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  Blessed are the Merciful

  Gabriella Giovanni Mystery Series, Volume 6

  Kristi Belcamino

  Published by Kristi Belcamino, 2018.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Blessed are the Merciful (Gabriella Giovanni Mystery Series, #6)

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT | GIA IN THE CITY OF THE DEAD

  CHAPTER TWO

  ALSO BY KRISTI BELCAMINO

  DID YOU LIKE THIS BOOK?

  Acknowledgments

  YOU CAN GET THE NOVELLA along with information on upcoming books, free books, and discounts. Details at the back of Blessed are the Merciful.

  PROLOGUE

  Miami, Florida

  Shadows flickered across his face as the dark, swirling clouds blotted out the sun.

  Outside, the sea roiled as the shoreline disappeared, the water sucked violently out to sea. Deep on the horizon I knew that waves were gathering in a white frothy wall of death headed our way.

  In the distance, a warning siren blared.

  Tsunami.

  It wouldn’t be long.

  Inside the ostentatious mansion, we were mere yards away from the beach, a knee-high wall the only barrier. The rest of the gated community had evacuated long ago.

  I turned my attention back to the man’s face. He was on his knees ten feet away with his hands up in the air.

  “Nobody is coming to save you,” he said.

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  For a second, he looked fearful, but then he smirked and jutted his chin at the Glock 19 9 mm I pointed at him.

  “You cannot do it.” He shrugged, his shoulders reaching up to his ears, his head tilted, a smug look on his face.

  I tried to ignore the ache in my arms, strained from being extended as I held the gun firmly between both hands, pointing directly at his head. My palms grew slick with sweat.

  I lowered my aim to his chest, a larger target. I hadn’t shot at the range for months. Even though I could clearly imagine it, could almost feel it and see it, I wasn’t positive I could put the bullet right where I wanted it—between his eyes.

  The gun wobbled a little more. But not enough so that I’d miss.

  I fought the temptation to wipe away a rivulet of sweat dripping down my brow. In the distance, the horizon had vanished, replaced by a white-capped wall of water.

  We were running out of time. I concentrated on the man in front of me. Dark stains appeared on his T-shirt underneath both arms. Perspiration dripped down the sides of his face, giving it a sheen.

  “You don’t want to shoot that gun,” he said in a firm, commanding voice.

  I didn’t respond.

  My finger was on the trigger. I could hear my instructor’s voice in my ear. Don’t jerk the trigger, squeeze it slowly and steadily, counting to five.

  I’d killed before.

  But never calmly.

  And it had always been in self-defense.

  This time, it would be pure, cold-blooded, premeditated, first-degree murder.

  CHAPTER ONE

  San Francisco

  A few days before ...

  The baby, Stefano, screamed bloody murder from his high chair. Nine-year-old Grace chatted excitedly to her father about some new app to animate photos. Alejandro, also nine, sat at the table eating cereal and winced with each shriek. He didn’t have as much tolerance for the baby’s wails.

  Another typical weekday morning at our San Francisco penthouse. While other people might consider this scene a nightmare, my heart was overflowing. It was only a little more than a year ago, that Grace and I sat in this same kitchen alone, grieving.

  Having my family safe and sound was all I ever wanted. Now that my mother’s cancer was in remission and she lived nearby, I had everything I needed—even though I was severely sleep-deprived and getting a slight headache from the screams of my red-faced eight-month-old.

  I was too busy mopping up my own mess to deal with Stefano’s explosive temper. I’d spilled an entire carton of orange juice. It had flooded the table and then had seeped onto the floor. I kneeled to mop up the sticky mess, but then paused, glancing up at my beloved family.

  Although Donovan was graying at the temples, he still had the good looks that landed him a spot on the Sexiest Bay Area Cops calendar several years ago. He still had those thick eyebrows over dark eyes, messy hair, and a low voice that made my heart skip a beat.

  I watched him talking to Grace. He juggled a plate of scrambled eggs and pancakes at the same time he leaned over to retrieve the bottle that Stefano had flung to the floor in a fit of rage. The past two days Stefano had staged a full-on protest to ending nursing by chucking bottles of formula every time he was handed one.

  A surge of guilt swarmed through me when he looked at me so sorrowfully, but I had to stay strong. A few days ago, after being caught out on assignment for the Bay Herald in Napa—far away from my breast pump—I’d held up the white flag.

  Stefano could live on formula just fine. Millions of babies across the globe did it every day.

  But try convincing him of that, right? As soon as Donovan handed him the bottle, he howled, scrunched his face up, and let it fly. It swished into the open trash can nearby.

  “Kid’s got a good arm,” Donovan said.

  We all erupted in laughter. For a second, Stefano paused in his crying to look at us in astonishment and then burst into tears again.

