Page 23 of The Secrets We Keep

“Hmm,” she murmured, grating cheese into a bowl and checking the pasta. “What’s the endgame?”

“Cut off his weapons supply, weaken his political alliances, and run Gallo Industries into the ground until he gets desperate and kills himself in a tragic yet convenient suicide. Or, more accurately, we kill him and make it look like a suicide.”

“Why suicide?”

“As much as I’d prefer to walk into his office and put a bullet between his eyes for what he did to you, he’s too well-connected. A suspicious death would draw attention from both the press and the authorities, and we can only line so many pockets to keep them looking the other way.”

Sienna wet her lips with a nod. “That’s probably true if you don’t want to get caught. And I assume you don’t. So you weaken Gallo Industries to give him a reason, take him out and make it look like a suicide, and then what? Make sure you’re the highest bidder when the company goes up for sale? What about Stefano and Dante?”

“Matteo wants to own Gallo Industries. Move operations to Palermo. Rebrand it as Bianchi International and turn it into our flagship corporation. If Stefano and Dante aren’t on board with that outcome, we’ll take care of them as well.”

Fishing pasta out of the water, she transferred it to the pan, swirling it to finish cooking with the toasted pepper and ladling in more water as she needed it. He’d never watched her cook before. He wasn’t even aware she knew how. She’d obviously made this dish a lot, knowing all the steps by heart. He wondered if she had made it and thought of him since it was his favorite.

“They won’t be,” she said, adding the cheese and stirring quickly to melt it and thicken the sauce. “Stefano would follow his father off the edge of a cliff, and Dante is just a mean son of a bitch. Not as smart as Stefano, but every bit as ruthless as my uncle is.”

“Noted.”

“Your plan could take a while, though. The minute you start hitting targets, my uncle will tighten security and start randomizing shipments. He’s got a whole backend app built for that.”

“He switches them up so much already. We know we’re playing a game of chance, but without direct access to his systems, it was the best we could come up with.”

She nodded, transferring the pasta to two plates and adding more cheese and pepper before bringing them to the table. He twirled the thick strands of spaghetti around his fork and took a bite, eyes snapping up to meet hers. She only grinned at him.

“Good?”

He leaned over to brush his lips over hers. “You’re phenomenal, baby girl.”

“You know he’s got more than one supplier, right? Or he used to.”

Luca raised his brows. That was news to him. He wondered if Matteo knew that little nugget of information or not.

“He never puts all his eggs in one basket,” she added. “You need an inside source. Someone who can not only give you shipments to ambush and sabotage, but also make sure it’s random enough not to blow cover. And I know just the girl to help you.”

Propping her foot on the edge of the chair, she sampled her pasta and added a little more pepper. “Plus, he most definitely has incriminating evidence hidden away. Who he’s bribing, blackmail files, shit like that. My father used to talk about how stupid it was to store that much information for anyone to find.”

“It does seem like a bad move.”

“My uncle thinks he’s bulletproof. But he isn’t. Someone just has to look in the right spot.”

“And then what? Go to the authorities?”

“No. They won’t listen anyway. The ones that aren’t in his pocket are controlled by the ones that are.” A dark look flickered across her face, and then it was gone again. “This will go faster if I can slip you information on what shipments to target for maximum damage, both financially and politically. But you’ll want to be careful about who you bribe.”

“Why’s that?”

“The politicians in his pocket are scared of him. Whatever he’s got on most of them, it’s not good. I overheard my father talking about it more than once. Based on what I was able to see from police databases—”

Luca’s eyebrows shot up. “You’ve hacked police databases?”

“I have.” She smiled at the surprise on his face. “I could have hacked them before I left. But no one ever asked me to. Now I’m better at it.”

“What did you find when you hacked the databases?”

She sighed. “Nothing. That’s when I knew for sure it had to be Nero.” He reached over and laid his hand on hers, giving it a gentle squeeze. “But the best way to bring him to his knees is to remove his allies first. And if you can’t bribe them away from him, then you have to make it very inconvenient to support him.”

“By taking out his government contracts.”

“Yes. Once he’s floundering with no hope of recovering, we can both get what we want.”

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