She points at me. "Don't."
"Whatever you need."
She turns. In the dark, I can just make out her expression — guarded, searching, the look of a woman trying to categorize something that doesn't fit any of her existing categories.
I know the feeling.
Footsteps in the corridor again. Then quiet.
I crack the door. Clear.
"Move."
Caruso meetsus at the elevator bank — threat neutralized, three men detained in the lobby, identifications being run. He gives me the sitrep in under thirty seconds, eyes on me the entire time, expression carved from stone.
A lesser man would have looked at the closet door, which is right down the hallway, and which he absolutely saw us come out of.
Caruso does not look at the closet door.
I will be giving him a raise.
He calls the car.
The elevator doors open.
We step in.
And Enzo Moretti steps out.
Seventy-eight years old and built like architecture — immovable, old enough to have outlasted everything thrown at him. He takes in me, and Serafina, and the six inches between us that isn't nearly enough given what just happened, and his eyes do something calculating and cold.
He smiles.
The worst kind. The kind that means he's already thinking three moves ahead and likes every single one.
"Luca," he says pleasantly. "And the Virelli girl." His gaze moves to her the way a man's gaze moves to something he's already decided belongs to him. "I've been patient. But patience has a limit, even mine."
13
SERAFINA
Enzo Moretti looks at me the way men like him always look at women like me.
Like I'm a problem that hasn't been solved yet.
He's seventy-eight and built like something that survived on stubbornness alone — broad through the shoulders, white-haired, eyes the color of old ice. He wears his authority the way Luca wears his suits: like it was made for him and he knows it.
The difference is that Luca's authority makes me want to push back.
Enzo makes me want to check the exits.
I check them anyway. Old habit.
"Miss Virelli."Pleasant. Which is worse than hostility. Pleasant is a choice. Pleasant means he's decided I'm not worth the energy of an honest reaction. "I've heard a great deal about you."
"All terrible, I hope. I have a reputation to maintain."
Recalibration. That's what crosses his face. Like he expected less spine and is adjusting.
