Page 259 of Lorenzo

“With Mario.”

I settle onto the end of the sofa to wait while Mocha drops down beside my feet. The meeting has left a strange hum under my skin—not fear exactly, but an awareness that things have shifted. Until tonight, our plan existed mostly between Lorenzo and me. Now everyone knows their part.

There is comfort in that. There's also a weight in it that wasn’t there before.

Once we start, we cannot dictate how Marcello reacts.

That has been my argument from the beginning.

We can control what we put in front of him. We can control our preparation. We can control how quickly everyone moves once he makes his choice.

His choice, however, is the variable.

I am still thinking about that when Mario appears in the doorway. His eyes find me.

“Donna, do you have a minute?”

Several heads turn.

I look around at the audience.

“Am I in trouble?”

Dante laughs.

Mario’s mouth curves slightly. “No.” He gestures toward the hall.

I stand. Mocha immediately rises too.

“Stay,” I tell him.

He doesn't like it, but he stays as I follow Mario out.

He does not take me back to the study. Instead, we stop farther down the hall where the voices from the family room become a low murmur behind us.

For a second, I wonder whether this is about the plan.

I brace myself for another concern, another precaution, another variation somebody has thought of since we left the room.

But Mario surprises me when he says, “I wanted to thank you.”

I blink. “For what?”

“For Alessio.”

That is not what I expected.

“Did you guys coordinate this?”

A faint smile touches his face. “No.”

I fold my arms loosely. “It's not a problem.”

But he’s not done.

“What happened to Alessio was intended to hurt Lorenzo,” he says. “That made it a family matter from the beginning. You could have finished what we hired you to do when you cleared him and walked away.”

“You hired me again.”