Page 45 of Bulletproof Baby

The view from my office is serene as it overlooks the hustling city of Manhattan. Millions of people simply moving around in their lives without a care in the world has my mind wandering to the quiet moments of laughter, pockets of joy that I shared with Lia after what could have been a traumatic night.

I run my tongue over the scab on my lip. It's healing fast enough. The flashes of Lia taking her anger out on me does something visceral to my body. It gives me a jolt of anticipation. I can't wait to tell her the good news.

When Cecilia walks into my office, I'm almost certain it's about business. Barten business, not family business. Although I've had her busy the past few weeks working with Lia's parents, I'm sure she's happy to get back to her regular duties as well.

"They're situated. I don't know where, before you ask," she huffs, taking a seat in the chair in front of my desk. "From every source I could tap, Saul's none the wiser either. The most he might hear is that the Southern District of New York is building a RICO case on him with hidden witnesses under a federal judge's lock and key."

"That's nothing new. They're always building cases on us."

She folds her arms over her chest. "That's not a good thing. Jeff says that you're barely skating by. Don't get too wrapped up in whatever it is you're doing behind the scenes to throw mud at Caputo. You might dirty yourself in the process."

"Thankfully for me, I have some of the best housekeeping with Armande. We don't like to leave messes just lying around for anyone to find. There won't be any mysterious bodies floating to the surface of the Hudson. At least, not from my family. Besides, Jeff needs to mind his business. I can make his life difficult in case he's forgotten that I'm Valentino Barrone, one of the largest political campaign donors in the state. If I even sneeze a word that he's bedding a lawyer involved with his witnesses, how does he think that's going to go down?"

"And just throw me and my career under the bus, right?" She rolls her eyes. "I hope you don't think that I'm going to simply work for my family for the rest of my life, Valley. I love you dearly, and it's because of that I'm probably going to change companies, or fucking careers. I've touched criminal law with this Bonetti situation and I take it all back. I'd rather stick to boring corporate stuff."

"What? Are the cloak and dagger movements of federal law enforcement too scary?" I tease her.

"It is actually. They have more gray areas than La Familia. How does it make sense, morally, to give up on a kidnapping victim because it's going to make the case they're already building too difficult to try in court?"

"At least she's safe," I tell her.

Cecilia gets up to close the door. She looks around and asks the question. "Secure?"

I push a button under my desk that lowers the automatic window blinds and sends out a signal to every piece of electronic equipment in the room. It effectively turns my office into a lead box that no one can listen in or record.

I nod once I'm sure the process is complete.

"Tell me again what you did. Because when I spoke to Jeff this morning, he was more scared of you than Caputo. He actually said he thinks you're CIA."

"Barten Security has been known to do contract work on foreign soil for various government entities in the best interest of national security. As far as this Saul and Bonetti situation, do you want me to break it down from the beginning?"

She narrows her gaze. "I know about the feud between the families, so no, not the beginning. But this shit about Lia being kidnapped? You are way too calm for it to be a legitimate threat."

"The night those first three assholes broke into her home to snatch her, they didn't get the job done. Instead of reporting their failure, we found the guy who hired them, some asshole named Jimmy out of Brooklyn. We've been holding him up until Saturday. We had Jimmy call Saul and convince Saul he's been holding Lia this entire time."

"Why would Saul believe that?" she asks.

"Jimmy told Saul that it was never explained that Lia belonged to me which puts Jimmy's life in danger. He was very right. While we held Jimmy, and kept Lia in hiding, I had my intel teams digging up as much dirt on Saul as possible to document his crimes of extortion, racketeering, and running a criminal enterprise."

"You gave the New York prosecutor their RICO case."

"In exchange for putting Lia's parents in witness protection. Once we had that deal solid, I had to stage the kidnapping. I mixed the evidence from the night of the real kidnapping attempt to the one I planned Friday. That evidence is really for La Familia to sanction a hit on Caputo. Me and Saul had an agreement that Lia was protected so long as I stopped interfering with her parents. He should have called off that original kidnapping but he didn't. Not only did he not call it off, but when Jimmy finally reached out to him on Friday, he demanded the Bonetti family sign over their business and for me to give him five million for the ransom."

"Fuck. Where's Lia now?"

"The beach house in the Hamptons. I'm going to move her out of state for a while. I had Underwood do some nasty work with some lady corpses to make it look like Lia Bonetti died while captured by kidnappers. The police did a full court press of arresting Caputo for it after her parents pointed the finger at him."

Shock blankets her face. "That's awfully dangerous of them."

"If Lia was actually kidnapped, it only made sense for them to blame Saul. Even Saul knows that. So Saul did the song and dance for the media and the police because he believes there's no actual evidence linking him to her kidnapping."

"Jesus, Valley, and that's what you gave Jeff?"

"I gave it to Jeff and another don. Like I said, the kidnapping is for me to put him in the ground without the backlash from La Familia. As far as the Bonetti family goes, Saul also understands that they'd shutter their business rather than sign it over to him. He expects them to go into hiding after accusing him of kidnapping their daughter. So there's a new company working their construction gigs. Bolton something, but that company is definitely one of Saul's. They're probably skimming off the top of that government contract right now. It's going to simply add to the RICO case."

"When is Saul out of the picture for good? How long does Lia have to stay out of town? I kind of like her and want to get to know the woman who literally gets to punch you in the face with no repercussions."

That gets a laugh out of me. But she asked the million-dollar question. "The thing with Saul is a delicate play. I don't want to show my hand and the other dons think I'm making a move to go against La Familia. I don't want them to think I'm trying to double my territory by taking Saul out. I don't want anything that belongs to Caputo. I just want him dead so Lia and her family can feel safe in New York, fuck, anywhere. I have to do it in a way that his organization will turn against him. When those pictures and videos of Underwood and Jimmy come out, it's going to look like they're brutalizing Lia for something as minor as an extortion beef. He'll be done and I'll be given the green light."