Undressed By The Mafia God

Her eyes narrowed. Luca smiled. Wrong tone, officer. Very wrong tone.

"Get your guns away from my family," Vee said, her voice low and terrifyingly controlled, "or I swear to God, I will make sure for the next couple of weeks, I am so far in your ass, you’ll be afraid of your own fart." She pointed towards Matteo. "Do you have no sense? There is a baby here!"

Matteo chose that exact moment to begin crying properly.

"We thought..." one of the uniformed cops began.

"I don’t care what you thought," Vee cut in. Her eyes swept over all three men. "Is my husband under arrest?" she asked.

The officers looked at each other helplessly.

The plainclothes cop cleared his throat. "We got a report of someone with a baby that doesn’t belong to him."

She looked back at the officer. "Like I said, he is my nephew. And the man you are pointing guns at is my husband."

The hot dog lifted slightly in her hand, as if submitting itself as witness. The plainclothes cop lowered his gun first. The uniformed officers followed. Matteo continued to fuss.

The plainclothes officer tucked the knife away and shifted his weight. "Alright. Can I just get your names?"

"I’m Veronica Genovese," Vee said. "That is my husband, Luciano Genovese, and over here is Matteo Montgomery. His mother is Valentina Montgomery and his father is Marco Montgomery." She lifted her brows. "Do you need our house address, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers too?"

The two patrol officers shifted the moment Luca’s name settled properly in their heads.

Genovese.

One took a careful step back. Whatever courage had brought them running across the park began quietly packing its bags.

"No, our mistake, ma’am," the plainclothes officer said quickly. "We’ll... get out of your hair. Have a nice day."

Vee did not dignify that with an answer. She simply handed the hot dog to Luca then bent and scooped Matteo out of the walker. The baby came into her arms with a watery complaint, his face flushed, his little fingers grabbing at her blouse. "It’s okay," she murmured, rocking him gently. "It’s okay, love."

Matteo sniffled against her.

Vee kissed his cheek. "You’re going to be seeing a lot of them growing up."

Luca’s mouth twitched. The poor child had been born into a family where police encounters might one day be listed under "outdoor activities." Luca watched them go.

No Voss.

Interesting.

He looked past the officers, scanning the edges of the park. Voss was too obsessed to leave something like this to rookies.

So where the fuck was he? If Valentina had contacted Voss, he should have been here.

Unless this was not Voss. Unless Valentina was working with someone else.

Vee settled beside him again, Matteo in her arms, still murmuring nonsense into the baby’s ear until his cries softened. She leaned against Luca’s side. "So,"

Luca glanced down at the hot dog in his hand. "You still want this?"

"in a minute." She turned her face up towards him. "Tell me again why you decided to aggravate the police, and do not give me that bullshit about your wristwatch."

Luca exhaled slowly. "I saw the patrol car...I wanted to know exactly who they were watching for."

"And?" Vee pressed.

"Well," Luca said, "I guess they were confused."

Vee shifted Matteo higher against her chest. "Is Voss sniffing around again?"

"I don’t know."

It was the truth. Annoyingly, almost uselessly the truth. The last he had heard, Voss was on indefinite suspension.

He reached for her, sliding an arm around her shoulders. "Come on," he murmured. "I don’t want to talk shop." He kissed her hair, breathing her in. "Let’s just enjoy this....I’m obsessed with you."

"I love you, you big trouble maker."

"We have both been good boys, haven’t we?" Luca asked.

Vee looked at him as though he had just submitted a fraudulent application to heaven. "Matteo has been a good boy. You? No."

Then Luca looked around. The doves were gone. Every last one of them. Only a few abandoned seeds remained.

He groaned.

Vee glanced at him. "What now?"

"They chased my birds away."

"Oh God..." Vee sighed.

*****

Days later, Voss found another location for himself and Valentina to meet. A farmer’s market. It was clever in the way his plans were always clever. Crowded enough to hide them, loud enough to swallow their voices. Stalls stretched along the street beneath striped canopies. Sellers called out prices.

Valentina stood in front of a stall of apples. She looked hunted. She was escalating.

"Do you want me to have you placed in witness protection, Val?" Voss asked quietly.

"How did that help Tony?"

"Touché....You need to be calm," he said.

She exhaled sharply and turned slightly away from the crowd.

"With your help, we will get him," he said.

"How?"

"We build the case."

Valentina’s eyes flashed. "He knows I am onto him now. He will be extra careful."

Voss’s expression hardened. "Did he threaten you?"

"He told me to shoot him if I truly wanted him gone. Apparently, death is the only way he believes he will go out."

"Christ."

"I need him gone, Voss."

"Can you think of anyone or anything I can pursue? Anyone with a grudge?"

Valentina almost laughed again. "Luca does not let anyone with a grudge against him live too long."

Then she stopped. Voss saw the sudden spark of memory.

"What?" he asked, almost leaning closer.

"I know someone with a grudge against him who lived."

"Who?"

"My father. He is the reason Luca came into our lives...There must have been a criminal reason. If you can find him, offer him money, alcohol, whatever." Her mouth tightened with old disgust. "I think he will sing."

"And you have no idea where he is," Voss pointed out.

Valentina’s mouth tightened. "No. Luca sent him off."

Like most things involving Luca, they came with an invisible lock. Vito Scalese had not simply wandered away into the world like a disgraced father with a drinking problem and a talent for ruining his daughters’ lives. Luca had removed him.

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