"We could go in ourselves," Killian says from the window. He's stopped pacing but the energy hasn't left him. It's just compressed, vibrating under the surface. "We have the men. We have the weapons. I say we fly to Sicily tonight and burn everything Ramunno owns to the ground."
"He’ll kill Iris before we reach the front gate," Liam says. There's a deadness in his tone that tells me this argument has happened before. Multiple times. That Killian has proposed violence, Liam has vetoed it, and neither of them has slept since their sister disappeared. "A visible assault on a fortified compound guarantees they kill the hostage. You know that."
Killian's fist hits the windowsill, rattling the glass. Nobody flinches. They're used to this.
"Which is why we contacted you," Liam says, turning back to me. "We need someone who can get in without being seen. Get her out without triggering a war. And make sure the people who touched her understand what happens when you take from our family."
I look at the photographs. The compound, a vineyard near the coast, is large and obviously a front. Guard rotations and patterns. Entry and exit points. Preferred weapons and skillsets of Ramunno’s men. The Orlovs have done thorough, precise work.
Then I turn to the last photograph in the folder, and something I’ve never experienced happens.
I pause, partly to figure out what the fuck just happened inside my body, and partly to give the impression that I’m not at all affected.
She's laughing. Her head thrown back, her mouth wide open, her eyes squeezed almost closed, yet the color of them is still vibrantly, obviously, green. Dark, auburn hair catches the light. She's wearing something gold, a dress made of fancy, glossy fabric, and her whole body is angled toward whoever made her laugh, like she's giving them everything she has.
It's not a posed photograph. She didn't know it was being taken. She's just laughing. Just being alive. And something about the unguarded joy in her face, the absolute absence of formality, hits me in a place I thought I'd sealed shut decades ago.
“She is five-seven,” one of them says. “Hundred-sixty pounds. She was wearing black jeans and a leather bomber jacket over a T-shirt that has a charity slogan on it about saving turtles…”
I close the folder.
"The compound's security rotation," I say. "How current is this intel?"
"Twenty-four hours," Aidan replies.
"I'll need satellite imagery. Updated hourly."
"Done,” Liam says.
I flick back to the image of the vineyard; the few visible men spotted around the compound. "How many men does Ramunno keep on-site?"
"Between twelve and eighteen, depending on the day. More during shift changes."
I nod. Twelve to eighteen. A fortified compound. A hostage who's been in captivity for two days. Cosa Nostra territory, which means local law enforcement is compromised, local infrastructure is hostile, and any extraction has to account for pursuit across unfamiliar ground.
A normal operation would require a team. Five men minimum, support vehicles, communication infrastructure, a safe house on the ground, a mobile medical team standing by.
I run through the rolodex in my head, picking out names of people who may be able to help if I need it.
"I'll be on the ground in Sicily within twenty-four hours. I need seventy-two after that to run surveillance and plan the extraction. If the intelligence is accurate, I'll have her out within the week. Ten days max."
“Ten days?” Connor demands, like I’m the one being unreasonable. “They could be doing anything to her!”
I nod my head once. “Presumably, she has her wits about her,” I say, my meaning clear. They should have taught her to protect herself. I look at the photo of Iris Orlova again. “I’ll bring her back.”
The room changes. Something shifts in the air, a collective exhale that none of them would admit to.
Hope. Dangerous, fragile, corrosive hope.
I've seen it before in the faces of people who hire me. They mistake competence for certainty. They think because I've never failed, I never will.
I don't correct them. It's not my job to manage their emotions. My job is the extraction.
"What do you need from us?" Liam asks.
"Stay out of my way. No communication unless I initiate it, no matter how much you want to know what’s happening. No men on the ground. No surveillance. Nothing that could make Ramunno aware that someone is coming for her."
"You're asking us to do nothing," Connor says. His voice is low and steady, but there's iron beneath it.
