Page 62 of Home Team Advantage
He was as mad at himself as anything else. He should have known better. He’d spent the better part of ten years dealing with many of the same things the mob was known for. He could walk into a room and identify the major players within seconds. Who called the shots. Who took orders. Who was a part of that world involuntarily due purely to circumstance.
Anna fell into that third category. She hadn’t had a choice into which family she was born. Based on what he knew and the blanks Cage had filled in, she probably hadn’t had a say in any part of her life. Hell, her father had basically sold her to a sadistic bastard, and for what? To protect his territory?
Maybe if Matt hadn’t been so determined to keep her at arm’s length, he might have listened to those primal urges he seemed to feel whenever he thought about her. Given her someone to trust. Maybe she would have even confided in him.
Yeah, probably not.
“It just doesn’t feel right,” Shane said to everyone and no one in particular. “I don’t think DiGiorgio has her. For one thing, how would they get here so fast?”
“It’s less than a two-hour flight from Chi-town to Avoca,” Sean pointed out, Avoca being the town where the Wilkes-Barre Scranton International Airport was located.
“No, I mean, how would they know she was here?”
“They fingerprinted her. Did the mug-shot thing. Pine Ridge might be behind the times, but the police department does have internet access.”
“Ian modified the records,” Kieran pointed out.
“Not immediately. There was a window between the time the PRPD processed Anna and we found out who she really was,” Sean argued.
“When exactly did you start doubting my intelligence?” Ian asked, offended.
“Is it possible,” Jake said calmly, “that someone was able to make the connection between Anna Black as Giovanna Bianchi before you did your modifications?”
“A one in a billion chance maybe,” Ian said, “if the PRPD uploaded the information immediately after booking to state and federal AFIS databases—which is highly unlikely with assholes like Mitch Torres and Manny Falco on the payroll—and someone would have to be running continuous fingerprint and facial recognition comparison scans nationwide twenty-four/seven.”
“Say that again,” Shane said.
“Continuous fingerprint and facial recognition comparison scans nationwide twenty-four/seven.”
“No, before that.”
“Assholes like Mitch Torres and Manny Falco?”
“Manny Falco is the PI Eddie hired to look into Anna, right?” Shane asked.
“Yeah, but Eddie said Falco didn’t find anything.”
“Eddie’s an idiot. What do we know about Falco?”
Ian swiveled his chair toward the bank of computers and started typing. It took less than five minutes for him to start flinging F-bombs.
“Fuck. Me. Manny Falco was a beat cop in Chicago when the Bianchis were hit.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
ANNA
Anna’s captor had an anger management problem.
She hadn’t even had a chance to scream before his hand was over her mouth and his arm was around her waist and he was dragging her back into his apartment. After a moment of panic, she realized she was in roughly the same position she’d been in when Matt grabbed her.
What had he commanded her to do?
Anna cocked her elbow and thrust it back as hard as she could, but instead of making contact with Matt’s rock-hard abs, her elbow sank into softer flesh. The guy grunted but didn’t release his hold.
She lifted her foot to stomp on him, but that didn’t work either, as she was being manhandled and off-balance.
Why hadn’t she taken Matt up on his offer to teach her self-defense?
