"Leone."
He looks at me.
"Whoever this is, they're not funding a war. They're engineering one. Both families are in the shit one way or another. If the Bonaccorso’s and the Castillo’s destroy each other, this person inherits everything that's left."
His chest heaves with the force of his sigh. "I know."
"So what do you do?"
He tucks the documents under his arm and crosses to where I'm sitting. His free hand cups the side of my face, thumb brushing my cheekbone. Brief. Restrained. But his eyes burn with desire that makes my chest ache.
"I burn them down before they burn us," he says.
Then he leaves, and I sit at the empty desk and stare at the space where the documents were.
My phone buzzes.
Not my phone. I don't have a phone. Leone's backup, the one he left on the nightstand for emergencies. I pick it up.
One message. Unknown number. No text.
A photo.
Me. Walking through the corridor with Emilio. Taken from inside the compound. Today.
My blood goes cold.
Someone inside these walls is watching. And they want me to know it.
Chapter Nine: Leone
Alexandraissittingonthe bed with the phone in her hand when I come back.
She's pale. Not scared pale. Angry pale. White that sits in someone's face right before they throw a punch or flip a table. Her knuckles are bloodless around the phone, and when she looks up at me, her eyes are flat and hard.
"Someone sent me a photo," she says.
I take the phone from her. The image fills the screen. Alexandra and Emilio in the east corridor, mid-stride, her face clearly visible. The angle is high, slightly to the left. Security camera footage, or a phone held above a crowd. Taken today. Inside the compound.
The rage comes fast and clean.
I don't let it show. I pocket the phone, crouch in front of her, and take her hands. They're cold.
"When did this come in?"
"Twenty minutes ago. Probably less." Her voice is steady, but her fingers grip mine hard enough to hurt. "Leone, that photo was taken inside. Not from the street. Not from a drone. Someone in this building is watching me."
"I know."
"You found Renzo. You shut him down. So who the fuck else is feeding them information?"
"I don't know yet." I squeeze her hands. "But I will."
She searches my face, and I can see the calculation happening behind her eyes. The same pattern recognition she applies to financial documents, now applied to me. Checking for lies, for deflection, for any sign that I'm going to handle this by locking her away and pretending it didn't happen.
"Don't shut me out," she says quietly.
"I'm not."
