Chapter 25

Watching Caleb drive off to Boston had been much harder than Roman had expected. He’d missed him before, but after this weekend, something had changed. Was it that they’d expressed their love? Was it because Roman now knew they had a future together? Or was it the growing intensity of their investigation into Whitman? He wasn’t sure, but it had been hell to let Caleb go.

Ryan and Alex had left for Boston that Friday night, just as Caleb had started his drive back, to see what they could find out about Joey DiMartino. Caleb had done a little online digging over the weekend but would keep chipping away at it as well. It was now Wednesday, and Ryan and Alex had returned from Boston to report back. One only had to look at Ryan’s tight face to know bad news was coming.

“Hit us with it,” Wander said, and Ryan rose. Alex turned off the lights, and the projector whirred to life, showing a picture of a handsome thirtysomething guy with short dark hair, brown eyes, and an aristocratic nose that hinted at his Italian heritage. He had a five o’clock shadow on his square jawline and a faint scar running along his left cheek. The combination was attractive but with a clear nod at the danger that simmered underneath.

“Joey DiMartino is third-generation Italian mob,” Ryan said. “He hails from Boston’s infamous South Side and grew up in a family with strong connections to organized crime. His great-grandfather emigrated to Boston around the turn of the century, and his grandfather was the one who developed the family business, so to speak. Joey’s father, Antonio DiMartino, still runs the empire. He’s done time for smaller stuff, but no one has ever been able to pin anything big on him, something that would put him away for a long time. Joey is thirty-four and married to his high school sweetheart, Allie, and they have two kids, Lucia and Marco. While Allie presumably knows Joey is involved in illegal practices, he keeps her and the kids completely out of it to protect them.”

“That’s not uncommon in the mob,” Roman said. “There’s an unwritten rule that you keep wives and kids out of it.”

“A rule that Joey adheres to. He’s not your run-of-the-mill mobster, though. He prefers to operate behind the scenes and is rarely seen with his father and uncles. It seems he has the role of enforcer, but everyone we talked to mentioned how smart he is and that he prefers intelligence over brute force. He’s not afraid to get his hands dirty but only as a last resort when nonviolent and often psychological methods have failed.”

Roman let out a sigh. “That fits with the threats against me.”

Ryan nodded. “It does. But make no mistake, Joey is unafraid to escalate to violence when needed. Remember those witnesses you had that changed their story?”

“Dorian Firestone and Leo Capatelli?”

“We spoke to Firestone. He identified Joey from a picture, but only after we put a lot of pressure on him and guaranteed him we wouldn’t force him to testify. All Joey did was hand the guy pictures of his grandkids. Firestone recognized the threat and buckled.”

Roman swallowed. “That’s the first real link between Whitman, Coldrick, and Joey DiMartino.”

“Technically, it links Whitman and Joey, but yeah, this is our first evidence that Joey is indeed doing the dirty work for Whitman through Isabella Coldrick.”

“And Capatelli?”

“He refused to talk to us, clearly scared out of his mind. They got to him, but you already knew that.”

Roman rubbed his temples. “It was the only explanation for why he suddenly changed his story. I’ve seen it before, and honestly, I can’t even blame him when the mob shows up at your doorstep. Why would he put his life on the line to testify against Whitman?”

Wander tapped his pencil on the table. “I spoke to Connor, and he knew Joey, and not in a good way. Connor’s family is part of the Irish mob, and they’ve been feuding with the DiMartinos for as long as both empires have existed. Connor confirmed Joey is as smart as they come but with a taste for mind games. I think his literal words were that Joey doesn’t just break legs. He breaks your will first and then your legs. He said that if we were involved with Joey, we were playing in the big leagues.”

“Christ,” Roman muttered, the realization hitting him like a ton of bricks. Caleb was out there, isolated in Boston, potentially crossing paths with these vipers. If Joey caught wind of who Caleb was…

“Roman?” Wander’s voice cut through his spiraling thoughts, bringing him back.

Roman pushed back the fear clawing at his chest and schooled his features into the mask of composure he wore so well. “We need to keep this tight. No leaks. If Joey suspects…”

“We know the risks,” Wander said firmly. “We move carefully. We can’t afford any mistakes.”

“We also found something interesting,” Lowell said. “Once we had a picture of Joey, we checked all our security cam footage again. Guess what? He’s been checking in on your apartment, Roman.”

With a few clicks, Lowell pulled the footage up on the big screen. “After you showed up here, we installed some extra security cams. Inconspicuous ones, including one above your neighbor’s door aimed at your apartment and one directed at the street.”

He pressed Play, and the footage showed Roman’s street. Within seconds, a black Honda drove by slowly, the tinted windows making it impossible to see the driver. “We ran the plate. It’s registered to Giorgio DiMartino, Joey’s uncle.”

The footage changed. It was raining now, but that same car drove by again.

“We have him on camera at least once a day, driving past your apartment. And there’s this.”

Now, the images showed Roman’s front door and a guy wearing a Red Sox baseball cap ringing his doorbell. His face was turned away from the camera, but he was still easy to recognize. Joey.

“He’s been keeping tabs on your apartment, stopping by regularly. He even talked to your neighbors and asked them if they knew where you were.”

Roman snorted. “Good luck with that. I doubt my neighbors would even be able to describe me. I’m never home.”

Lowell chuckled. “Which is exactly what they told him. We have sound on that camera, so we were able to catch the conversation.”

“So now we have a clear link between Joey and Roman,” Wander said. “But it’s nowhere near enough to bring Whitman down. Where do we go from here?”

“Where is Caleb on getting access to the encrypted files in Isabella’s iCloud?” Ryan asked.

