Marco met Gabe at the entrance to the hospital’s Emergency Room. Gabe couldn’t tell by his friend’s expression whether the news was good or bad.
“Someone called one-one-eight and said a woman was in the Piazza Bra wandering and looking bewildered. Apparently she was trying to walk but kept stumbling. They thought maybe she was on drugs.” Marco was kind enough to keep pity out of his voice. “She was fully dressed and had her purse. Doesn’t look like anything was taken. It’s a good thing her name is Dunn, or this thing would be all over the morning papers.”
Gabe didn’t care about any of that. He had to see her. Now. He started to walk past Marco, but his friend cautioned him.
“She’s being examined at the moment. They won’t let you in there until they’re finished.” he said. “Regardless of what they find, you’ve got to keep your cool, okay? Don’t make this any more sensational by going off half-cocked…not that you’ve ever been half-cocked.”
Marco’s attempt at levity fell on deaf ears. “I will kill whoever did this,” Gabe said, his eyes gleaming in the darkness.
“I didn’t hear that,” Marco said. “Come on, let’s see what’s what.”
They hurried to the nurses’ station. Thanks to Marco’s badge they were able to go straight to the cubicle where Dani was lying down. Her skin was pale against her dark curls, and her eyes were closed. Gabe walked over immediately and took her hand. She opened her eyes briefly, smiled at him, and closed them again. A doctor was just taking a stethoscope out of his ears. He looked at Marco’s badge.
“Signorina Dunn is a very fortunate young woman. She was apparently sedated using ether, which is quite uncommon these days. At least whoever did this knew how to administer it. She doesn’t appear to have been harmed in any other way, but we’ll keep her overnight to make sure the effects of the sedative have completely worn off.”
Gabe turned to the doc. “Hey, is it okay that she’s fallen asleep again? Shouldn’t we be trying to keep her awake or something?”
The doctor glanced at Dani’s heart monitor. “No, she’s doing fine. All of her vitals are normal. Really, she just needs to sleep off the effects of the drug.”
Marco leaned in to speak quietly to the physician. “This is being investigated as a kidnapping and we have reason to believe Signorina Dunn may be in danger. Do you have a problem with my colleague staying here on protective detail?”
Gabe snorted. Marco knew damn well Gabe wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what the doc said. He was just trying to keep the situation from turning into a circus.
The physician smiled briefly at Gabe. He could obviously tell Gabe was more than just an assigned bodyguard. “Not a problem,” he said. “Unless we get too busy, we’ll just keep her here for the rest of the night.”
“What time can she go home?” Gabe asked.
“I’ll set discharge for eleven a.m., unless there’s a change in circumstances.” With that, the doc left the room.
“I’m going to interview the first responders,” Marco said. “Maybe they saw something or somebody who can shed some light on Dani’s abduction.”
“You know where I’ll be,” Gabe said. “And Marco?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for being a good cop—and a better friend.”
“No worries. We’re going to get these bastards.”
Alone with Dani, Gabe pulled up the only chair in the room and sat close to the bed, entwining his fingers with hers. He could feel the adrenaline draining out of his body, now that the danger was over.
He exhaled heavily. Over? Maybe for now. But how soon before the next wave? These assholes didn’t mess around. They’d killed Dani’s father, probably her aunt, and now they threatened Dani herself. Gabe felt an icy thread of fear sneak its way up his spine. Dani could just as easily have disappeared forever, like that woman Mirela Pavlenco and so many others. Who was next? And for what? To make it easier to sell women and girls as sex slaves? It was beyond sick.
Part of Gabe’s time in the LAPD had been spent in Vice, where he’d learned up close and personal about human trafficking. One time he and his partner had raided an old warehouse on a tip and found six Mexican nationals—all girls under the age of sixteen—living in disgusting, rat-infested conditions. The girls were prisoners of their coyotes and had to earn their daily allotment of rice and beans on their backs. On the streets, it had always seemed ridiculous to hassle the prostitutes, when most of them were just out there trying to make a living—at least those who weren’t forced into selling themselves. But do-gooders felt that busting the streetwalkers was the only way to get them help, especially where drugs were involved. It was such a screwed-up situation, and it wasn’t limited to the United States, not by a long shot. Human trafficking was a worldwide, multi-billion-dollar industry, right up there with smuggling guns and drugs. And it was growing. If Santo Forcelli truly had his hands in such a dirty business, he was going down, and it didn’t matter whether Dani wanted Gabe involved in it or not.
Time passed and Gabe’s lids grew heavy. The last thing he thought about before nodding off was going over a mental checklist of all the things he needed to do in order to keep Dani safe.
Dani woke to the sight of Gabe sleeping in the chair next to her bed. He looked terribly uncomfortable, but apparently not sore enough to keep him awake. His hair was sticking out at odd angles, and the stubble of his beard was already pronounced. His full lips were open slightly and he breathed heavily, the sound of exhaustion too long denied. He held her hand, and when she tried gently to take it away, he reflexively tightened his grasp, still sleeping, as if it were a lifeline. That little movement brought a lump to her throat. This loving man cared for her and she had rejected him time after time, even if it was for his own good. And still, he kept coming back.
