“You could still tell us your suspicions so we could watch out for him,” Val suggested. “We could have your security detail on the alert for him.”
“See, that’s just what I don’t want. The man goes for a walk and someone shoots him.”
“He wouldn’t innocently be walking up here, Brielle,” Val pointed out. “At least we know you suspect a man.”
“Tell me and I’ll watch him from the shadows,” Emmanuelle declared. “That way, if he does anything he shouldn’t, I can report back to you. Also, I can search his things.”
“Fine, but, Dario and Val, don’t you touch him until I know more about him or anyone else I suspect.” She threw that in there just so they would think she had more than one suspect.
“He’s worked for the Ferraro Hotel for seven years as the chef’s main assistant. His name is Constantine Babell. Again, there is nothing to suggest he is involved with Santoro.”
“What about the Colombo family?” Emmanuelle asked.
Her cousins had wiped out the Colombo organization in Los Angeles in the same way Elie and her family had taken down the Santoro family in New York along with all key personnel that had been involved in trafficking.
“Is there a tie between Constantine Babell and the Colombo family?”
Brielle resumed pacing. “I did think of that and checked. Babell was never near them that I could find, and believe me, I was thorough.”
“The Toselli family in Barcelona?” Valentino suggested.
“No ties to them, either.”
“Did he go to Spain at any time? They like to get their hooks into tourists,” Dario said.
Brielle spun around and stared at him for a moment then she rushed over to the desk and her laptop. “He was in Spain. He attended a couple of culinary schools in Europe before returning to the States.” She sucked the side of her lower lip into her mouth and bit down, chewing on it while she read through what she’d already found out about Babell’s time in Europe.
“He spent two weeks in Barcelona with two other students. Okay, my man, let’s see what you were up to while you were on your little vacay.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard. Almost at once, she felt she was on the right track. She didn’t know how she could tell, but that feeling was there, as if she’d had a clogged artery and suddenly the passageway was wide open and her blood was flowing normally.
“I’m going to head down to the kitchen and check him out,” Emmanuelle said.
Brielle didn’t look up and gave a little wave of her hand. Emmanuelle crossed the room to her husband and gestured to Dario, who went to her. Brielle was aware of the three huddling together. That drew her out of her usual keyboard fog.
“Watch her close, you two. I think the shadows keep pulling at her. She can’t go into them for any reason. If this chef’s assistant comes after her, and she tries to go into the shadows, it would kill her for sure. That repair they did on her isn’t close to healing. It would get torn apart and she’d bleed out before anyone could fix it. Please watch over her.”
“No worries, princess,” Val said, leaning down to brush a kiss on her lips. “No one is getting close to Brielle and she isn’t getting close to the shadows. We gave our word to Elie.”
“She’s ours,” Dario echoed. “Family. No one gets her.”
Emmanuelle nodded, stepped into a shadow and was gone. For just one moment, Brielle had the urge to follow her, to find out in person just what Constantine Babell was up to. How was he going to try to kill her? Val was right; he couldn’t just take the elevator to the upper floor to their private suite and expect to get past the multitude of security guards and then Valentino and Dario on top of them. Fortunately, her fingers kept typing even as her thoughts went a little chaotic.
Constantine had gone to Barcelona on holiday with two other students, Otto and Rupert Winslow, brothers he’d grown up next door to in Chicago who had gone to Spain on vacation and met him there. Otto and Rupert owned a thriving high-rise window-cleaning business together. Stefano used their company to keep the windows immaculate at his hotel, which their employees did.
Constantine was now forty-three years old. Otto, the older of the Winslow brothers, was the same age, with Rupert only eighteen months behind. Constantine had been in Barcelona when he was twenty-three, so twenty years earlier. Finding out what three men did during a short vacation twenty years ago was going to be extremely difficult. She needed to find something that would connect one of them with the Toselli family.