“Okay.” I hear Mom moving around as she asks, “How are you holding up?”
“I’m fine.”
“Augusto.” There’s a no-nonsense tone to her voice, which she always uses when she’s serious. “How are you doing with everything that happened?”
“I feel fucking guilty. I keep seeing the woman in my mind’s eye.”
“I wish I could hug you, my baby.”
I lift my head and suck in a deep breath. “I can’t do anything about it.” A knock at the door has me glancing over my shoulder. “I need to go. I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too. Be safe out there. I want you back in one piece.”
A smile flirts with the corner of my mouth. “Okay.”
As I end the call, I walk to the door and check the peephole before I open for Raffaele.
Noticing he has also taken a shower, I ask, “Did you eat?”
“I can’t stomach food right now,” he replies as he steps into the room. He glances at the food I barely touched. “I see your appetite is missing as well.”
“Yeah.” I walk to the minibar and pour us some whiskey. While I hand Raffaele a tumbler, I say, “I just spoke to my mother about what happened.”
Everyone in our close circle knows about Mom’s past. Even though a lot of time has passed, she still has anxiety around men she doesn’t know, so all the guards have been ordered to keep their distance from her.
His eyebrows lift. “How did she take it?”
I shrug as I take a sip of the amber liquid and savor the burn before I answer, “She actually took it well.” I meet my second-in-charge’s eyes. “But I don’t feel any better.”
Raffaele nods, and we stand in silence as we drink our whiskeys. When he sets his tumbler down, he exhales a heavy sigh. “Jesus, we beat the shit out of a woman.”
“I gave the order,” I repeat my words from earlier. “This is not on you.”
He glances at me, his eyes dark with guilt. “How did we not notice?” He shakes his head as he crosses his arms over his chest. “I keep replaying the past few days, but I can’t remember a single second where she gave her identity away.”
“I noticed she was short, but most people are shorter than me.”
We keep going over everything, and after a few seconds, I say, “There was no way for us to know.”
My phone rings, pulling my attention to an incoming call. Looking at the screen, I see Rosie’s name and quickly answer, “Hey, Rosie. Do you have anything for me?”
“There’s movement around the hospital. A group of men arrived a few minutes ago. They have Yakuza tattoos. I was making dinner and almost missed it. They’re still there. I’ll send you photos of the cars and men.”
“Thanks, Rosie.”
I end the call, and while all the information comes through, I tell Raffaele, “Get Santi and John. The Yakuza is at the hospital.”
As he sends a message to the guards, I pull my weapon out of my chest holster to check the magazine before I tuck it back into place. Heading toward the door, I grab my suit jacket from where it’s lying over the back of the couch, and shrug it on.
As we exit the hotel room, he asks, “What did Rosie say?”
“A group of men arrived at the hospital a few minutes ago. She thinks they’re Yakuza.” I open the secure chat I share with Rosie, and we look at the photos as we walk to the elevators.
“Definitely Yakuza,” Raffaele agrees.
Another message comes through from Rosie with a close-up photo of one of the men.
Yutaro Kano. Tanaka’s underboss.
