A Mafia Boss Ignored Every Beautiful Woman At His Gala — Then Chose The Woman Who Had Enough Evidence To Send Him To Prison.
PART 4
“The person who sent me here just ran out the back.”
Damian looked toward the swinging doors.
“Who?”
“My boss.”
Mateo returned from the stage. “The surviving shooter had no identification.”
“He doesn’t need identification,” Emma said. “I know who hired him.”
Both men looked at her.
Emma tightened her hand around the purse containing the drive.
“Paul Mercer knew exactly what I would find tonight.”
Damian’s face became terrifyingly still.
“Then your boss just became my problem.”
Emma looked at the broken chandelier, the injured guests, and the dark doorway through which Mercer had escaped.
“No,” she said. “He became ours.”
Damian’s safe house was not a basement filled with guns.
It was a stone mansion overlooking Lake Michigan, twenty miles north of Chicago, with white oak floors, quiet hallways, and an enormous kitchen that smelled faintly of coffee.
Emma stood in the foyer at two in the morning while a physician removed three tiny pieces of glass from her forearm. Damian refused treatment until she was finished.
“You have blood on your shirt,” Emma told him.
“Not mine.”
The physician glanced at Mateo. Mateo shook his head, silently warning her not to ask. Emma looked away. This was not a romantic fantasy. Damian’s world had consequences, and some of them were currently being carried out of a ballroom on stretchers.
When the physician left, Emma faced Damian across the kitchen island.
“I need a computer, access to the Moretti Holdings accounts, the charity’s complete transaction history, and every invoice connected to Blackridge.”
Mateo stared at her. “That is privileged information.”
“You kidnapped an accountant because you need an accountant.”
“We did not kidnap you,” Damian said.
“Can I leave?”
“No.”
“Then we are arguing over vocabulary.”
Damian removed his jacket. Beneath it, his white shirt was torn at the shoulder.
“Someone attempted to murder you less than two hours ago.”
“Someone attempted to murder you.”
“They fired after you entered my booth.”
Emma considered that.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Damian looked at Mateo. The other man left the kitchen and closed the door.
Emma folded her arms.
“You trust him with a weapon but not a conversation?”
“I trust Mateo with my life. This is not his story to tell.”
Damian rolled up his sleeves and washed the blood from his hands.
“My father died six months ago,” he said. “The newspapers reported a heart attack.”
“It wasn’t?”
“He was poisoned.”
Emma’s anger faded.
“By whom?”
“I don’t know. When I took control of the family businesses, I found missing money. Not thousands. Hundreds of millions.”
“You think the charity accounts are part of it.”
“I think someone inside my organization is moving money to finance a war, then leaving my name attached to every transaction.”
“And you let the laundering continue?”
“I watched it continue because I needed to identify where it ended.”
Emma stared at him. “You used a children’s foundation as bait.”
His jaw tightened.
“My family donated the building, the medical wing, and most of the foundation’s legitimate operating budget. No child lost treatment because of the accounts.”
“That does not make it acceptable.”
“No. It makes it one of many things I intend to correct.”
She heard something unexpected in his voice. Shame.
Damian Moretti did not deny what he was. Yet he did not sound proud of it.
Emma placed her purse on the island.
“My conditions.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“You do not threaten me. You do not touch me without permission. You do not ask me to destroy evidence or frame an innocent person. I receive access to everything I need, and when this is over, I leave.”
“You believe you can give me conditions in my own home?”
“I believe you walked past twenty-four models because I have something you need.”
His gaze warmed.
“That wasn’t the only reason.”
“I am not adding flirtation to the agreement.”
“Then you have my word.”
“On all four conditions?”
“Yes.”
Emma studied him. “What does the word of a mafia boss mean?”
“Tonight, it means no one touches you, lies to you, or prevents you from leaving when the threat is gone.”
“And until then?”
“You remain here.”
“Vocabulary,” she muttered.
A laptop arrived twenty minutes later, followed by encrypted drives and two boxes of printed records.
Emma worked at the dining table until sunrise.
Damian remained nearby. He answered every financial question with surprising precision. He knew which warehouses were profitable, which construction projects were over budget, and which executives had relatives on the payroll.
“You understand these accounts,” Emma said.
“I attended Northwestern.”
She looked up. “Business school?”
“Economics and history.”
“I assumed…”
“That I learned everything in a back room while men kissed my ring?”
Emma winced. “That sounds ridiculous when you say it.”
“It is occasionally accurate.”
By seven, Emma had created a map of the fraudulent transfers.
Calder Freight moved money into six companies. Five were controlled by Damian. The sixth, Blackridge Protective Services, was connected to a holding company owned by Victor Moretti.
Damian’s uncle.
Emma turned the laptop toward him.