Valerio speaks carefully, like every word is a blade he doesn’t want to turn the wrong way. “The hospital filed it as natural causes. Cardiac arrest. Complications after surgery. Everything is clean on paper.”
“Clean papers don’t allow people to cremate a woman within hours.”
Valerio exhales slowly. “Her father signed the authorization.”
“And the hospital rushed it,” I say, voice low, already certain. “They didn’t wait. They didn’t question it. They burned her before anyone could ask the wrong questions.”
“There’s no autopsy,” Valerio confirms. “No body. Just a file and a death certificate.”
“Then the file is a lie,” I say.
Silence stretches between us, thick and heavy.
“There’s a liaison,” Valerio continues. “Carlo Venturi. Mid-level. Small man. Big reach. He processed everything. Death certificate. Cremation order. Pushed it through like it was urgent.”
My mouth curves, slow and cold. “Because it was.”
Valerio hesitates. “Venturi has connections. Quiet ones. He’s been seen at Giacomo’s tables.”
That does it.
Something shifts in me, not anger but ownership, the kind that settles deep and deadly. “They didn’t just take her from me,” I says softly. “They erased her.”
Valerio says carefully, “We don’t have proof.”
My voice drops, steady and lethal. “I don’t need proof. I need names.”
I’m already done with the conversation. “And I just got one.”
By mid-afternoon,I walk into La Grana.
Broad daylight. Full house. Neutral ground where powerful men pretend they are civilized.
The room goes quiet the moment I step inside.
Chairs still. Conversations die mid-sentence. Every head turns. They don’t need to ask why I’m here. They can see it in my face. Rage this contained doesn’t belong to anything ordinary.
Carlo Venturi sits at the back.
When our eyes meet, the blood drains from his face so fast it’s almost impressive. His hand twitches toward the table as if it might steady him.
“I didn’t?—”
“You did.”
My voice doesn’t rise. It doesn’t need to.
I gesture once. “Stand.”
He does, too quickly, knocking his chair back. The sound echoes through the room. He’s already sweating. Already breaking.
“I—I was just doing my job,” he stammers. “The paperwork, the signatures, I didn’t know?—”
I don’t let him finish.
I draw my gun and fire.
The sound cracks through the restaurant, sharp and final. Carlo screams as the bullet tears through his kneecap and he collapses in a heap, hands clawing at the marble floor as blood spreads beneath him.
