I get up. Wash my face. Find him in the study.
"I want a bargain,"I say from the doorway.
He's at the desk, jacket off, reviewing something on a laptop. He looks up. His gaze skims over me once, quick and involuntary, before every trace of emotion vanishes behind a wall.
I tuck that away like a scalpel I might need later.
"Full cooperation," I say. "I give you access to whatever you need from my side — Virelli contacts, Bellevue connections, anything that helps crack this open. In exchange, you give me transparency. No more managing what I know. No more making decisions about my life without me in the room." I hold his gaze. "And I keep the right to make my own choices. Non-negotiable."
Luca closes the laptop.
He looks at me for a long moment. Still and watchful. The predator-assessing-something-interesting look that used to unsettle me and now just makes my pulse do things I ignore.
"Agreed. Mostly."
"Define mostly."
"There are operational details I can't share in real time. Not because I don't trust you — because information is a liability, and the less you carry, the safer you are." He leans back. "Everything else — the ugly basics, the threat picture, the people who want you dead and why — you get it all."
I consider that. It's not everything I asked for. It's more than I expected.
"Fine. Start talking."
He talks.
For forty minutes, Luca gives me the unvarnished version. Enemies. Threats. Timelines. People who want me alive for leverage: my father, who believes I can be used to broker a ceasefire that benefits him. Enzo, who wanted me as abargaining chip before his own name appeared on the drive. People who want me dead to keep me silent: Richard Hale, whose political legacy disintegrates the moment the audio goes public. The Fixer — Hale's faceless operative, who's been coordinating the hit squads.
"And you?" I ask when he finishes. "What do you want?"
A muscle ticks in his jaw. A tell he doesn't know he has. "For this to end without you getting hurt."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have right now."
I look at him for a moment. Let it go.
"You're bleeding."
He glances down. The shoulder seam of his shirt is dark — a slow bleed from the break-in, small but persistent, the kind that gets ignored during adrenaline and announces itself after. He'd taped it himself, badly. Half the gauze has already peeled away.
"Sit down."
"It's fine."
"Luca." The voice I use on patients who think they're tougher than physics. "Sit. Down."
He sits.
I findthe kit under the study desk — Caruso keeps them everywhere, which I appreciate — and pull my chair directly in front of him.
Close. Unavoidably close. His knees bracket mine when I lean in, and he doesn't move them.
I notice.
I peel back the ruined tape. The cut is clean — two inches, shallow but stubborn. It needs closure strips and pressure, not stitches. I clean it efficiently, my fingers moving the way they always do when I'm working. Precise. Deliberate. No wasted motion.
He watches me.
