Valentina Esposito is an unlikely hero thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Abandoned as an infant to an orphanage, she’s rewritten her destiny by becoming a brilliant computer programmer with a thirst for adventure. Turns out that her biological father Frank Provati is an underboss of the Ruggerio Crime Family. With an FBI cyber consulting contract and Jack Slade, an NYPD detective boyfriend, she straddles the line between law enforcers and the lawless.
The Valentina Esposito Mysteries is a collection of seven short stories.
Orphaned: Chapter 1
I hadn’t been loved enough to keep. As an infant, my mother stuffed me into a turnstile at the Brooklyn Monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the sisters’ main interface with the outside world. Maybe she gave the delivery bell a tug before she fled, or maybe someone heard a baby’s sobs. All Mother Superior remembered was that it was raining.
I’m Valentina.
In the monastery, I was a soul to save, guided, not cherished, growing up amid damp, chilly, thick stone walls and stained-glass images that dimmed sunlight. My black hair grew long, in contrast to the nuns, some of whom shaved their heads. Scrawny in my early years, my figure developed. As I got older, I fielded subtle suggestions from the diminishing number of cloistered women in brown-and-white habits to join their vocation.
Another orphan, blonde Marguerite had suckled at her mother’s breast before she died. I’d watch Marguerite daydream. Her small smile told me she was replaying the grainy memory of her mother’s face. I acted cordially toward her but withheld praise and excluded her whenever I could – frowning if her name was mentioned.
I excelled in class, but Marguerite struggled and pleaded for my help. Finally feeling superior, I agreed. Childish of me, but it kept me from wanting to break things.
The sisters weren’t allowed to access social media, which could draw them away from prayer and tempt them out of the cloistered life. Computers and smart phones were also forbidden to them. I was assigned to keep their records on a donated Apple Macintosh. Internet access became my spyglass on the outside world, and I spent hours at the terminal, even discovering the Dark Web.
At seventeen, the exhaust filled air of the Brooklyn streets smelled like Paradise, and I fled the monastery, losing contact with Marguerite. I found a maid’s job with a broom closet-sized room provided off the books at the Wayfarer Motel, a greasy-sheet joint that rented by the hour. I took the surname of Esposito, “exposed” in Italian, the name assigned to abandoned infants in Italy.
I lost my virginity at the Wayfarer when a client in his thirties, blond with a crooked smile, had lingered when I arrived to clean his room.
“Hi, beautiful.”
Flattery got me into bed. The twenty dollars he left on the dresser triggered thoughts of supplementing my income. The motel manager demanded a kickback from my tricks. After my first, I insisted the johns use protection. Pregnancy would’ve been disastrous, would’ve forced me to answer questions: Would I be nurturing to make up for what I never received? Like my mother, would I put the child up for adoption? Was I even capable of love?
Millie rescued me from that life. Her warmth won me over, and she adopted me as her daughter. She encouraged my university attendance where I polished my computer skills and changed my destiny.
***
After a busy lunch meal service in Millie’s Brooklyn restaurant, the bouquet of sautéed garlic lingered. My focus was the laptop I used to earn my fee as a cybercrime consultant for the FBI, browsing the Dark Web for signs of a New York stolen goods ring they pursued.
A well-coiffed brunette dressed in a snakeskin midi-dress I’d seen in Saks, walked into the restaurant looking more dowager than matronly, with a grace of bearing and presence suggesting stage or ballet training. A Mercedes with a driver wearing a chauffer’s cap waited at the curb. As she stepped inside, the barman announced that we were closed, which she waved away as she headed for the booth where I sat, confidently striding like we were friends, but we’d never met.
“I’m Rebecca Stoddard. May I join you?”
Although I took an instant dislike for her manner, I nodded. She slid across from me, placing a Dior purse on the table.
“I’d like your investigative help.”
I preferred to ask questions where I already knew the answer. “Do I know you?”
“Your name arose as someone with a wide range of contacts who could be discreet.”
One of the shocks of my life was the revelation that I was fathered by Frank Provati, the Ruggerio Crime Family underboss, a tidbit I left off my FBI job application. Frank – he hadn’t merited the title of “Dad” since he didn’t save me from the orphanage – had his parentage revealed by a DNA test surreptitiously arranged by my half-brother Anthony who thought Frank was his uncle. Turned out that Frank got around, including a fling with Anthony’s mother. In an instant, I went from being an orphan to discovering both a brother and my father. That took a while to process. Frank and Millie were old friends and when he learned what I got up to at the Wayfarer Motel, he was the impetus for her to adopt me.
