"Keep it that way." I folded the note and slipped it into my jacket pocket. "Angelo, I want every staff member who had access last night interviewed. Quietly."
Francesco appeared in the doorway, slightly out of breath—odd, since he should have been monitoring the south perimeter. His phone screen was still lit in his pocket, the glow visible through the fabric.
"Boss, heard there was a situation. What do you need?"
Something about his eagerness struck me as off—Francesco was usually the last to volunteer for additional duties. Tonight he seemed almost... anticipatory.
"Start with your sector," I ordered. "Anyone acting unusual, anyone asking questions they shouldn't be."
"Of course." His eyes flicked to everyone’s hands, as if expecting to see something in them. Did he know about the envelope? "Anything specific I should be looking for?"
The question was reasonable. So why did it feel like intelligence gathering?
"Just keep your ears open," I said, deliberately vague. "Report back in two hours."
Francesco nodded, but lingered for a beat too long, as if hoping for more information. When none came, he straightened. "I'll start with the evening staff."
As Francesco turned to leave, I noticed him glance back, eyes still searching. When he realized I was watching, he quickly looked away, but not before I caught something calculating in his expression.
"Francesco," I called.
He stopped, shoulders tensing. "Yes, boss?"
"How long have you been handling the evening staff rotations?"
"About six months. Since Carmine was transferred." His answer came smoothly, but his hand moved to his pocket—a nervous tell I'd never noticed before.
Six months. Right around the time someone would have started gathering intelligence for a long-term operation.
As he left, Francesco's phone buzzed. He glanced at it quickly, then powered it off with deliberate haste. Most of my men kept their phones on during operations. Francesco's quick shutdown felt like someone avoiding unwanted calls.
I made a mental note to have Marco keep an eye on him.
"And the money?" Marco asked.
I laughed, the sound sharp and humorless. "Nobody gets a cent. What I will pay for is the head of whoever wrote this."
Angelo nodded, already moving toward the exit.
"Someone's feeding them information," I said, pieces clicking together. "The blackmail notes, security probes—they're all designed to make us react predictably. Someone wanted us paranoid, wanted us making security changes they could observe and counter."
Marco's expression darkened as he followed my logic. "If they expose the marriage as a political arrangement instead of a legitimateunion, both families lose face. The Morettis look weak for trading their daughter. We look opportunistic for forcing the arrangement."
"Worse," I said, the full picture crystallizing. "The entire point of this marriage was to unite the families, end the feud, prevent a territory war. If it's exposed as a sham—as coercion rather than alliance—the truce dies with it. Giuseppe can claim his niece was taken against her will, that the Romano family violated the agreement. The Moretti soldiers who accepted our leadership would have justification to rebel."
"And the other families would see it as weakness," Marco added quietly. "Blood in the water. They'd move on our territories while we're fighting a civil war with the Morettis."
"Exactly. Whoever's behind this doesn't just want money. They want chaos. They want both families tearing each other apart so they can sweep in and claim what's left.
Marco's expression darkened. "You think this is all theater?"
"I think we're being herded. The question is toward what."
"But boss—" Marco hesitated.
"Say it."
Marco pulled out a small notebook—old school, leather-bound, the kind cops used to carry. Twenty years in law enforcement before joining my organization had left him with habits that served us well. He flipped through pages covered in his precise handwriting, consulting notes I knew he'd been taking since the moment we discovered the breach.
