The door closes before I can answer.
I'mon the study couch, jacket off, staring at the ceiling and not sleeping, when my phone rings.
Enzo.
I answer.
"Luca." The warm, uncle-like voice. The one he thinks sounds paternal. It sounds like a leash. "I've been patient with this situation. I think we both know it's time to resolve it cleanly."
"The situation is under control."
"The situation," Enzo says pleasantly, "has a hidden camera, a compromised guard, and a very inconvenient Virelli woman sleeping in your bedroom. That's not control,nipote.That's sentiment."
I say nothing.
"Deliver her tonight. At midnight. I have people in place for the exchange. Giovanni has agreed to the terms — she goes home, the drive is handled through appropriate channels, and this ends without further damage to the family."
"And if I decline?"
A pause. The warmth doesn't leave his voice. It never does.
"Then I'll be forced to question whether you're the right man for the role Matteo has in mind." A pause that says it all. "Midnight, Luca. Don't make me ask twice."
The call ends.
I set the phone down.
Stare at the ceiling.
Deliver her tonight.
I think about Serafina in my room — bare feet, uncrossed arms,thank you for not killing him in front of me— and cold certainty settles over me like concrete setting.
My uncle wants her delivered like cargo.
He's going to be disappointed.
17
SERAFINA
Iwake up in Luca's bed, and my first coherent thought is that I'm in serious trouble.
Not the gun-and-fixer kind. The other kind. The kind where your body has spent eight hours wrapped in someone else's sheets and has quietly, catastrophically, decided it prefers it here. His scent is everywhere — whiskey and dark amber cologne — and my nervous system has apparently cataloged it and filed it underhome, which is a betrayal I'll be dealing with for the foreseeable future.
I'm still thinking about it when the door opens at 7 a.m.
Luca appears in the frame with two cups of coffee, still in yesterday's shirt, sleeves rolled up, looking like a man who didn’t sleep and considers it a minor administrative detail.
His eyes find me in his bed and go very still.
I pull the sheet up slightly. Which is ridiculous. He's seen everything.
"You said seven."
"It's seven." He crosses the room. Sets a cup on the nightstand. Never looks away. "How'd you sleep?"
"In your sheets. Smelling like you." I reach for the coffee. "Horribly."
