“Earth to Matteo.”Papà’s voice stays at normal volume, which is never good. “Are you here with us,figlio, or are you writing lines of code in your head again?” That ripple of amusement doesn’t quite touch his eyes.
“Here.” I sit up and snap the cursor to life. I pull up packet captures and freeze the signature. “It’s a three-stage feeler. External ping from a disposable VPS in Bucharest, pivoting to a Tor exit in Amsterdam, then a final handshake from a New Jersey residential block. Probably a compromised router. They wanted us to see their shadow and not their face. We’ll set honeypots on every path they touched and move the crown jewels to the cold vault. Meanwhile I’ll seed a canary credential and let them steal it.”
“And when they do?” Uncle Marco asks.
I allow myself a smile. “It points to a sandbox that looks like our London treasury. They’ll think they’ve got a lever, and we’ll have their hand.”
“Good,” my father says, satisfaction quick and tempered. Then he leans forward, elbows on mahogany. “But I asked another question. Can you handle it?”
The room narrows to a heartbeat. To copper hair. To a choice I haven’t made yet that’s already changed everything.
“I’m on it.” I’m impressed with the steadiness in my tone. “I’ll lock down the breach, salt the trail, and bring you a name.”
Ale watches me like he knows I’m holding two knives behind my back. Marco and Nico exchange one of those ancient glances that built empires and buried enemies. Antonio flicks me a lookthat says he’ll back my play, even if he doesn’t like it. Raf yawns and texts his favorite pastry chef to bring cannoli for the debrief because my cousin’s boyfriend solves morale with sugar.
“Then go,” he orders. “And Matteo?—”
“Yes,Papà?”
He holds the room with one finger. “Don’t let this become a pride exercise. If you need bodies, you take them. If you need to call your Uncle Dante to deal with La Spada, call him. I am not burying any bodies, especially my son’s, because you wanted to win pretty.”
The word son lands, heavy and warm. It should ground me. It doesn’t. It just makes the ache louder.
“Capito,” I reply.
I gather my tech, the ghosts in my chest, and stand. The meeting blurs into movement, chairs scraping, plans subdividing. There are ports to lock, routes to audit, and favors to pull. Ale falls in beside me at the door.
“Forty-eight hours,” he reminds softly. “Then the family gets the whole story.”
“Forty-eight,” I echo, already calculating traps for strangers and one for a girl with a gun who didn’t pull the trigger.
Minka is still at reception when we exit the elevator. She tilts her head, expectant. I give her a polite smile I don’t feel and keep moving. There’s a blade in the city with my name on it and a shadow that smells like sea salt and nineteen. The breach I can fix.
It’s the hunger I don’t know how to firewall.
CHAPTER 13
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS
Caitríona
Sometime after midnight, I wake to the sound of the door opening beyond the crashing waves. Soft. Careful. Like a thief.
The room is dark, the air thick, and Matteo is standing there with his shirt half off and blood blooming down his side. For one terrible second my brain refuses to make sense of it. This is Sicily. This is summer. This is us. Blood doesn’t belong in this room.
“Matteo?” My voice snaps on like a light. He flinches.
“I’m fine,” he says immediately, too quick.
He is not fine. He is swaying. There’s a cut across his ribs, a smear of red at his hip, and his hands look wrecked like he fell on gravel.
“What happened?” I’m already out of bed. Already at him. My heart is a fist in my throat.
“Nothing. Just some low-life trash trying to steal my wallet. They didn’t expect me to fight back.”
It’s a stupid lie that doesn’t fit the way his eyes won’t meet mine. I swallow it anyway because I don’t know what else to do. Two weeks ago, my whole life split open with one tiny strip of paper.
Pregnant.