Word had apparently gotten around that I had a mob connection. Before I could ask who recommended me, she raised a palm, saying, “They asked to remain confidential.”
My bullshit detector dinged an alert, and I tried to sound dismissive. “You should hire a licensed PI.”
Undeterred, she opened her purse and produced a thick brown envelope that she placed before me. “Here’s a five-thousand-dollar retainer. Should you be successful, I’ll pay you an additional fifteen thousand.”
Someone shows up who you’ve never met and won’t say who sent her but offers you a wad of cash for God knows what. If Ms. Stoddard were an email, I would’ve suspected she was a phishing scam. The edges of hundred-dollar bills were visible – denomination of the drug trade – and she wasn’t asking me to sign a contract or give her a receipt. I figured she’d ask me to do something illegal. Still, my Dark Web search could wait, and money is always nice, so I nibbled at the bait.
“What do you want me to do?”
She looked relieved. “I believe my husband is seeing another woman. Document his philandering so I have firm grounds to file for a divorce.”
She described a job that was absolutely meat and potatoes PI work. Did I want to trade boring cyber searches for tawdry hotel lobby stakeouts?
“You really should hire a private investigator who has experience and the camera equipment for this sort of task.”
Her face soured like someone who had their Bingo number called, only to learn that they’d mismarked their card. By her dress and manner, money had salved the rough patches in her life, so she had a go-to play. She reached into her bag and placed a second stuffed envelope before me. Her face brightened expectantly.
“An additional five thousand,” she announced, “which you’ll keep regardless. If you snap incriminating photos of my husband with his lover, I’ll give you an additional twenty thousand.”
Why would she hire someone with a mob connection rather than a PI? Did she want a contract hit on her husband? I could’ve told her that Frank wouldn’t agree. Instead, I sat back and thought of the ways Millie might make good use of ten thousand in cash. I probably should’ve realized that money is never free.
“Do you have a picture of your husband?”
From her bag, she produced a publicity brochure for an investment firm Castin & Company that included her husband’s smiling face. “Ted is a junior partner to my father, Rodney Castin.”
All in the family. Intriguing. “Did your father give you an indication that Ted was stepping out on you?”
Stoddard shifted uncomfortably. “Ted stays out late most evenings, ostensibly entertaining clients, but he’s with his mistress. A wife knows.”
Actually, the wife is often the last to know, but I let that slide. I did the math. Perhaps I’d catch her husband cheating and take a few iPhone photos. Regardless, I’d be ten grand richer. No downside loomed, so I placed my hand on the two envelopes.
Stoddard’s self-satisfied smile gave me eerie second thoughts that I’d erred. I shook that off. I’d taken the job. “Do you know where your husband and his mistress meet?”
She gathered her purse and stood. “My father has access to Ted’s schedule. Pay him a visit at his Manhattan office. I’ll let him know you’re coming.”
Without a “text me when you have something,” she strode from the restaurant and took off in her limo. I’d solved her problem. Now, it was my problem.
***
When I handed the wads of cash to Millie, her eyes widened.
“What’s this for?”
“What you’ve given me, I couldn’t possibly repay.”
“Marone,” she said as she hefted the envelopes, then pushed them back toward me. “I don’t want your money. Buy something nice for yourself.”
I held up my palms. “A gift is a gift.”
Millie grimaced, then hesitated before she tucked the envelopes into her apron. “Thank you.” She enveloped me in her ample bosom and squeezed me close. She was warm and smelled of the grill, and I felt like I’d been wrapped inside a thermal blanket. I hugged back. As she released me, she pressed a wet kiss against my cheek.
Her smile faded, and her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “How did you come by so much money? That fancy-pants visitor?”
“She hired me to document her husband’s cheating.”
Millie carried a white chin scar. Her marriage to an abusive pig ended badly. The lines around her hazel eyes were further evidence that her life hadn’t been filled with dress-up dolls and spa treatments. Worry was her first emotion. “If you catch the husband in the act, he might react violently. For this amount of money, you’re putting yourself in danger.”
I wasn’t about to add to her dread by agreeing with her concern.
She concluded. “You should speak to Frank.”
Frank pushed me to get a computer science degree from CCNY, with the ulterior motive that I create a Dark Web drug emporium for the Ruggiero Crime Family, another thing I left off my resume when I applied for my gig with the FBI. His and Millie’s intervention and guidance plus a streak of ambition changed the course of my life. While I still harbored resentment about his not rescuing me from the orphanage, I often turned to him for advice.
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