We entered through the service entrance, blended with the other staff. Black uniforms, white gloves, practiced deference. Valentina moved through the kitchen with ease, navigating like she'd never left.
"Follow me," she murmured. "Stay close."
We slipped into a side corridor, then into a narrow passage behind the walls. Dust motes floated in dim light from ventilation grates. I could hear guests laughing, music playing, and champagne corks popping.
Valentina navigated the maze with perfect confidence, her photographic memory guiding each turn. We climbed narrow stairs, moved past guest rooms, and finally reached the third floor.
She stopped at a panel and pressed her ear against it. Listening.
"Clear," she whispered.
The panel opened into Marco's study. Dark wood, leather chairs, a mahogany desk that probably cost more than most people's cars. And there—a painting on the far wall. Renaissance era, expensive, tasteful.
It swung open to reveal a safe.
Valentina crossed to it, fingers flying over the keypad. Her mother's birthday. The combination clicked, the lock disengaging.
Inside: ledgers, USB drives, folders thick with documentation. A treasure trove of evidence.
I pulled the encrypted drive from my pocket and began downloading files. Banking records, shipping manifests, cartel communications. Everything we needed to bury Marco.
Valentina flipped through the ledgers, eyes widening. "Jesus. He's got senators, judges, and police captains on the payroll. This goes deeper than I thought."
"How much deeper?"
"All the way to—"
The door opened.
Marco DeLuca stood in the entrance, gun already drawn. Not surprised, not shocked. Just coldly satisfied.
"Did you really think I wouldn't know you'd come?" he said, aiming the weapon at Valentina's chest. "You're predictable, just like your mother. And just like her, you're going to disappear."
I reached for my weapon.
Movement behind him. Bodies filling the hallway—too many, too coordinated. Not regular security.
Marco's smile didn't waver.
He'd known we were coming. Had known from the moment we stepped through the service entrance, maybe before. Every step we'd taken through those servant passages, every turn Valentina's photographic memory had guided us through—he'd let it happen.
The safe. The files. The combination he'd never changed.
Bait.
All of it.
CHAPTER 10
Valentina
The gun didn't waver. My father's hand remained steady, professional. Not the hand that had held mine during thunderstorms or taught me to ride a bike. This was the hand of a killer.
I'd known it intellectually. Understood what the evidence meant, what Alessio had told me. But seeing it—watching Marco DeLuca point a weapon at his own daughter without hesitation—shattered something inside me.
"Dad." The word escaped before I could stop it. Soft. Pleading. Pathetic.
His expression didn't change. "Don't. You lost the right to call me that when you ran."