How could she protect him? The Croatian had made it clear Dani had to play ball regarding the hotel acquisition or risk harm to those she loved, Gabe among them. But if the situation were reversed, would Gabe do the man’s bidding? She didn’t think so. Not because he cared any less for her, but because he would move heaven and earth to stop a situation he knew to be morally and legally wrong. Maybe it was time for Dani to do the same. The question was, how? She thought of the incriminating tape of Santo and how they could put something so sordid to good use.
She gently squeezed Gabe’s hand until he woke up. He gazed at her with those gorgeous, chocolate-brown eyes. “Aida?” he asked. “What were you thinking?”
She burst out laughing and he grinned, leaning over the bed and gathering her in his arms.
“You scared me to death,” he whispered into the crook of her neck. He straightened up enough to cup her face in his hands. “I couldn’t bear to lose you.”
“Nor I you,” she replied, her voice trembling.
Then he kissed her with a gentle sweetness that grew more fierce as the emotion behind it surged.
“Now now, enough of that.”
Dani and Gabe broke away from each other to see Nonna Stella standing in the doorway, leaning on a cane. Josefa, her assistant, stood next to her.
“Grandmother!” Dani cried. Gabe stood back respectfully while Dani held out her arms for a hug which the older woman walked up and readily shared.
“I received a call from a Detective Clemente last night that was never followed up on,” Stella said, glancing at Gabe and pursing her lips. “Of course I had to take it upon myself to see if you were all right.”
“I apologize, Signora Forcelli,” Gabe said. “There was a lot going on, and—”
“—and you figured an old woman was the least of your worries.”
“No, that’s not it. We—”
Stella waved her hand impatiently. “No matter. Irrelevancy comes with old age. I am used to it. The important thing is that Daniela is safe and sound, and you, Signor de la Torre, are going to keep her that way from this point forward. Am I understood?”
“Yes, signora.” Gabe grinned, properly chastised and apparently happy with the assignment he’d been given.
“Now, my dear girl, tell me what happened.”
Dani glanced at Gabe before speaking. “I…I stupidly walked in the wrong direction after the opera and two men grabbed me. But I put up a fight and they must have decided I wasn’t worth it, because after a while they dumped me off in the park and I ended up here.”
Stella looked from Dani to Gabe and back again, narrowing her eyes. “Somehow I think there’s more to it.” When Dani didn’t respond, the older woman sighed. “I’ve seen what I needed to see,” she said. “I’ll leave you to your rest now, but Daniela?” The old woman caught Dani’s dark eyes with her own.
“Yes, Nonna?”
“No matter what you have learned, no matter what the stakes are or what the consequences may be, they are not worth this. In the past two weeks I have lost my son and my daughter-in-law, and I am damn well not going to lose you.” She squeezed Dani’s hand and turned to leave. “Remember what I said, Signor de la Torre,” she warned as she left the room.
Gabe stood up and bent over Dani again. “You’ve got one hell of a grandma,” he said. He paused before adding, “Can you tell me what really happened?”
“I can and I will, but not here,” she said, stroking his stubbly cheek. “We have some planning to do.”
Gabe looked at the small group assembled in Dante’s living room. He was more than ready to get to work. “Okay, what do we know?”
After being discharged from the hospital that morning, Dani had insisted they go back to La Tana to shower and change clothes. Gabe readily agreed and was only mildly disappointed when she said no, they’d accomplish those tasks separately. She hadn’t talked any more about her ordeal; instead, she seemed all business when she asked Gabe set up a strategy session with Dante and Marco. Everyone decided Dante’s condo was the most secure location for the meeting.
“So far I’ve charted monthly housekeeping staffing levels over the past five years for both the Milan and Verona properties,” Dante began. “There is a rhythm to it, although you wouldn’t notice the pattern unless you were looking for it. I checked names against payroll records and it looks like we’ve lost at least five dozen employees, an average of one per hotel every other month, over that period. If that holds up for all ten Stella d’Italia properties, you’re looking at three hundred employees who abruptly quit during that time.”
“Many of those had to be legitimate attrition,” Dani said. “Can you track what happened to them?”
“Some of them, yes, but at least half left no paper trail. They simply vanished, like Mirela Pavlenco.”
“And I’m getting the gist of how they managed that,” Gabe said. “Picture this. You’ve got an ops team consisting of Flora in the corporate office, her daughter Dobra, and Goran Novak. Maybe Tino was part of it, too. Maybe others in other cities, who knows. Flora’s moving the players on the board like chess pieces. She decides who goes where, when.”
“Through the staff sharing program,” Dante offered.
“Yes, and maybe sometimes through corporate fiat. When the time comes to move the merchandise, so to speak, she sends Dobra to the next hotel on the rotation, who befriends the girl, or works with whoever they’re tied into locally, takes her dancing, introduces her to Novak, who takes her out of circulation.”
