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He leaves first, and I let him walk out of here on his own two unbroken feet. Proof I’ve matured.

In the car, Nick watches the traffic rather than me. “He wants you pissed. He wants you to do something stupid, and angry men do stupid shit all the time. Wait two weeks. I will connect with his man Paolo, tell him all about the buyout. He’ll tell Matteo’s other capos because he is louder than he is smart. Half of them would accept your money by tomorrow, and they’ll put pressure on him.”

“Do you think those kids can wait two weeks?”

“We aren’t going to push his crates out. It’s not as if⁠—”

“That’s two weeks he has to find new shipping, Nick. Two weeks of those drugs getting pushed out to someone else. The sooner we stop him, the sooner those kids can get the real drugs.” I watch Milan slide past the glass, all those lit windows, all those kitchen tables.

He takes that in and switches gears. “So what’s the move? And what about the doctor—if Brancati heat starts rising, she’s standing in the middle of it wearing your ring.”

“She treats Sarah. She doesn’t need to know anything beyond that, Nick. We keep the doctor clear of all of this. Make the calls to move his shit out of our lots.”

Between his calls, the city offers me its evening scene—vespas, crowds at the aperitivo, and a bride outside the Duomo being photographed in the fading light. Milan persists in its beauty regardless of what stirs within it. I’ve always admired that about her.

The envelope rests at the estate, leaning against the lamp in the front hall where the staff places anything that is hand-delivered. It is a heavy cream-colored card, unstamped, with my name written across the front in a flowing hand I recognize.

Allegra.

Friday. The Fondazione gala, fashion week’s crown jewel. This a seat at her table. The card smells faintly of her cigarettes, which means she held it and wanted me to know that.

Under the printed details, the loops continue: Milan is dying to meet your new bride, tesoro. Bring her. I insist.

I knew that handwriting at thirty, on hotel stationery and the backs of boarding passes. It was a decade when I mistook appetite for ambition. I thought it was love.

Allegra and I burned through four countries and two truces before I understood that she keeps people on a shelf like toys. If a toy decides it’s not a toy, she doesn’t like it anymore.

Unless it’s me. Then, she sees any denial as a challenge.

I read it twice. Matteo smiled through lunch because this dinner was already scheduled. The Brancatis have always hunted in pairs—he’s the knife, she’s the perfume, and either way, they always catch their prey.

Well, I’m not a toy, and I’m sure as fuck not prey. They’re going to learn that the hard way.

Soft footsteps approach from behind. “Sir?” Giacomo, our houseman, holds the tray the card arrived on. “A reply?”

“No reply.” I pocket the card. “She already knows I’m coming.”

I climb the stairs and hear Sarah’s giggle as it overtakes the low burr of Veda’s reading voice. Some character being performed wrong on purpose. Sounds like Worf from the old Star Trek, all clipped words and deep. Sounds nothing like Veda, and it’s gotta be killing her throat to do it.

As much as it makes me smile, the reality of it sets in. I get to hear that giggle because my girl gets the real drugs.

And because I kidnapped a woman. But she’s taking it like a champ.

I pause long enough to hear the seagull lose an argument, and then I go to my study and start building Friday’s guest list of another kind. Which men do I take, which cars do we roll up in, which favors called in?

Allegra picked the battlefield, and she picked one with chandeliers, cameras, and three hundred witnesses in couture.

I’ll bring my wife and an army, and we’ll see who comes out on top.

9

VEDA

Day eight in Italy begins just like days three through seven, with coffee on the terrace as the mist clears from the vineyard. At half after seven, Diana’s jazz records start playing in the kitchen, beginning with the piano.

Sarah’s arm rests on the kitchen table at eight o’clock, with her sleeve pushed up to the elbow, while Pip stands next to the tube rack overseeing the process. It’s Draw Day. The courier from the Milan lab arrives at nine, so we conduct our small clinic between breakfast and the school packet that Diana insists on. In just one week, this routine has become second nature.

“Big vein or little vein?” Sarah asks, inspecting her own elbow with professional interest.