27. Valentina

Chapter 27

Valentina

R occo’s strip club looks like it was a carwash at some point in its history. Beige stucco, enormous gray door, and a bright pink neon sign. The place practically smells sketchy as I push my way inside and find it almost empty.

There’s a stage on the left surrounded by mirrors and with a pole at the front. Another stage is behind the bar, but much smaller, mainly just a pole. There aren’t any girls dancing though. Instead, a tired bartender is cleaning glasses while a young and pretty waitress is doing side work at a table, folding napkins and sorting utensils.

I find Rocco sitting at the bar. His bodyguard is a few spots away, drinking a beer and looking glum. The old Capo greets me with some enthusiasm, and I’m aware that I’m here alone, without backup, but Rocco’s not a dumb man. He knows that if he hurts me, he’ll practically invite Ronan to roll through here and murder just about everyone.

“You’re coming up in the world.” Rocco sits back down and gestures at the liquor bottles lining the back wall. “You want something?”

“No, I’m okay, thanks.”

“Your old man always took a glass of wine. No matter what time of day, he wanted a little red, not too much, just half a glass. Something to sip. I don’t think I ever saw him drunk a day in his life.”

“He knew better than to let his guard down around you vultures.”

Rocco laughs and makes a what can you do gesture with both hands. “You learned a thing or two from him then, I take it.”

“You remember how it was, right?”

He grunts and leans forward on his elbows, looking more subdued. “We called you his little shadow sometimes. Did you know that?”

“No,” I say, trying not to smile at the thought. “Did you really?”

“You were always fucking there. No matter what, if you weren’t in school or something, your dad would make sure you were by his side. We always figured you were the second most powerful person in the entire Famiglia.”

“Come on, now you’re just messing with me.”

“Nah, we didn’t mean it, but that’s what we said anyway. It was funny, you know? Seeing a little girl in some of those meetings? But we got used to it.”

“Looking back, I think Dad probably should’ve let me stay at home.”

“But if he did, where would you be now?”

He’s got a good point. Without all the training my dad gave me, I’d have practically nothing, no workable skills, no use to anyone. “All I know is crime,” I tell him.

And he laughs, because he knows how that goes. “Not that I’m fuckin’ employable either.”

“While it’s fun reminiscing with you, even though you did want to kill me—” I give him a hard look.

“No offense, you know? Just how things were.”

I ignore that. “I’m here to talk about Matteo Ricci.”

Rocco leans back and snorts with surprise. “What the fuck do you want with a murderous thieving scumbag like that piece of shit?”

“I guess you two aren’t on good terms.”

He curses in Italian. “That fuck’s been stealing from dealers all over Chicago for over a year. He’s a pain in my fucking ass, and he doesn’t give a shit what our history might’ve been. He says the Santoro are over and finished, and it’s just business, right? Fuck him, is what I say. What do you want with him?”

“I want to know details about his operation.” I pull a napkin over and start tearing it into strips. Each piece I put down like chess figures on a board. “Manpower. Money. Guns. Locations. Safehouses. I want everything you know.”

Rocco leans close. “You got some plans?”

“I have ideas, yes.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to get the old Famiglia back together.”

I stare at him for a beat. It’s exactly what Ronan said—or at least something like it. Why do these men keep thinking I want to build a crime family, and why do they seem to believe I could pull it off?

“The Santoro Famiglia died with my father. Assholes like you put a stake through the heart of the corpse when you forced me into hiding.”

He spreads his hands with a grin. “Mea culpa, my dear.”

“Fuck you too. No, I’m not trying to rebuild the Famiglia.”

“I’m just saying, you have the name for it, and I bet you have the skills too. Your little plan to weasel your way into my business sure as fuck worked out well enough, though I hear Gregory is pissed.”

“Let him be pissed.” I drum my knuckles on the bar. “We’re worrying about what’s in front of us, right? I want what you have on Matteo.”

“All right, I can do that. Whatever you want to know. But if you do go after the prick, promise I can send a few of my boys. They’d be very keen.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Rocco gives me the rundown. I don’t take notes, even though I want to—Rocco’s old school and doesn’t want anything on paper. I commit enough to memory and when the meeting’s over, I tap it out onto my phone and make sure it’s encrypted when I’m done. Another skill I learned from Marcus. A little good OPSEC never hurt anyone.

I’m bothered by what he said as I head back to Ronan’s place. I’ve got the name for it, and I was my father’s shadow, but there’s a reason they didn’t back me for leader when Dad was first killed.

Even if I’m his daughter, I’m not his blood . And in a world like ours, that sort of thing matters.

Dad never treated me like anything other than his own, but there were always tells. The way some of the other Capos looked at me. The way I didn’t have any of Dad’s features. People sometimes remarked on how much I was like my father, but that was only because we were around each other a lot—not because we shared any genetic material.

I don’t deserve to take on the Famiglia. Even if that were feasible, Rocco’s wrong. I’m my father’s daughter, but I’ve never been enough of his daughter.

It’s strange, how much I miss everything I’ve lost, but in a lot of ways I was always at a remove. Being the Don’s daughter meant I couldn’t be like any of the other kids in the Famiglia, and being adopted meant I was just an extra step outside of what everyone considered normal . It didn’t bother me back then. And it didn’t bother me until I started thinking about bringing back the Famiglia.

Now though, it’s like all these questions about my identity that I’ve been struggling to keep hidden over the years are back and swirling all around me, and I don’t even know what to believe about myself anymore.