“Then why wouldn’t she have done that with Ines?” Dani asked.
“Ines is a native of Verona,” Gabe answered. She knows too many people, she’d be missed. In fact, I bet there won’t be any Italian girls on the missing list.”
“You’re probably right,” Marco said. “The most vulnerable are immigrants, usually from rural areas, looking for a better life in the west.”
“Okay, so why not just abduct the girls right after they signed up?” Dani asked. “Why go through all the trouble of placing them in hotels?”
“Think of it like money laundering,” Marco explained. “A bunch of young girls who all show up missing from the same supposed recruiting company would raise a major red flag. But you work the trafficking angle into a legitimate job program and you’ve got the perfect cover.”
“It’s like a shell game,” Gabe said. “You can’t follow who’s going where. The girls move around from city to city, hotel to hotel. Some stay on the job, others legitimately leave. And a few slip through the cracks—not enough to sound an alarm, just enough to have some poor family members wondering what the heck happened to the daughters they lost track of. It really boils down to an elaborate case of misdirection.”
Marco had been punching in numbers on his cell phone’s calculator. “Good looking, light-haired Caucasian women command extremely high prices in the Middle and Far East,” he explained. “Some of these rich perverts have secret harems and they actually prefer women who are there against their will. A beautiful young blond, for instance, might command as much as a quarter of a million dollars.” He punched in more numbers. “If even half those missing women were abducted, you’re talking almost nineteen million. No wonder they want to expand.”
“Well, we’re not going to let them do that.” Dani’s voice was firm yet controlled, without any trace of hesitation or fear. “Even if it means destroying Stella d’Italia in the process.”
Gabe, Marco, and Dante all stared at Dani. The other two men were as shocked as he was. “What do you mean, bella?” Gabe asked.
She reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a USB drive. “Would you put this in your laptop, Dante? I think you should all see this.”
The next five minutes were excruciating for all of them. Once Gabe saw what was happening and that it was Santo, he quickly looked back at Dani to gauge her reaction. She wasn’t watching; instead she was working hard to maintain her composure. As Marco watched, his hardened expression told Gabe his friend was all in to get the criminals who would perpetrate such atrocities.
But Dante’s reaction was the most disturbing of all. He jumped up, walked purposefully over to a chest of drawers and pulled out a gun.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Gabe said, striding over to him and taking the gun from his friend’s shaking grasp. “That’s not how we’re going to solve this, Dante.”
Dante looked at him and his expression was cold as granite. “He will pay for what he did,” he said.
Gabe glanced at Dani, who was concentrating on her hands, rubbing them together briskly. She’s reliving something, he thought with horror.
Marco had walked over to Dante and put his hand on Dante’s arm. “You are obviously personally invested in this, my friend. If you can help us put this monster away, by all means do so…but not with a gun.” He gestured for Gabe to hand him the weapon. Gabe turned it over and Marco emptied it of bullets. “I’m going to take this for the duration of this case. File a complaint if you like, but I’ll just say I’m checking on your carry license. Now please, tell us why you are so upset.”
Dante looked at Marco, then at Gabe and Dani. Gabe saw the anguish in Dante’s expression dissipate, replaced by calm determination. “It’s not my story to tell,” he said quietly. “But I will do anything. Anything to make sure that man rots in hell.”
Dani joined the circle, a slender column surrounded by three solid pillars. She seemed to have conquered her anxiety for the moment. “The group who wants to force Stella d’Italia to buy Alberghi Paradisi is willing to release this to the public if the sale doesn’t go through. If I choose to vote no, they have also threatened my family and…and you, Gabriele. They expect me to meet with them tomorrow morning to sign the papers. I am willing to do so. I think it’s our best opportunity.”
“To do what, bella?” Gabe asked. “Give in to them?” He couldn’t believe she was even considering such a move.
“No, to get them on tape admitting to their crimes. That’s the only way we’re going to put an end to all this.”
Wait a minute. Dani wear a wire? No way. If she were caught…“Not going to happen,” he said. “There’s no way you’re going to get Santo or anyone else to admit to breaking any law. That only happens in the movies.”
“He’s right, cousin,” Dante said. “As soon as you try to elicit some kind of confession, they’ll be on to you. It’s much too dangerous.”
Marco had been silent through the exchange, but now he spoke up. “What if she could get them to say something not in the least incriminating to them, but incredibly damaging to someone else?”
“What do you mean?” Gabe asked.
“You talked about the ops team. Flora, Dobra, and Goran. They’re doing the dirty work. What if we can get them to flip by showing them how expendable they are?”
Gabe thought about it. Of course. He’d done it more than once in Vice. Get a low level punk scared enough to squeal on the next rat up. “It might work,” he said. “Under one condition.”
“What’s that?” Marco asked.
“I accompany Dani to the meeting…and I go in there armed.”