“You not only have a great office, Dario, but a beautiful piece of property,” Taviano said.
“I like it. Very remote. It has a full basement. Two office spaces. The other office is nearly as nice as this one. The property itself is a little over eighteen acres.”
“You ever find yourself a woman, you’ll have it made,” Elie said, testing the waters.
Dario shrugged, his expression unreadable. “Never brought a woman here. Never needed to. Don’t like anyone knowing the layout of my home. If I find a woman, she’ll be safe here from everyone but me.”
“She’ll be safe from you,” Elie said. “You find a woman and you know there’s only the one, then you don’t chance losing that.”
“Should have said, she knows she’s safe from everyone else. Don’t want her to think she’s safe from me. She’s going to learn to do what she’s told if she’s mine. Can’t live any other way and survive.”
Elie heard the honesty in Dario’s voice. There was a reason for his house to be beyond neat, with everything in its place. Dario was one of the few men Elie would not want to get a “kill” order on. Not just because he genuinely liked him and considered him family, but because he was one of the few men he might have trouble actually killing.
“You don’t have to worry about her, Taviano,” Dario continued. He stared out over the lake, no expression on his face or in his voice. “I can see by that look you think it’s not a good idea for a woman to hook up with me. I don’t think it’s a good idea, either. The chances of me finding one I’m compatible with and would actually want in my life are close to zero. The chances she’d want to be in my life are even less.” A faint smile lit the darkness in his eyes for a brief moment. “Then I have that interfering sister of yours. She’d bring my chances down to zero for certain.”
“Emmanuelle wants to find you someone,” Elie said. “She’s keeping her eye open.”
“Yeah, Valentino told me, but she looks in all the wrong places. She’s not going to find a woman for me in a church.”
Taviano burst out laughing. “Emme doesn’t look in a church for women for you. No way.”
“She might as well be looking there.”
Elie had to laugh, too. “If she’s looking, Dario, beware. She’s a determined matchmaker.”
“She doesn’t like my dating apps. I keep them to annoy her.”
“You show them to her every chance you get, Dario,” Elie accused. “Emme has shared some of the worst ones with me. Those women are crazy.”
“I know. I only let her see the really insane ones.” Dario sounded happier than Elie had ever heard him, which made Taviano laugh all over again.
“You’re good for my sister.”
Dario turned away from the railing to look at Emmanuelle’s brother. “Emme’s good for us. For Val and me. She changed our lives just by being who she is.”
Taviano nodded as he started back inside. “I know what you mean. She’s Emme, Dario.”
Elie knew what Taviano meant. He loved her, too. It was impossible not to. He wanted Emmanuelle to extend her magic to Brielle so she’d feel the acceptance of the entire Ferraro family the way he did—the way Val and Dario did.
“How long do you think this will take?” Giovanni asked as the three went back inside the office.
Dario closed the double doors and locked them. Elie watched him as he scanned the lake and boats carefully before turning back to those inside. He was always alert. He opened a panel, pressed a button and, outside, screens dropped down over all the windows. Those screens were see-through from inside the house but reflected light back toward the lake, making it impossible to see into the house. Still, Dario positioned his body between the windows and Valentino, remaining standing when most of the others were already seated. Dario was casual about it, never calling attention to himself, nearly fading into the background, something Elie would have thought impossible when so much light was pouring into the room from all the windows.
“I assigned them complex searches, one of which involves gaining access to finance books we’ve been wanting to look into. Those books will require tremendous skills and finesse to access. Obviously, if they get caught, they lose immediately,” Stefano said. “There are three separate searches involving a crime that was committed. In each case the investigators were given the basic facts. They have to establish whether the crime was real, who was guilty, and if the party reporting the crime had a hidden agenda. The last search is on a crime family in Los Angeles. We needed more information on them. We want to see who comes up with the most information the fastest.”