All Chapters of Married To The MAFIA KING Who Killed My Father : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

She left for Milan at five in the morning. Lorenzo drove. She hadn't asked him to. He had appeared at the bedroom door at four-thirty fully dressed with his keys and said nothing. She understood. This wasn't a conversation about whether he was coming. He had decided where he needed to be and that was that. She finished dressing and followed him to the car. They drove north in the dark. She spent the first hour thinking about Sartori. Naples. The building three streets from the port. A man who had spent eighteen months pretending to be dead and had eventually sat across from her at a small kitchen table and said sorry like he had been saving it for a long time. He had chosen truth once. Someone had convinced him to take it back. "Who reaches a protected witness?" she said. "Someone with money and no fear of consequences," Lorenzo said. "And the right intermediary." "That's half the people we just prosecuted," she said. "The half still standing," he said. She th

Ferraro called back in four.Valeria was at the window eating a sandwich she had bought from the cafe downstairs and hadn't tasted when the phone rang. She answered before the second ring."Tell me," she said."His name is Senator Augusto Bianchi," Ferraro said. "Sixty-one years old. Twenty-three years in parliament. Clean record. No criminal associations on paper. No connection to any organized crime investigation ever." A pause. "He sits on the parliamentary budget committee. Has done for eleven years.""Budget committee," Valeria said."Which means he has oversight of government spending allocations including justice department funding," Ferraro said. "Including the budgets for witness protection programs."Valeria looked at Lorenzo across the room.He had heard."He could see who was in protection," she said."Not directly," Ferraro said. "But through budget lines and departmental requests a man with enough knowledge of how the system works could identify patterns. Safe house cost

They reached Naples at six.Ferraro met them two streets from the warehouse. She was standing beside a grey car with her jacket collar up against the evening wind coming off the port. She looked at Valeria when they pulled up with the expression of someone who had news and was deciding how to order it."Tell me," Valeria said getting out."She's there," Ferraro said. "Team confirmed visual through a side window twenty minutes ago. Giulia Sartori. One guard inside. One outside at the rear." She paused. "She appears unharmed."Valeria let out a breath."Appears," she said."She was sitting down eating when they got the visual," Ferraro said. "She looked scared but physically okay.""When do they go in?" she said."Five minutes," Ferraro said. "They're in position now."She looked at the street.At the corner beyond which the warehouse sat.She wanted to walk around that corner.She knew she couldn't."Where's Bianchi?" Lorenzo said."Rome," Ferraro said. "His parliamentary office. He's

The appeal failed on Friday morning.Caselli called at nine to confirm it. The judge had reviewed the new evidence overnight. Bianchi's arrest. Giulia Sartori's testimony about being taken. The financial transfers connecting Bianchi directly to the Romano operation. The recantation document falling apart under everything stacked against it.The hearing lasted forty minutes.Marco Romano stayed in his cell.She was in the kitchen when Caselli called. She put the phone down and looked at Lorenzo and said "It's done" and he nodded and poured more coffee and that was the celebration. Two people at a kitchen table on a Friday morning. Coffee. The garden outside. Done.She called her mother.Her mother said "good" and asked what she wanted for dinner on Sunday.She called Dante.Dante said "finally" and then immediately started talking about a football tournament he was organizing for summer which told her he was fine.She called Ferraro.Ferraro said "Sartori wants to speak with you."She

The first call was to Crippa in Naples.She had met him once. At the Montecalvo summit fourteen months ago. Heavy. Sixties. A face that had made every bad decision it had ever made and showed it. He had tested her at lunch with a comment designed to make her react. She had laughed instead.He remembered that."Valeria Romano," he said when he answered. Surprised. Not hiding it."Crippa," she said. "I need twenty minutes of your time tomorrow morning.""What for?" he said."Marco Romano called me from inside a prison cell this evening," she said. "He told me he's done being patient. I think you should hear what that means before he calls you."Silence."Where?" Crippa said."Neutral ground," she said. "Your choice."Another silence. Shorter."There's a restaurant in Salerno," he said. "I'll text you the address.""Nine in the morning," she said."Nine," he agreed.She hung up.Lorenzo was across the desk watching her work."Crippa is in," she said."He always liked you," Lorenzo said.