A day later, Luisa and I were no closer to finding our culprit. We were able to eliminate Brad, at least, but that still left Jake and Petey.

I didn't want it to be either of them, but if I had to have picked one, it would have been Petey. I'd known Jake Marconi since we were kids. We'd practically grown up together. He was one of the guys that I hung out with, and when I thought about the future of the Bertoli family, he was the guy I’d always seen in the position his father filled. There was a sort of generational completeness to the idea, and we'd both grown up knowing that we could always depend on the other for anything. That he was my friend as well just compounded the problem.

Maybe that was the reason that I decided to talk to Petey first. It wasn't that I didn't like the guy. He'd always been a decent sort of fellow. A little thick, and definitely the sort of guy who thought with his fists before he thought with his head, but until now, I'd never had a reason to distrust him. But still, someone made that phone call.

I tried to think of a reason that Petey or Jake would betray the family. It couldn't have been money. The Gaea Defense Force was the sort of group that did almost everything on the cheap. They rarely had two dimes to rub together. They wouldn't have been able to make a payment to a Bertoli man, not enough to buy one of our guys off, especially when they knew the consequences.

I sat out by the pool, resting my leg on the stool in front of me, watching as Luisa swam laps back and forth, a nice view as she went down doing crawl stroke before switching over to back stroke for the trip back.

Petey came out onto the deck at exactly noon as I'd asked him to. Pausing to watch Luisa's well-shaped backside cut through the pool, he shook his head before turning to me. "Hey, Tomasso. You wanted to see me?"

"Yeah. Have a seat, Petey. How're you doing?" I wanted him relaxed, not thinking it was an interrogation. "Great weather today, isn't it?"

"With a hell of a view," Petey commented, his eyes drawing toward the pool again. "If a home nurse like that comes with the package, I'm going to go break my ankle next week."

I laughed and reached over, pouring him a drink. "Here, this should help. I know I've had more than my fair share. Helps with the ankle, actually."

Petey took my offered glass and sipped at it. "Thanks. It sucks about your ankle, but this is the life. So what did you want to meet with me about?"

"I've got myself one hell of a home nurse, but there are things that I need that I can only trust someone more familiar with our operations to get," I said. "I need someone that I can trust to do the job well. Do you think you can do this for me?"

I could see his eyes light up. He expected that if he got in good with me, that he'd have a better chance to become a full Bertoli family member. I felt a little bad about leading him on like that, but there was time to worry about it later. "What can I do for you, Tomasso?"

"I intend to rehabilitate my ankle faster than what the doctors are telling me," I said. "I need a few . . . performance enhancers that I shouldn't have delivered here.”

"What kind of performance enhancers?" Petey asked, looking over at Luisa, who'd just completed a neat flip turn before kicking off and starting her next lap. "That’s a pretty effective performance enhancer in itself."

His mouth was the main reason he'd never get beyond the position in the Bertoli organization he currently held. If he'd made such a comment to Pietro or my father, he'd have earned a slap across the face at a minimum. Still, I needed to draw this out some more. “Maybe, but that isn't the performance help I need. I need a little more.”

"’Roids?" Petey asked. "That's easy. I know a guy who sells them out of a CrossFit box—makes good money at it too. The Don wouldn't mind. He's pretty small potatoes overall."

"I appreciate that, but I have someone who’s a specialist in things your normal gym goer doesn't use. He hooks up some of the Seahawks after surgery, stuff like that. I trust his supply, and I don't want to pay top dollar so that some mook can sell me salad oil instead of the real deal. Not saying your buddy is, but I don't know him, so I don't trust him."

"I can understand that, Tomasso. So who’s this guy?"

"Let me give you his number. You got your phone on you?" I asked. It was the point of the entire conversation, and one that had taken most of the day before setting up. I wouldn't be giving Petey an order for designer steroids—I’ve never used them, and never would. I didn't even know who the professional athletes in town got their designer steroids and test evasion kits from. Instead, the phone number I was giving him was for another Bertoli associate who thought I was giving Petey a loyalty test. If Petey did the job right, he'd be picking up vials of garlic extract pills and, ironically, salad oil.

