“There you go whining again. I told you I wanted sons. Girls are useless to me, Claudia.”
“I gave you a son.”
“One. Then that pathetic girl. What should I do with her?” There was contempt in his voice.
Claudia whirled around, her eyes suddenly bright. “Guillem, you said if I could find a way to come up with the money to go to New York, I could go. What if I sold her? She’s really quite special and would bring in a lot of money in an auction. You don’t want her. More than once, your father has talked about the idea of selling girls her age and what kind of cash they would bring in.”
Guillem stared at her a moment then burst into laughter. “You’re priceless. You’d do anything to go back to your daddy. He doesn’t want you, Claudia. Don’t you know that yet? He used you to make an agreement with my father to get in on the trafficking deal. That’s all you were to him, a bargaining chip. When are you going to get it through your empty little head that you’re better off here with me than there with him?”
He flung his glass of tequila sideways at the white marble fireplace, shattering the crystal and spilling the contents so the alcohol ran down the column in an amber trail. Before Claudia could answer, the door was flung open and Arnau strode in. He wasn’t a big man, but he commanded the room instantly.
“Guillem, have you heard? It’s being reported that Riccardo Santoro went insane and murdered his entire family. Everyone, parents, children, my daughter, everyone. His freighters are gone, his crews, his capos. All dead.”
Claudia gasped and quickly covered her mouth with both hands when her husband gave her a sharp look. She backed up to a darker corner and peered over her fingers at the head of the Toselli family with shocked eyes. Behind her, in the shadows, Mariko stood waiting, a silent arbiter of justice, listening, just as Claudia was.
“The exact same thing happened to Alfredo Colombo. Everyone dead, his entire family wiped out. His entire organization. His ships, crew, everyone. Now, it seems, it is happening here, like a disease, a cancer spreading, and we have no idea who’s doing it.”
“I doubled security on the grounds and inside the house as you instructed,” Guillem said. “Who would dare to come after us like this? Which family thinks they are big enough to take over our territories?”
“The only one with large enough balls would be the Rodrigo family, but I had them checked on and none of them or their soldiers are in Barcelona. I don’t believe they are this clever. I think we’re under attack by the Ferraro family and the Archambaults.”
Guillem shook his head. “We did nothing to bring the attention of the Ferraro family to us. Nothing. We can easily wipe out the Archambaults with one phone call.” He snapped his fingers.
“There have been rumors for years about the Archambault family, whispers that said they are very much like the Ferraros, but I paid them no attention,” Arnau said. “Valeria listened to a conversation that took place in Riccardo’s study just before he supposedly went insane. He had invited Valentino Saldi and Dario Bosco to meet with him in order to either offer them to come in, bringing the Ferraros with them, or compensate them in some way for putting them on a hit list.”
“Bullshit.”
“We were going to kill them eventually, but if we could get Ferraro under our thumb, we would have it made, so Riccardo tried to entice both Valentino and Dario by offering them a piece of our business. Valeria reported that Elie Archambault suddenly showed up in the office with them. She couldn’t tell where he came from. Apparently, the guards didn’t see him and he wasn’t caught on camera. Not coming or going. Riccardo got angry with him and Elie told him he would regret his decision to murder his wife. That he would take away everything from Riccardo before he killed him. Then he walked out and disappeared.”
Guillem swore. “Have you found a connection between his wife and the Ferraros?”
“I received a photograph of that troublesome woman being escorted down the aisle by Stefano Ferraro at her wedding to Elie Archambault.”
Arnau stepped forward to show his son the photograph of Brielle Couture in her wedding dress, on the arm of Stefano Ferraro.
“That bitch,” Guillem snarled. “How many tries and no one has killed her yet?”
“This worries me,” Arnau admitted. He dropped into a chair. “Why isn’t she dead? She should be. We’ve tried so many times. A bomb that missed. Two full teams sent to her husband’s house. That’s ten men, experienced men, Guillem. Then one of our best information men, Asier Fredrick. How long has he worked for us? Years. No one has ever suspected.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes. “He had a team with him. They’ve all disappeared. Some of our best men. We lost a couple of men we had planted in Saldi’s organization.”