  It was great to see Alejandro laugh. He’d lived with us for a year, but he was haunted. Being kidnapped and having your father murdered did that.

  After the laughter died down, I watched Donovan pull Stefano out of the high chair and hold him, patting his back trying to console him. It worked. Soon, Stefano’s crying was reduced to sniffles.

  Donovan was an amazing father. But there was something there—some distance he kept between himself and the baby.

  It was if he looked upon Stefano as a nephew.

  Because he wasn’t sure Stefano was his son.

  It was one of the dark shadows that haunted our marriage. We never spoke about it. But I could tell by the way Donovan interacted from the baby. It was not how he’d been with Grace.

  It kept a small wedge between us that I wasn’t sure would, or could, ever disappear.

  I loved my husband, and we’d been through hell and back, but unless he could love Stefano like I did, there would always be something ugly between us. I only hoped it wouldn’t eventually grow larger and tear us apart.

  For now, I’d relish my noisy, laughter-and-tear-filled kitchen packed with the people I loved most in the world.

  And when Donovan looked at me with a knowing smile, any doubt flew away. Because right then, my heart spilled over with love and gratitude. There was no other place I’d rather be and nobody else I’d rather have as my husband.

  Everything I had ever wanted was here in this room.

&nbs
p; I didn’t know what the future held, but I knew one thing for certain:

  I was blessed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The newsroom was deserted, the crackle of the police scanners my only company.

  Despite reveling in my rambunctious family life that morning, I now envied all the single reporters who had probably slept in and were having a quiet, leisurely cup of coffee at the café before they came in to work.

  Turning my attention back to my computer screen, I thought about my interview the day before with the police chief. She had said that the officer who shot and killed a drunk homeless guy had no record of abuse, but I had a source that told me differently.

  I just needed proof. I flipped through my notes to the part where my source had said Officer Denizen had beaten a woman nearly to death when he worked in Los Angeles.

  I had zero sources in L.A.

  My cell phone rang. I looked down at the display and smiled.

  “Hi, Mama.”

  “You didn’t call me back.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It was crazy town at our place this morning.”

  “Ah, I understand.” Her voice sounded sad, and I felt instantly guilty. Now that my Nana had died last year and both my brothers had packed up and moved to Florida to start a seafood import business, my mother turned to me more often for company.

  When Nana died, our weekly Sunday dinners with extended family had ended. I tried to make up for it by having my mother and her husband over for dinner a few times a week.

  “Do you and Vincenzo want to come over for dinner tonight? I can make shrimp scampi.”

  “That sounds lovely. I’ll bring fresh bread and tiramisu. I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too, Mama.” We’d just seen each other the week before, but let’s face it, I was a mama’s girl. I needed to see my mother more than once a week.

  Especially now that she’d been given a new lease on life.

  Less than two years ago, I’d thought I’d lost her forever when she got cancer. But her husband, Vincenzo Santangelo—The Saint—flew her to Cuba where a radical, rogue doctor was working to cure cancer, and he managed to put her in remission.

  My desk phone rang. “Gotta go, Mama. See you tonight. Love you.”

  I hung up and grabbed the desk phone.

  “Newsroom. Giovanni.”

  At first nobody spoke. Static and crackling came across the line. I heard speaking in the background. Then, I heard a voice that made my blood run cold.

  “Estás muerto.” You are dead.

  The line disconnected. I held the phone away, hand trembling.

  El Loro.

  He was supposed to be in a Mexican prison.

  But that voice was engraved in my memory, had echoed in my nightmares, had haunted my days.

  It was him.

  My desk phone rang again and with shaking hands, I picked it up.

  “Newsroom.”

  “El Loro escaped.” It was a source I had deep inside a prison in Mexico. I paid him generously to keep me informed on the imprisoned drug king’s activities.

  I pulled up a blank document on my computer. “What can you tell me?”

  According to my source, El Loro had tunneled out of the maximum-security prison the previous night. Two other inmates escaped, as well. Three inmates and five guards were dead.

  A massive manhunt was under way in the surrounding countryside, but witnesses said they’d seen a small plane take off in the pre-dawn hours. Near the landing strip authorities found a prison uniform. Two hours later, they found the other two escapees. They’d both headed in separate directions from El Loro as if to lead searchers off the scent. I was sure their families had been paid handsomely for the men to act as decoys for the drug king.

  “Where was his plane headed?” I asked.

  “South.”

  Back to Guatemala.

  I thanked him and hung up, my heart pounding. Then, looking around to see if anyone was watching, I logged onto a banking website and made a transfer. I wasn’t paying a source for a story. I was paying him to keep me safe. Our arrangement was that he reported back to me periodically on El Loro’s movements and activities and I paid him. If something big happened, I paid him more. A lot more. It was fair.

  Getting a newspaper scoop out of it was a side benefit. Knowing the whereabouts of my worst and most powerful enemy was priceless.

