Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Nicholas

I am not liking what I am hearing from my men. Vince Cain seems to be responsible for Patron's death, in a shady sort of way. My guys went to Chicago privately on my plane so that no one would find them on a manifest. I didn't want anything to lead back to me.

My men were able to grab one of Cain's soldiers, a veteran who had been with him for a decade. A little roughing up and some money for him to keep quiet about the interaction and we had some answers. Answers that I didn't like and that made me more uneasy with his obsession with Camilla Patron. Ask me why I cared so much, and I wasn't sure. Usually, I didn't make these things my business, but I also disagreed with hurting those who were innocent. Let's be honest, Camilla was a kid still when her parents died, even if she was sixteen. She couldn't have known much, so why is Cain so interested in getting his hands on her?

"Boss, there is a brother. It sounds like Cain may want to reach Michael through Camilla. He had attempted to intimidate Patron by demanding that Camilla be given to his son when she turned eighteen. Patron told him to fuck off. That made things worse."

I stood from my desk and started pacing my office like a caged animal. "Explain to me, though, what Cain was after that would prompt him to try and negotiate for Camilla? Was Patron in some trouble with Cain? They were separate entities, were they not?" The two were separate Mafia families and weren't even involved together, or so that was the original story. Now I wasn't so sure.

"What did you find out about the brother?"

The two men sitting in front of me exchanged looks. "Michael Patron. He is twenty-five and currently lives in Vegas. He moved the family business there, the made men and all. They were loyal to him even at the age of eighteen. He hasn't spoken to Camilla since then, as far as we know. The Cain soldier said he thought it was to protect her, because they'd been looking for her for the past five years, and they just got this lead on her recently when she was spotted on the street by one of his informants."

"Interesting. What else?" This story got better and better and Cain was sounding more and more like a piece of shit. I didn't like men who beat women, and I sure disapproved of human trafficking. He did both, and his son Thomas was notorious for his escapades with women and his temper. It made my blood boil to think that Camilla would have been subjected to that behavior. Again, I ask myself, why do I care? Because you like her asshole, I answer myself.

"Michael does well, has built quite the empire in Vegas. His grandmother knows how to reach him, but his sister does not. The grandmother knows all about the business; her husband ran it before he was killed in his thirties. She actually took over until their son was old enough to run the business, but no one ever saw her. She used her second in command to be the face of the family." The Nonna of Camilla was a Mafia Boss at one point. Now that was interesting. She managed to keep all that information from Camilla, despite living with her for years. It seems her Nonna knew what she was doing, hiding out in rural Iowa or wherever it was. I may need to visit the grandmother, not to harass her, but to gauge if she knew what had happened and why she was protecting Michael and keeping Camilla in the dark. It's more dangerous to be part of a mafia family and be in the dark about it than it is to know. She could be a target and not even know it. The fact of the matter was, she is just that—a target who is in the dark about all of it.

Camilla POV

I feel like I am losing my mind. The other day, when Natalia and I went to the movies, I am sure I saw a guy following us. Men with thousand-dollar suits don't just happen to be on the train on a Saturday evening, and then the same man is alone at the movie theater. He walked in after us and took a seat two rows behind us. I had felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I had asked Natalia if she had noticed the man following us. She looked around and we didn't see him, so we just walked back to the train and went home.

Initially, Natalia kept asking if I wanted to find a diner for dinner. I work in a diner; I sure don't want to eat in one on my day off. I argued that we had food at home, so we went straight back to the apartment. Besides, I had the breakfast shift the next morning, so I wanted to go to sleep. The truth was, I felt very uncomfortable and vulnerable. This was a new feeling since I arrived in New York. I had been here five years now and it's only recently that I felt a little scared to be out at night.