d worked on a proprietary project and been granted additional security clearance to access user and research data he needed. But she’d made a mental note to keep an eye on him anyway. He did at least have the access she needed to get onto the executive floor. When the time was right.

She’d spent countless hours imagining what it would be like to get off the elevator on the top floor, walk down the long hallway to her uncle’s sprawling office, and shoot him between the eyes. Sometimes in her fantasy, she confessed who she was and made him tell her why he’d killed her family. But in reality, she probably wouldn’t have time for that.

Knowing why had stopped being important to her a long time ago. Now she only cared that he paid for what he’d done. And she’d make sure he did.

Ciro’s badge had proven useful in more ways than one, giving her easier access to the parts of the system she needed in order to find the internal tracking of shipments. With that out of the way, she’d had plenty of time to dive deeper into looking for the stuff Luca wanted. The information on which shipments contained weapons and which were normal freight.

She’d used spare time throughout the day on Wednesday and today to seek out the server she most likely needed, finding and abandoning them until she found the right one. It was trial and error since no one had handily labeled it Damning Criminal Info. But eventually she found it, three layers deep and in a different direction from where she’d started looking.

The protections around it were impressive, another hint that it was the right spot. It had taken her most of the previous night to crack through. And now that she had, she was itching to get in there again. To comb through the stacks and stacks of information until she found what she was looking for. Whatever info Luca could use to move this along faster.

But first she had to wait for Isa to get home. Something she was apparently taking her own sweet time in doing. For a woman who didn’t like people much, she sure as hell was stopping often enough on her way back to her apartment.

Sienna’s eyes followed the dot from the tracker she’d slipped into the ripped lining of Isa’s bag the day before as it inched slowly along the sidewalk. One last turn, ten, maybe fifteen more paces, and Isa would finally be home.

Sienna imagined the woman pouring herself a glass of wine and sinking down on the couch with her cat. The ugly orange tabby she kept in a picture frame on her desk.

After discovering it was faster and cleaner to alter the user logs than clear them, she’d chosen Isa to take the fall. If someone found Sienna snooping where she shouldn’t be, she’d get fired—or worse. And she couldn’t risk Ciro getting in trouble and losing his security clearance.

That left Isa or Jack. And since she liked Jack too much to tangle him up in this, she’d easily selected the woman who hadn’t stopped making snide remarks since they went out for drinks.

And if Sienna was going to make this look like Isa’s handiwork, she needed to be sure no one could alibi her as being out at a club or having fun with friends. Although Sienna doubted Isa had many friends. The woman was impossible. Still, she waited another agonizing hour to be sure Isa wouldn’t go back out again.

When the tracker didn’t budge, she pulled up a window in a program she’d designed and used it as a filter for her login to the company servers. The black box glowed as it filled with neon green script, her fingers flying over the keyboard and carrying her closer and closer to where she needed to be.

After hitting enter, a series of screens popped up, one right after the other. She brought up the tracking software and ran a search for all the shipments scheduled to move in the next two weeks. The number totaled in the dozens. Too many.

Opening a new window, she cross-referenced those searches with her uncle’s detailed notes on weapons deliveries buried deep in the classified server. It took a minute, the cursor blinking as the computer processed her coded command, but then the information flooded the screen. Three shipments of varying sizes, all scheduled to leave from different points around Italy and be distributed across Europe.

She grinned. That was exactly the kind of information Luca was looking for. And her uncle included more details than she’d been expecting. Including how many men were in the escort, how much product, the buyer, and the total amount due.

No wonder her father argued with his brother about this so often. Nero was leaving himself and his empire very vulnerable if anyone ever got their hands on this information.

Copying down what she knew Luca needed, she cleared the windows and glanced at the clock. He’d be here soon, but she still had a little time to do some more digging.

Pulling up a fresh search, she punched in the string of code to take her deeper into the archives, beneath an additional layer of security.

As she uncovered it all, Sienna imagined this is what her uncle would have had her doing if he’d let her live, if he hadn’t forced her to become Anna Marino and fight for survival. If he hadn’t turned her into a person consumed by thoughts of revenge and violence.

A new set of windows popped up, and she pushed those thoughts out of her head. They were for later. She couldn’t let emotion distract her. Emotion would cloud her judgment, trick her into making a mistake.

In these windows, she hit pay dirt. Her uncle had more than a few Sicilian politicians in his pocket. And each man had a folder attached to his name.

Inside were extensive, detailed blackmail files he kept as insurance in case they ever stepped out of line. Images of them meeting to accept bribes, a list of bribes and the amount and dates paid, images of them with mistresses and a few escorts. Of both genders.

According to these records, her uncle was paying off the mayor of Catania, the Regional President of Sicily’s government, the chief of police, and not one but two prefects appointed by the national government in Rome to keep the provinces in line. No fucking wonder he’d been able to fly so far under the radar.

Her uncle kept a treasure trove of information these men would certainly not want leaked to the public. And now she and the Bianchis were going to benefit from it. She grinned as she saved the files to a secure folder on her desktop.

What she really wanted to know was who likely had a hand in helping to cover up her family’s murder. She searched the records her uncle kept for payments for the window of time around the killings and zeroed in on two names. Fausto Restivo, the Regional President for the last two terms, and Gianfranco Carollo, Sicily’s police chief.

They’d both been on her uncle’s payroll dating back well before her family’s murder, but two weeks before and two weeks after the attack, they’d each been paid large sums of money—more than triple their usual payment.

It didn’t surprise her. Mafia influence still ran deep in this part of the country. Occasionally the government sent a politician to jail for dealing with the Mafia, but it hadn’t happened in years. Maybe it was high time for another resignation and prison sentence.

The prefects seemed fairly new to the payroll, only being added in the last two years, and she didn’t see anything connecting the mayor to anything except business dealings. Nero sent a lot of money his way, and it was likely a fee to keep him very well connected to the national government.

Nero had contacts in Rome, but none were on the payroll as far as she could tell. Just files on them. For now, he seemed content to play the game without money exchanging hands. If that ever changed, though, he was prepared.

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