Page 256 of Lorenzo

You okay?

He does not say it, but I hear it anyway.

I give him the smallest nod.

For now, that is enough.

Chairs begin scraping against the floor as everyone finally starts moving. Mario and Ricardo continue talking quietly, while Diego catches Dante before he reaches the door and pulls him into a separate conversation. Matteo and Tomasso leave together, still disagreeing about something that apparently survived the strategy meeting, and Edoardo follows them into the hall.

Alessio stays behind.

I notice because he is standing near the bookshelves instead of leaving with everyone else, his attention on me while I gather my notes and slide them back into my bag.

Lorenzo notices too.

His gaze moves from his son to me.

“I should go find Mocha,” I tell him.

“I believe you are needed here,” he says quietly.

“Oh,” I say, unsure what else to say.

Lorenzo kisses my temple before heading toward the door, but his hand brushes the small of my back on the way past.

I watch him leave before turning back to Alessio.

He waits until the door closes, then his expression changes. The easy amusement disappears, and suddenly I understand why he stayed behind.

“I know I’ve thanked you before,” he says.

I lean against the edge of one of the chairs. “You have.”

He glances down briefly, then rubs the back of his neck.

For someone who has spent the evening arguing freely with half his family, he looks remarkably uncomfortable now.

“I wanted to do it again.”

“Alessio—”

“Just let me say it.” He exhales through his nose and looks at me again. “If you hadn’t found Rachel, I don’t know where I’d be right now.”

The answer is obvious enough that neither of us needs to say it.

His arrest feels strangely distant now, even though it has not been that long. The hotel footage, the timeline, the certainty with which the police had begun building their case around him—all of it was designed to put him exactly where Marcello wanted him.

“You were innocent,” I say.

“I know, but innocent people get convicted.”

There is no self-pity in the statement.

“You figured out what happened before anyone else did,” he continues. “You found Rachel, and you gave me my life back. Look, I know—”

He looks away for a moment, then back at me. “I know, realistically, that my father wouldn't have let me end up where Angelo Greco did. He is not Marcello. He is not powerless. But even so, I'm a free man because of you.”

I clear my throat, also uncomfortable. “I was just doing my job.”