Manageable.
Teresa tracks the whole thing and says nothing for once.
Maybe because Cristiano has just discovered his own foot, which apparently requires intense concentration.
I reach for my watch from the nightstand and fasten it around my wrist.
“What’s the current perimeter?” I ask.
She sighs. “You know I don’t know that.”
“You know enough.”
“I know your men are outside. Giovanni’s checking out the back of the property. Antonio has been on the phone on and off since yesterday. Roberto and Luca are in the study. Vito is off with Nico somewhere, checking something out.”
“That’s not a perimeter report.”
“That is a family report. It’s what you get from me.”
Cristiano makes another noise and drops the ring. It rolls toward the edge of the bed. I catch it before it falls, then hold it out to him.
He looks at it.
Then at me.
Then at it again.
Suspicious.
Teresa laughs softly. “He gets that from Vito, too.”
“He has good instincts.”
“Don’t encourage either of them.”
Cristiano finally takes the ring from my hand. His fingers close around my thumb for half a second before he pulls away.
Tiny grip. Warm. Completely unaware.
Something about that is worse than any of the rest of it.
I think about the note. The Conti tree. Branches. Pruned.
I think about Erica and Emma’s car. About the staged fight. About Caterina barefoot in a stairwell while men fired behind her. About this baby sitting on a guest bed with a toy in his fist, carrying a legacy he cannot understand and becoming a target he did not choose.
My jaw tightens.
Teresa sees it.
“What?” she asks.
I shake my head once. “Nothing.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Look at my son like he’s a case file.”
