Giovanni leans back slightly in his chair, one hand resting near Bianca’s. “Then they don’t come in.”
There’s no hesitation in it. No debate. Just a decision.
Bianca shoots him a look, half protest and half fear. “Giovanni—”
He turns his head toward her, and whatever she sees in his face makes her stop.
Not because he shut her down. Because she knows he already sees the same thing I do.
Olivia looks at Roberto. “And Isabella?”
Roberto’s eyes go to his daughter, then to me. “How much safer is home, realistically?”
“Depends on who knows the routine,” I say. “But a private residence with fewer variables is always easier to harden than a casino restaurant with public access points, staff traffic, vendors, and half a dozen casual conversations happening at once.”
Caterina exhales through her nose. “You really do suck all the air out of a room.”
“I’m not here to improve the atmosphere.”
“No,” she mutters. “Clearly.”
“But we’re limited,” Olivia says quietly. “We’re already stretched thin on protection. The kids are here because we don't have enough people we fully trust to cover every house, every route, and every child at once. If Roberto is here with me, who's going to be home with Isabella? We can't just give up our lives and all sit home until the threat is eliminated.”
“If you're limited in protection, you get more protection,” I say simply.
“Oh, so this is a sales pitch?” Caterina says, irritated. “You're scaring the hell out of everyone to drum up business?”
“I'm scaring the hell out of you because it doesn't seem to have gotten through to everyone that you don’t have enough people.”
“We were already reluctant to bring in one outsider,” Giovanni says, “and only because you're Teresa's cousin. If we can't trust our own people, how can we trust strangers?”
“Strangers don't have personal connections,” I say. “Hired protection is a job that's based on reputation. You don't get a good reputation by letting your clients die. You don't want tohire my company, don't. But find someone else. Six of you can't protect the whole family.”
Giovanni’s gaze stays on mine. “That’s easy to say when it isn’t your family.”
“Teresaismy family.”
That stops his next words.
“The last time she was threatened, I was out of the country and out of range. By the time I got back, she’d already been gone for weeks,” I say. “Now she has a kid who is also my family. And apparently, she actually loves your jackass of a nephew. So you’re wrong about that.”
For a second, nobody says anything.
Then, to my surprise, Bianca snorts softly into the silence.
Olivia presses her lips together like she’s trying not to smile. Roberto’s mouth shifts at one corner. Even Caterina’s eyes flick sideways, sharp and briefly disbelieving, before she reins it back in.
Giovanni, on the other hand, just studies me.
Not offended. Not amused. Measuring.
Finally he says, “You’re getting comfortable.”
“I’m sure he'll have a similar assessment of me,” I say.
"He'll be right," Caterina mutters.
Then Roberto leans back slightly in his chair and says, “He’s not wrong.”
