No signal at the cabin—same as last time. I drove the Bugatti half a mile down the dirt road until a single bar appeared on my phone. Enough.
Domenico answered on the first ring.
"You're alive," Domenico said by way of greeting. "Good. I was getting tired of being in charge."
"How bad is it?"
His sigh told me everything. "Five locations hit in the last two hours. Marco's going scorched earth. He's put a million-dollar bounty on both your heads—every operator from here to California will be hunting you by morning."
My grip tightened on the phone. "Casualties?"
"Three of ours. No civilians, but that's luck, not strategy."
Three more. I closed my eyes. Added them to the tally I kept—the running count of people who'd died because of choices I'd made.
"My advisors?"
"Want you to cut losses. Hand her over. Make peace before we lose everything."
"And you?"
"I think you already know what you're going to do, and nothing I say will change it. So I'm focused on keeping you alive while you do it." A pause. "The drive checks out, by the way. I've been going through the files. Banking records, wire transfers, communications with Caldwell's people, shipment manifests going back years. There's enough to bury Marco ten times over."
Relief. Cold and sharp. "Can we use it?"
"Not yet. Raw files won't hold up—a good lawyer tears it apart as illegally obtained, with chain of custody issues. We need a way to get this in front of the FBI that doesn't end with both of you in handcuffs. "
"Working on it." I stared through the windshield at the dark trees. "I need something else. Sofia DeLuca. Marco's ex-wife."
"She's dead. Car accident, 2007."
"Maybe. Maybe not. Marco told Valentina he cut the brake line—claimed he killed her. But Marco's a liar, and Valentina thinks he might have been twisting the knife rather than telling the truth."
"That's a stretch."
"It is. But if Sofia ran instead of died—if she went into hiding, witness protection, anything—she'd have eighteen years of evidence against Marco. She'd be the corroboration we need."
Silence. I could hear Domenico thinking.
"I'll dig," he said finally. "Witness protection databases, sealed records, relocated identities. But this could take a while. Days, not hours."
"Understood. In the meantime, we need somewhere to go. We can't stay here more than a day or two."
"Montana. I've got a safe house near Whitefish. Isolated, off-grid, beautiful. Good place to disappear while I work the Sofia angle."
Montana. Mountains and distance from everything we'd survived.
"What about Marco's Arizona property?" I asked. "Isn't that a risk?"
"Already seized by the feds as part of the RICO case," Domenico said. "It's been sitting empty for months, under federal custody. Marco can't access it, and it's the last place he'd think to look for you—too obvious."
"Sounds perfect. Send me the details."
"Already done. Check your secure inbox when you get a signal." He paused.
"Alessio—what you did tonight. Choosing her over everything. Eva would be proud."
My throat tightened. "You think so?"
