"Tell that to someone who doesn't know you. I can see it, Steph." His eyes are probing. "You've never been the type to be infatuated with a woman. But you are… with her."
He's not wrong. I look toward the hall again, the direction she took, the corner I can’t see around. An image knifes up uninvited: Oksana in my shirt, hair wet, eyes steady, gun balanced in her hand like a second pulse. I imagine her at my side in Vegas, smiling like a sin at thealtar while Marcello makes promises he intends to keep. I imagine her in Mexico, bleeding and stubborn in the back of my plane, telling me to fly lower.
"Okay," I say. "Here’s what we do."
Dre tilts his head, waiting.
"Keep your people on the church. Don't let the people there know that we are on to them. Decipher their code. I want every single Cell—when the time is right. Pull the El Paso standby tighter, ninety minutes to wheels-up at our ping. And—Oksana will come with us. But no hero shit. If she tries to fly the plane, you break her legs."
He snorts. "I’ll pass."
"And Dre?"
"Yeah?"
"Tell me anything else you find on Metelitsa." I let the name sit in my mouth. It tastes like a storm remembered. "If she’s a blade, I want to know which way she cuts when she’s not pointed at me."
He studies me like he’s trying to decide if I’m the smartest man he knows or the dumbest lucky one. "There’s one more thing."
"Of course there is."
"Gustave."
The ledger in my head flickers:GUSTAVE.CONTI → AURELIO.VALVERDE. I keep my face still. "What about him?"
"Someone cleaned a set of internal emails with his name on several of them. Some are from the old Giordano servers we pulled when Raf took the chair. Nothing sinister on paper, justcharity donationsandconsulting fees. But the dates align with that hymn shit and when the Venezuelans tried to get into New York. If there’s a ghost in our house, it learned information from an old man."
My jaw ticks, knowing he's not done.
"I'm sorry, Steph, but there are a lot of donations,bigdonations, going to Cappella del Corvo from your father."
Quel vecchio infame—infamous old traitor/bastard—the words hiss through my skull like steam. I thought we had a good relationship, father and son, boss and heir against the world. Him trusting me to take the rudder one day so he could finally disappear into his wine and his retirement. But the truth? The old bastard never meant to step down. Not ever.
He’s been playing both sides of the sword again, the same game he’s always loved, only this time, I’m one of the blades. How long has he been feeding both fires?
And why the hell keep me out of it?
If I’m supposed to be his heir, why build an empire and then lock me out of the room where the real powerhides? The realization settles slowly and sharply: Gustave Conti doesn’t groom successors. He builds pawns.
Looks maybe like I’ve been his favorite, but still, only one of them.
"Keep pulling," I instruct Dre. "You stay here while we go to Mexico."
He makes a face, "I can work from—" he glances past me. "Heads up."
I turn.
She’s back, wet hair dragged into a knot, clean clothes making her look like sin is about to start a war. The pain she has to be feeling is buried under a layer of will. Roul peels off at the doorway, smart enough to make himself invisible.
"Did you miss me?" she deadpans.
"Like a toothache," I say. "You good?"
"Shower. Pain meds. Ready when the world is." Her eyes slide to Dre. "Problem?"
"Logistics," he says, all choirboy innocence.
"Hmm." She looks back at me. "Well?"