He took his phone out of his right pocket, which I was sad to see was an iPhone. Handing it over without a second thought, he watched as I input the number and handed it back. "Give this number a call after three in the afternoon," I said. "Get the pickup and bring it back tomorrow, okay?"

"I can do that," Petey said. "And the money?"

"He'll get that from me later. He wants to talk to you because he wants to set up the pickup securely. He never transports product and cash at the same time. Think you can handle it?"

"I can," Petey said. I nodded and reached into my shirt pocket, taking out an envelope. "What's this?"

"A little thank you. This isn't for my father. This is a personal favor, and I appreciate those who do favors for me," I said, handing over the cash. It was a paltry sum to me. I didn't need it, but it helped add that extra layer of authenticity to the whole charade. "See what you can do."

He took the money, another act a true Bertoli man would never have done, and another sign he'd never progress past the point he was at now. If my father had asked Pietro or Julius or any of the trusted Bertoli men, they'd have refused it. "Thank you, Tomasso. I'll have your package by tomorrow night."

Petey left, and Luisa finished up her laps. I watched her get out of the pool, her recently bought training one-piece still looking sexy on her body, squeezing out her long, golden hair. My father's generation had Bo Derek to describe the perfect ten. I'll match Bo with Luisa Mendosa any day of the week. "So how did it go? From your face, not well."

"I'm going to have a hundred milligram bottle of salad oil and garlic extract tomorrow night," I said with a little laugh. "Want to make some spaghetti sauce with me?"

She smiled and took the lounge seat nearby, stretching out to enjoy the summer sun. "I'd love to. You know, our birthday is coming up soon. Any plans?"

"None so far. What about you?"

"I was thinking about celebrating with someone that I like," she said simply. "Maybe some chocolate cake and a trip into the mountains. Does that sound like a good idea?"

“Maybe," I said, laughing. "It depends if you can find someone who likes you to go with you."

That earned me a wiggle of her cute tongue, and my mind couldn't help but flash an image of what that tongue could do to me if it wanted. I swallowed a gulp of my fruit juice and sat back, refocusing. "First, though, we have a big problem."

"Either we are totally clueless," Luisa said, getting off the lounge and sitting next to me so we could talk softly, "or your friend is the man we’re looking for. Not a good thing either way."

"No, it isn't," I agreed, sighing. "So what do I do?"

"You must know if the men who will make up your organization are loyal or not," Luisa said softly.

I sighed and rubbed at my temples. "The consequences are grave. I've never done what we're discussing here."

Luisa nodded. "I know. Neither have I. But if you’re to become the man you want to become, you have to be willing to do it. A man, a real man, has to be willing to do it himself.”

* * *

After almost everyone had gone to bed, I sat in my father's study, pondering. Jake had been the one to sell Luisa out. But why? What could cause one of my childhood friends to turn against our family?

My laptop that I'd set up beeped, and I saw that I had a video call, one that I'd been looking forward to. Answering it, I was happy to see the blond hair and Teutonic features of my soon-to-be cousin, and really more brother-in-law, Daniel Neiman. "Dan, it's good to see you. How's Alaska?"

"Absolutely beautiful. In fact, Ade wants us to come back up here on vacation some time. Strictly summer, of course. There's no way in hell she'd want up here after October."

I laughed. "And how about you, oh genetic offshoot of the Vikings or wherever the hell it was your family came from?"

He laughed and shot me the finger, a casualness that we'd developed since he’d become engaged to Adriana. We'd always been rivals, and in a lot of ways, friends, but now, we were finding a new and better position, that of equals and family. "Sit on it, Tomasso. So how's the ankle?"

"Hurts like hell, but I've got some new techniques to help me deal with it," I said. "Luisa's been really helpful with it all."

Daniel gave me a questioning look, and I shook my head. "Not going to happen, Daniel. Just . . . there's things that make it impossible."

“Hey, it’s your business, man. Speaking of your business, you asked me the other day to look into Jake Marconi. I’ve gotta be honest with you, that's some heavy shit you're asking of me. Jake's not exactly some geek off the streets."

