Inside is sparse but homey. There’s a bed that looks clean enough. Luigi unbuttons his shirt and climbs in. He holds out his arms. Joining him, I lay my head on his chest. He pulls the covers around us like a cocoon.
“Sleep, Bella. You’re safe,” he says as he kissesmy forehead.
“Will you sleep as well?”
“With the enemy? Yes,” he jokes. Then he’s serious. “The Vendetta doesn’t get to tell us how this ends.”
“It doesn’t,” I say.
“No trades,” he says, and sets my palm against his chest. Steady beat. Heat through cotton. The far off bells rattle once in a soft answer.
“Say it?” he asks, not a command.
“No trades,” I say.
His mouth curves. “Good. Then we’ll go write it down and make the city keep it.”
I kiss him once. Not for the camera that watched us in the condo. For me. For us.
Chapter Nine
Luigi
The house sits on the river like it grew out of stone. Old brick. Iron balconies that remember other winters. My uncle keeps his map room on the second floor where he can watch the water move and pretend he is moving it.
I walk in with a packet that weighs more than paper.
I haven’t cleaned it. Recorder files should be stripped of noise. Timestamps bright. Ledger pages copied with numbers that line up like a conviction. The polished voice clipped into three sharp minutes that don’t need my narration to ruin a man.
There hasn’t been time for that.
My uncle looks up from the table that’s older than my father would have been if he’d lived. Dark suit. The rested air of a patriarch who sleeps fine while other people bleed. He funds a river conservancy gala with the same board who bleeds them. Our grief throws tidy parties.
“You’re late,” he says.
“I’m on time for the thing that matters.”
“You’ve started a war.”
“Not me.”
“You took the Valentine girl. Saw it with my own eyes. Morettis are at our throats. What were you thinking?”
“I got an order to kill her. I didn’t.”
My uncle’s eyes turn to slits. “An order from who?”
“Not you?” It’s an honest question.
The man’s bewildered as he shakes his head.
“I saved the Valentine girl. Seems her fiancé had it out for her.”
He studies my face like truth likes to hide in my mouth. The consigliere stands at the window with a notepad. He has not written yet. He grips the pen like it keeps him safe.
I lay the packet out. First the assistant’s ledger. Then the mirror pull report. I set the small recorder on the wood and press play.
“After Valentine Week, we take the port. If the girl holds the chair, that is a problem. Remove her and their consent follows.”
