Page 112 of Blood Vows

Contracted to several financial firms in Manhattan.

No known criminal ties.

Parents deceased.

No siblings.

No husband.

No children.

She was clean—too clean. No one in this city was that clean unless they were hiding something or someone had scrubbed them. Marco’s thumb paused over a line near the bottom.

Pending deposition—Federal case.

His gaze lifted to Luca. “She’s being watched by the feds.”

“She says she can expose the pipeline,” Luca replied. “The one bleeding us dry.”

Marco’s stomach tightened in a rare sensation that came close to irritation. “Why do I get the feeling that you don’t believe her?” he asked Luca.

Luca didn’t blink. “Oh, I believe her. She brought proof.” Marco looked down at the folder again and flipped to the last page, to a printout with rows of numbers. They were routing codes with transfer timestamps, and at the top, a string of characters that made Marco’s blood go cold. It was his encryption structure—his. It was a format he’d built himself with a key pattern he’d never used anywhere outside the Camorra system.

Marco closed the folder carefully. “This is either a trap or impossible.”

Luca’s voice lowered. “Nothing is impossible.”

Dante’s gaze sharpened on Marco. “You didn’t give her that encryption, did you?”

Marco didn’t answer right away, because the truth was uglier than suspicion. “No,” he said at last. “I don’t even know the woman, but someone who had access to my encryption had to have given it to her.”

Luca leaned forward with his palms pressing into the table. “She claims she doesn’t know what she’s holding. She says she found it—buried in an old safe-deposit box tied to her father’s estate.”

Marco’s pulse stayed steady, but his mind began to move fast. He might not have known the woman in the photo, but maybe he knew her father. Still, a dead man with a safety deposit box with buried data and his encryption inside didn’t bode well for him.

Marco’s voice turned razor-flat. “Then her father wasn’t who she thought he was.”

Luca’s eyes narrowed. “Or she isn’t as innocent as she claims to be.” That was what they were going to have to figure out. Marco had spent years turning uncertainty into certainty. He didn’t gamble. He didn’t guess. But the presence of his encryption in the hands of a woman he’d never met—that wasn’t random. That was deliberate.

“Where is she now?” Marco asked.

Dante answered. “Safehouse.”

Marco’s eyes flicked to Luca. “You brought her into Camorra territory.”

“I brought her into Camorra protection,” Luca corrected. “Because if she’s telling the truth, she’s the only thing standing between an invisible enemy and us.” Marco’s jaw tightened. Invisible enemies were the ones that killed kings. The room went quiet for a moment—just the hum of the electronics and the faint sound of the club upstairs.

Luca finally spoke again. “You’re taking her on.”

Marco didn’t move. “Dante’s the enforcer.”

“She doesn’t need an enforcer,” Luca said. “She needs someone who understands what she’s holding. Someone who can tell me whether she’s lying before we put a bullet in the wrong person.” Marco stared at Luca. This wasn’t a request. It was a decision that he had already made.

“I don’t babysit,” Marco said.

Luca’s expression didn’t change. “You don’t babysit. You control damage. And right now, she’s either damage, or she’s leverage.” Marco’s eyes dropped to the folder again, and he read her name: Valentina Russo. He’d seen women like her before—women who didn’t crumble. Women who didn’t beg. Women who watched the room like they were the predator. Those women didn’t survive in this world unless they belonged to someone powerful enough to keep them alive.

“You want me to protect her,” Marco said slowly, “while figuring out whether she’s the victim or the threat.”