"I know, but I trust that you can connect the dots enough to know why without my saying anything," I said. I was alone in the study, Luisa having gone to bed a bit earlier saying she was feeling a bit tired, and I was able to lock the door to the study and talk. "If I'm wrong, I'm going to need a lot of discretion on this."

"We're family, and not just in the business sense," Daniel said reassuringly. "Besides, with what I've found, I think your instincts were right. Petey checked out fine. His major flaw is that he's greedy and dumb, but he's not all that trustworthy. He's also got a severe lack of social skills. On the other hand, he's also the sort of guy you can trust to look out for himself, and he knows not to screw around on the Bertolis."

I nodded, confirming what I'd learned earlier in the night. Petey had already called my contact and was supposedly picking up my 'supplements' that evening. "I notice you didn't mention Jake."

Daniel nodded. "Remember, he and I were friends too. Not as close as you and he were, but close enough that I'd sometimes take him out on the town. Your father asked me to let him shadow me for a few nights, get the layout of Seattle again before getting socked into that job with the pizza company he's doing now. So what I found . . . it disturbs me."

"Tell me the bad news," I groaned, sitting back. "Just spit it out."

Daniel looked to the side, and I figured he was reading from another screen, or maybe a printout. "Jake did his basic training at Fort Benning, where afterward, he did Airborne school before being sent to Korea. He was an eleven bravo infantryman, and in November, he got his discharge."

"I know all that," I said, "but you wouldn't have that look on your face if that was all there was to it."

"You're right, but I wanted to cover the framework first. You mentioned in your last talk with me that the group that had claimed responsibility for the bombing was called Gaea Defense Force, and that the guy who'd tried to run Luisa Mendosa off the road was named Leonard Frakes, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Does Jake have a connection to the GDF?"

Daniel looked it over, and shrugged. "I can't prove it, but there's enough there that I would be very worried if our positions were reversed. Jake Marconi was assigned to the Second Infantry Division, which is headquartered at Camp Red Cloud, Korea. Both Leonard and Jake were known to frequent a group known as the 'Western Princesses,' a group of Korean hookers who tend to only work the servicemen. One of the most outspoken of the Princesses was a Korean woman named Sul Ham Kook, who left the hooker life to become active with the environmental movement. I wouldn’t be surprised if she'd introduced the two."

I thought about it. "Jake falling for a hooker though? I just don't see that.”

Daniel nodded. "I never would have thought you'd have come back from Alabama, except for family reunions and stuff, but you did. And I never, ever would have thought you’d the type to be taking the lead on what you're doing right now. No offense, Tomasso."

"None taken, Daniel. You're right, of course. Is there anything else you can give me to help?"

Daniel shook his head. "Not with the amount of time I've got. I'd need more time to get more information for you—to track down people who actually are at or were at Camp Red Cloud at the same time."

I shook my head. "No, you've got your own work to deal with. How's work on the legitimate side of the world?"

Daniel laughed and shrugged. "Even harder than I'd expected, but I'm doing okay. Looking forward to getting back and getting married. Tomasso, if you want the backup, I can help. You might need it."

I shook my head. "No, I need to handle this ASAP. If the relationship between the Bertolis and Mendosas is to come to completion, I can't let this just hang in the breeze."

Daniel nodded again. "Okay. Just a word of advice?"

"Sure."

"Jake's better trained than you are. He's a former soldier, and he knows how to handle himself. You're on a busted ankle, too. If you plan on taking him down, you’d better do it fast and quick, or else have help.”

I sighed and nodded. "I know. But there's nobody I can turn to for help. I'm going to have to do this myself, and then talk with my father and Pietro about it later."

Daniel sighed, then held up a finger. "Don't forget the girl. She's trained too, even though she doesn't look it."

I could feel the twist to my lips as I pondered Daniel's words, then shrugged. "I'd prefer not to involve her, and not just because she's a woman. This is family business, Daniel. She's not a Bertoli."

“Maybe, but remember that she's got reason to be involved with this as well. In any case, Adriana and I will see you soon. Take care of yourself, Tomasso."