Some are this month.
I refold the page and put it back where I found it, close the cabinet, try not to think about the dates that are in the past.
The liquor cabinet is unlocked too. Rows of bottles. Not much else.
The bottom drawer is the one I almost don’t open.
Travel brochures.
A whole stack—glossy, the kind real estate agents use. Beachfront condos in Sea Bright. A converted lighthouse inMaine. A villa in Tuscany with a long stone staircase running down to a private cove. A cottage somewhere in the Cotswolds.
My interest is piqued.
Raffaele D’Amico, who probably hasn’t taken a vacation in fifteen years, has been quietly collecting brochures for places he’s never going to go.
Who are you, really?
The elevator chimes.
I shove the brochures back into the drawer and push it closed. I’m standing, hands at my sides, by the time the doors open.
I’m also at least thirty feet from where I’m supposed to be.
He doesn’t notice.
Raffaele steps out of the elevator, and he’s wet—rain, I think, it’s been raining for a while—and he’s wearing a jacket I’ve never seen before, and his expression is…
His eyes are dark, and tired, andoffin a way I don’t have a word for. As if a piece of him has shifted while he was outside, and he hasn’t had time yet to push it back into place.
“Raffaele.”
He doesn’t answer. He walks past me to the cabinet I just closed, takes a glass off the rack and pours four fingers of whiskey. No ice, no ceremony. He drinks it standing.
Then he pours another.
My stomach drops. I’ve never seen him this shaken.
“What happened?”
His jaws clenches as he chews on the question.
“Vincenzo is dead,” he finally says.
The silence of the place turns heavy. For a moment, I forget to breathe.
“Wh-What? How?”
“Nico killed him. Killed Victor Senior, too. Shot up the entire fucking casino. About forty minutes ago.”
“Oh my God.”
“No. There will be no gods involved. Only demons. It’s open war now…” He looks at me through sunken eyes. “Which is why you need to leave.”
I freeze.
“Leave?”
I’m genuinely not sure what he means.
