“Wanted? Troy said. “Why would you say Lancaster wanted Becca to room with Pia?”
“It’s the only logical reason Pia ended up with Becca Lancaster as a roommate. Becca said that Pia didn’t know who she was when they first met. I find that highly unusual. If you were the president, wouldn’t you have vetted the person that was going to room with your only daughter?” Sin eyed Troy. “Don’t answer that; it’s a rhetorical question. The point is, he didn’t, and Pia had no idea who Becca was. The only thing I can come up with is that Lancaster knew who she was beforehand.”
Seated behind the desk in the library, Sin opened one of Charlie’s secret files and typed in an encrypted password.
“Christ,” Troy said, “why all the cloak and dagger bull?”
“If Charlie taught me one thing, he taught me to be over cautious. I’m accessing the dark web. If I’m going to find out the truth about Lancaster and Russo, this is where I’ll find it.”
She typed in Russo’s name, but as fast as she could open the sites associated with it, they closed.
“What’s going on?” Troy said.
“Hell of a question,” she said as she typed in a new encryption. “It seems all the information on Russo is under high security. As soon as I open any government site associated with his name, it closes. I’m going to have to go in through a back door.”
“Are you shitting me?” Troy said, as a new website opened. “You just opened classified files in the Oval Office.”
“Kind of. While trying to tap into the real files on the Kennedy assassination, Charlie found a back door into the President’s personal files. The files listed are not part of national security. I want to see if Lancaster has any files on Russo. There has to be a reason why Pia was chosen to room with Becca. After a half hour, she found a trace on Russo. Sitting back, she stared at the screen. “I’ll be damned.”
Troy stood and paced the room. Reading the file, he shook his head. “Dominic Russo is the head of ‘Ndrangheta—the Calabrian mafia?”
“Was,” she said as she continued to scroll. “It appears he cut a deal with Lancaster a couple of years back.”
“What deal?”
She didn’t answer, she just typed in Pia’s name and waited. “Pia is Russo’s only daughter.” She stood and moved to the front of the desk, leaned against it and stared at the screen. “Something isn’t adding up.”
“Like what?”
“I’ve followed the Calabrian mafia. In fact, my team and I came up against them a few years back.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me. Care to elaborate?”
“An Italian associate of mine asked for our help. One of the ‘Ndrangheta families was extorting her family. The ‘Ndrangheta family in Tuscany was pulling millions from their winery.” The left side of her lips rose as she continued. “We just asked them to stop.”
Troy held up a hand. “Just stop there. I don’t even want to know how you asked and why they agreed.”
Sin retook her seat behind the desk and mumbled, “Sometimes you just have to ask politely.”
She saw Troy shake his head in her peripheral vision as she typed in another name.
“Aria LaBarbara?” Troy said. “That’s Pia’s mother. I thought this had to do with Russo.”
Tapping the enter key, and studying the monitor, she punched the air with her right hand. Pointing to the screen, she said, “That’s what was bothering me. I knew the LaBarbara name sounded familiar.” They were both silent as they read the file that popped up.
“I’ll be damned,” Troy said, reading the file. “The LaBarbara’s run one of the ‘Ndrangheta families. Christ, this is like a giant Sudoku puzzle.”
Sin smiled at Troy’s pronunciation of ‘Ndrangheta. “The accent is on the second syllable. N-DRAHNG-get-tah.” Not missing a beat, she opened other files, older files, until she found the one she wanted. “Russo married LaBarbara back in ninety-one,” she said as she stared at a photo from their wedding.
“They don’t look like they’re lost in wedded bliss,” Troy remarked.
“No. No, they don’t.”
“Then why—” Sin eyed Troy as he worked out the truth as Sin saw it. “Their marriage was one of power,” he said. “Together, they practically controlled all the other families.”
“That’s my assumption. The ‘Ndrangheta families are infamous for marrying each other to gain power. The Calabrian mafia isn’t like La Costra Nostro, the Sicilian mafia. There is no real hierarchy. It’s made up of many independent families, all of which have their own territory. But don’t mistake that as a weakness. The organization is smart. They take their dirty money, invest in international markets, and together, they have amassed a fortune bigger than many countries’ GNP.”
She opened another window, the one that spoke of Lancaster’s huge win over organized crime. “My guess is that Lancaster somehow found a way to leverage Russo. The timeline adds up,” she said, pointing at the screen.
“But why?” Troy said. “If ‘Ndrangheta was that strong and Russo along with the LaBarbara family had that much power, why would he agree to work with Lancaster?”
She minimized the windows and opened a new one. “A little over two years ago, just before the general election, Lancaster boasted that he shut down much of the U.S.’s drug and gun running. That was ‘Ndrangheta’s specialty. He had to have had Russo’s help.”
“Again,” Troy said, “why?”
She reopened up many of the windows and printed the files. “I guess we’ll just have to wait until noon tomorrow.”
“What happens tomorrow?”
“Dominic Russo is coming for lunch.”
“Where?”
“Tumbleboat Key. The old house.”
24
It was late when Sin walked into the Naval hospital in Key West. Walking the halls, she remembered the first time she met Deborah O’Rourke. She was her father’s doctor. A brilliant physician and the head of oncology at the hospital who ended up being a good friend. During the Painted Beauty case,
