Chapter Six

Unknown

"Nothing actually, Daniel Replied. "I don't think she has a clue about anything her parents were involved in. Are we sure that Vince Cain has the right girl?"

"Of course it's the right girl. How many Italian girls named Camilla Patron could possibly live in New York and be exactly the age of 23? She's the right one." I sat there looking out the window as I contemplated the possibility that this girl really may not know any of the information that Vince Cain said she did. He's all the way in Chicago and she's in New York. I also wondered why he wanted me to have my crew chase her down and bring her to him. One million dollars if I could bring her to him. I didn't need the money. I didn't even care about it to be honest. It was the thrill of the chase. She was beautiful, I'd give him that. He claims she was promised to his son by her late father, but I wasn't so sure about that. Thomas Cain was a selfish prick who was catered to by his father. He was known to be cruel and had a fetish for knocking women around during sex. I definitely needed some more information before I kidnapped this young woman and sent her to Chicago.

"I did get one piece of information from Natalia, her roommate." Daniel offered up.

"What would that be?"

"She's in law school; her mother had been a lawyer apparently. She has a grandmother who she refers to as Nonna, that she speaks with often. This might be a way to learn more about the depth of her knowledge."

"I knew her mother was a lawyer, that's no secret. She collaborated with men in the Mafia in Chicago, predominantly made men. Where is her Nonna? Find that out for me." I left Daniel on the curb a block away from his apartment. I was going to need some more information on this woman. It would probably be easier just to pick her up and take her to a discreet location and interrogate her. If she knew nothing, though, I saw no point in disrupting her life. The fewer people who knew about things we engaged in, the better. People certainly knew who I was, but they did not know anything else about me.

I instructed my driver to take me to my club, The Myth. I had some books to look at before we opened tonight. Daniel had moved some money around and then transferred money to an overseas account. It needed to be virtually untraceable by the IRS. It was just one of the ways we kept ourselves out of the media and off the radar. I had a few cops in my pocket, but sometimes that was not enough. This was especially true when it came to the feds, and the last guy I had working for me there retired a year after I took over for my father. The benefits of being paid off by the Mafia, early retirement so that you could hide your money.

Camilla

I awoke with a start, the thump of Spanish music blasting through our apartment. What the hell? What time is it? I rolled over to see it was almost noon. I had fallen back to sleep after talking with my Nonna. I hadn’t been sleeping well the past couple of weeks. The constant paranoia about this black sedan following me and our neighbor outside peering at our windows from time to time.

I threw my covers back, grabbed my towel and shuffled across the hall to our tiny, shared bathroom. A hot shower sounded good, and it would help me relax. Natalia had the music so loud I could hear it over the shower. She must be cleaning. She always cranked the volume when she was cleaning.

I quickly washed my hair and my body, then shaved my legs and all the other places. Being Italian, this was nearly a daily thing. Lucky me and my fantastic genes. I climbed out of the shower and wrapped my hair in a towel, turban style, then dried off my body. I put my robe on and was running the towel through my thick hair, trying to get it as dry as I could without a blow dryer.

In the course of that time, the music had turned way down. I opened the bathroom door and heard Natalia speaking to someone. I thought she might be on the phone, so I walked to the living room and stopped dead in my tracks. Our neighbor Daniel stood in the middle of the room, with a big smile on his face. He must have seen me from his periphery because he turned his head, looked me up and down and smirked. "Excuse me," I sputtered out and turned back down the hallway to my room. We rarely had people over, so I was shocked to see Daniel in our living room on a Saturday.

I quickly dressed. I threw on some jeans, black boots and a sweater, quickly braided my hair and grabbed my purse. I had decided I was going to walk to a local coffee shop and study, alone.

When I went into the living room, Daniel had moved himself to the small dining table we had in front of the galley kitchen. Natalia had fixed him some coffee and was placing some snacks out. "Nat, I am going to go to my regular place and study. See ya later."

"Ok," she waved at me without looking away from Daniel.

I heard him ask before the door was completely shut, where my usual place was. I thought his question was odd, but maybe I was just paranoid. I did see him speaking to someone in a black sedan, twice now. Potentially the same black sedan that had been following me.