My voice goes flat. “That is none of your concern.”
“Understood, boss.”
“As for my business in Italy,” I continue, “you may need to come out here. There are loose ends to tie up.”
That gets his attention. “Loose ends?”
My gaze lifts toward the ceiling—toward the room whereElizabeth is still crying behind a locked door. I think of the panic on her face. The way she clutched at her neck. The way she recoiled from the SUV like it was a coffin on wheels. And I know, with a certainty that feels like a blade sliding between my ribs, that whatever happened to her before was not random.
“No mistakes this time,” I say quietly. “I want names. I want dates. I want to know who touched her, who moved her, who gave the order, and who helped bury it.”
Cesaro goes silent for half a beat.
“You think this is wise, Boss?”
I let the question hang there while my temper goes black and cold.
“I think,” I say, each word precise, “that someone took something that belongs to me and thought they’d get away with it.”
My reflection in the office window looks like a stranger. Harder than usual. Meaner. The kind of man men pray they never give a reason to come looking.
Upstairs, I can still hear the echo of Elizabeth’s tears in my head.
When I speak again, my voice is deadly calm.
“Book a flight. Bring the files. And Cesaro?”
“Yes, Boss?”
“If anybody asks questions about Elizabeth, I want their names too.”
“Understood.”
I end the call and set the phone down slowly. Then I sit there in the silence, staring at the desk and listening to the pulse pounding in my ears, trying to decide what burns hotter—the need to go upstairs and kick down her door until she tells me the truth, or the need to hunt down the men who put that look in her eyes.
After an hour, I go back upstairs. The door is locked, which lasts all of three seconds against my pocketknife. When I stepinside, she’s curled on the bed in that oversized hoodie again, like she’s tried to disappear back into it. She isn’t crying anymore, but her eyes are still wet, lashes clumped from tears she clearly hates me seeing.
I close the door behind me.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?”
For a moment, she just looks at me. Then, flatly, “Are you going to let me call Dante?”
I make the decision right then.
“Yes.”
She sits up so fast the blanket tangles around her legs. “What?” Suspicion and hope war across her face. “Really?”
I walk farther into the room. “I’ll let you call him if you tell me what happened back there.”
Her fingers worry the hem of the hoodie, twisting the fabric. She looks down at her hands like she hates that tell and can’t stop herself anyway.
“It was the SUV,” she says finally. “Being inside it reminded me of something.”
Every muscle in my body stills.
“Tell me.”