Wander slowly shook his head. “It’s proving to be a challenge. She used high-end encryption software, and Caleb’s not been able to get past that. The password changes daily according to a list Isabella has, but Caleb doesn’t know where she keeps it.”

“She wouldn’t have encryption like that unless she wanted to safeguard something crucial, something she doesn’t want to fall into the wrong hands,” Alex said. “And if Caleb can’t get in, we’re talking high-level security.”

“Agreed,” Roman said. “So if we can’t get access to her files, where does that leave us?”

“We have to go back to Boston and dig some more,” Ryan said.

Hell, no. Roman opened his mouth to protest, then caught a warning glance from his brother and closed it again. Wander was right. This was his team, and Roman had to let him make the decisions.

“How certain are you that you’re flying under the radar?” Wander asked Ryan.

Ryan crossed his arms. “Are you questioning my skills?”

“Ryan, this isn’t the time to get all pissy with me, yeah? We’re not dealing with low-level idiots here. This is the mob, and Caleb is out there, working in the lion’s den. So I’ll ask you again. How certain are you that Joey isn’t on to you?”

Ryan held up his hands. “Sorry, you’re right. The truth is that we can’t be certain. We were careful, but we can’t be sure our questions didn’t somehow get back to him. But even if they do, there’s no link to Caleb. Joey may suspect someone is on to him, but how would he connect the dots to Caleb?”

“I don’t know,” Wander said. “But I don’t want to count on him not figuring it out. Caleb’s life hangs in the balance.”

The room was thick with tension, each man wrapped in their own cloak of concern and anticipation. Roman’s heart hammered a brutal rhythm, and his mind waged war between the desire to keep everyone safe—especially Caleb—and the knowledge that risks were necessary in this investigation. His chest felt tight, constricted like a vise of worry clamped around him.

Caleb’s safety hung in the balance, a precarious thread that Roman vowed to protect with every fiber of his being. Roman couldn’t shake the chill of dread settling in his bones. Joey DiMartino was a threat unlike any they’d faced, and the more they dug, the bigger the chance Joey would find out the truth and come after them, after Caleb.

“Roman?” Wander asked.

Roman buried his head in his hands. “I don’t know. Everything in me screams to get Caleb out of there, but I don’t know if that’s because the danger is real or because I love him.”

He’d said it without thinking, and it wasn’t until a soft chorus of “Aw…” rose that he realized he’d shown his hand. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I love him, okay? We’re together now, officially. I think.”

“You may wanna leave those last two words out,” Alex said with a smile. “Everything before that was perfect.”

“Thank you.” Roman sighed. “My point is that I don’t know if my opinion is influenced by my feelings for him.”

“Of course it is,” Ryan said calmly. “I would feel the same way if it were Alex. That’s why we have a team to weigh in and counterbalance your overprotective urge.”

“Thank you.” It meant so much more coming from Ryan, who wasn’t exactly known as the warm and fuzzy type. On the contrary. So hearing him acknowledge he’d react the same way made Roman feel seen and validated.

Wander leaned back in his chair, rubbing his bald head. “What added value does Caleb still have in Isabella’s office? Yes, he’s trying to get into the encrypted files on her iCloud, but he can do that from here as well. She’s already proven to be super cautious, and in over two weeks on the job, all he overheard was that brief phone call with Joey.”

“That call did prove to be a major breakthrough, though,” Lowell said. “Just playing devil’s advocate here.”

“True,” Wander acknowledged.

“If he stays, he might be able to piece a few more things together, is all I’m saying,” Lowell said.

“But do we need him to?” Roman asked. “With what we know now, don’t we have enough to connect everything ourselves?”

Wander put a strong hand on Roman’s arm. “You know we don’t. Yes, we have evidence that suggests a link between Whitman, Coldrick, and Joey, but it’s thin and nowhere near enough to act on.”

Roman shook his head. “That’s not what I’m saying. Of course what we have now isn’t enough to get Whitman convicted, even aside from the fact that some of our evidence was obtained in ways that would make it inadmissible in court. But we do know where to dig now. We can look for known associations between the DiMartinos and others, maybe even use that to figure out who’s been bought on the Boston PD or within the FBI. We haven’t unraveled the whole messy knot yet, but we do know which threads to pull.”

Wander scratched his beard. “Good point.”

“I just…” Roman swallowed again, unable to dislodge that ball of pure fear inside him. “I can’t explain it, but I’m scared for Caleb.”

Ryan narrowed his eyes. “You said that before, that you had a bad feeling about this.”

“I do. I don’t know why, but I do.”

Ryan turned to Wander. “Call Caleb back. We’ll figure out how to get more evidence without putting him at risk.”

“You changed your mind?” Wander asked.

“Yeah. Bad premonitions have a reason, and I always take them seriously. Call him back.”

“Okay.” Wander picked up his phone, swiped a few times, and pressed the Call button. “It’s on speaker.”

“Hi, this is me. If you know me, then you also know what to do. If you don’t know me, why the hell are you calling me?” Caleb’s cheeky voicemail greeting answered.

Roman’s heart skipped a beat. The call had gone straight to voicemail?

“He could be on a call with someone else,” Alex suggested, but his tone suggested he didn’t believe it.

“Check his location,” Ryan said.

Wander swiped, his face tense. “Fuck.” Then again. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. His location is off. Last known location was Coldrick Law…three hours ago.”

Roman’s throat was so tight he couldn’t swallow. “Is there any reason why Caleb would turn off his location?”

He knew the answer, but he had to ask.

“No,” Wander said. “He’d never turn it off voluntarily. He’s been compromised. We have to assume he’s been taken.”