  My cell phone buzzed in my bag.

  Donovan.

  “I’ve got bad news,” he began.

  “He just called me.”

  There was a split second of dead air.

  “Motherfucker,” Donovan whispered.

  “How did this happen?”

  “I’m finding out.” Donovan was a DEA agent in the San Francisco bureau. Someone had obviously alerted him first since both of us spent several hellish weeks held captive by El Loro at one of his homes deep in the jungles of Guatemala.

  “Does anybody else know?” I asked.

  “Classified. For now.”

  “I’m writing it.”

  “Don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Got to go.”

  “What did he say?” Donovan asked.

  You are dead.

  I hung up without answering.

  CHAPTER THREE

  By afternoon, I had scrambled together a story.

  My editor, Matt Kellogg, slated it for the front page.

  The publisher also wanted a small story about my experiences with El Loro, he said. My heart sank. I spent my days and most nights trying to get the guy out of my head.

  Besides, I’d already written about El Loro in depth.

  When Donovan’s plane crashed in Guatemala during a DEA operation targeting El Loro, I turned to a powerful politician I’d trusted, Senator Corbin.

  But Corbin was in league with El Loro. Donovan and I were held captive in his efforts to uncover the identity of a mole. The mole threatened to expose Corbin’s involvement, but also how he and El Loro had used young Guatemalan women as mules, having them swallow bags of drugs to transport them to America. The plan went terribly wrong. The baggies had disintegrated inside more than a dozen women once they reached the San Francisco Bay Area.

  The thought of writing about it again made me sick, but it had to be done.

  After grabbing a latte, I stopped by Kellogg’s desk again. Even though most executive editors favored a big corner office, Kellogg had always insisted on staying on the newsroom floor around his “troops.”

  He was squeezed into his cubicle, his big belly indented where it is squished against his desk, knees crunched, brow furrowed in concentration, I waited for him to look at me before I spoke.

  In a newsroom, reporters and editors immersed in a story have selective hearing. I knew because I was the same.

  When he finally turned away from his computer screen, I asked, “Ten inches?”

  I plastered on a falsely bright smile.

  “Twenty? Kellogg said, giving the same fake smile.

  “Fifteen?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Thirteen.”

  “Deal.” It was better than twenty inches of copy. Besides, in Italy, thirteen was a lucky number. To write this story, I was going to need all the luck I could get.

  Two hours later, I had pounded out a first-person account of being kidnapped and held prisoner by El Loro.

  In addition, I’d managed to confirm all the escape information from my source with another off-the-record source in the State Department.

  Kellogg put both stories up online, and I stood by his desk as we waited for the shitstorm.

  Within minutes, the Associated Press was on the phone. Kellogg agreed they could use the story if they kept my byline showing I’d written it for the Bay Herald.

  That meant within minutes, the story was blasted around the world with various newspapers picking it up for print and online.

  I grabbed my bag, pausing by Kellogg’s desk.

  “I’m out of here.”


  “Nice job, Giovanni.”

  “I was thinking about tomorrow’s follow. If nothing new breaks and he’s still on the lam, what about us digging into how this had to be an inside job? My State Department source hinted that El Loro headed south.”

  “Back to Guatemala?” He scratched his beard. “You can make some calls. But I think you need to go there. I’ll talk to the Big Guy about sending you down.”

  I hesitated for a second before I answered, “Okay.”

  Kellogg turned back to his screen.

  I walked away without a word. What could I say? No, I don’t want to go. Because a small part of me did want to go. The idea filled me with both excitement and fear.

  While it would be hard to leave my kids and Donovan, I still craved the adrenaline rush of chasing a big story. It’d been a long time since that had happened. I’d refused to travel for work since Donovan and I had returned from Guatemala and I’d discovered I was pregnant. But now Stefano was eight months old.

  And this was a gigantic story. Massive. A few years earlier, I’d been moved from cops reporter to investigative reporter and that meant chasing the story wherever it took me.

  And now that Stefano was—mostly—on the bottle, I could leave him for a few days with Donovan. It shouldn’t be a big deal.

  THAT NIGHT IN BED, after all the kids were asleep, Donovan turned to me, propping himself up on an elbow.

  “They want me to fly down there,” he said. “The only thing I’m worried about is you and the kids.”

  I grimaced in the dark.

  “Gabriella?”

  “Kellogg wants me to head down.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “Huh.”

  Silence.

  “You want to go?” he asked.

  “I think so.”

  He sighed. “Okay. My mom or yours could come stay with the kids while we’re gone. They’ll be safe here.”

  It was true. That’s why we lived there. Our penthouse had top-of-the-art security thanks to Santangelo.

  When he married my mother, he moved to his Marin County ranch full time and insisted we move into his San Francisco penthouse.