"Claudio found a contact who might be able to get us building access. If we can get inside the tech firm's server room..."
"Tomorrow." His arm tightens around me. "Tonight, I only want this."
I smile against his skin. "Just this."
"Us."
He's right. There will be time tomorrow for war councils and intelligence reports and the slow, grinding work of hunting a man who's been hiding for twenty years. There will be time for arguments about New York and risk assessment and all the practical considerations that come with loving someone in this world.
But tonight, there's only this.
His heartbeat under my ear. His warmth surrounding me. The steady rise and fall of his breathing as it slows toward sleep.
Chapter Nineteen: Leone
Thecallcomesat3 AM.
I'm already awake when my phone buzzes, lying in the dark with Alexandra's head on my chest and my mind churning through the same problems it's been churning through for weeks. Giovanni. Apex Meridian. The shadow financier who's been bleeding both families while they tear each other apart.
I ease out of bed without waking her and take the call in the hallway.
"Talk," I say.
"We have a situation." Claudio's voice is clipped. Controlled. The voice of a man delivering information, not emotion. "One of our front companies flagged an internal security breach twohours ago. A legal assistant accessed financial ledgers she wasn't authorized to view."
"How much did she see?"
"Enough." A pause. "The offshore accounts. The ghost investors. The numbers that tie the Castillo war to a third party. She doesn't know what she's looking at, but she knows it doesn't belong to us or the Castillo’s."
My blood goes cold. Those ledgers are Alexandra's work, compiled over weeks, hidden in a subsidiary's system for safekeeping while we figured out how to use them. If someone unauthorized has seen them, if they understand what they're looking at...
"Who is she?"
"Charlotte Richardson. Twenty-eight. Legal assistant at Marchetti Holdings for three years. Clean record, no known affiliations, no red flags in her background." Another pause. "She's smart, Leone. Too smart. She recognized the laundering structures. She's already started mapping the connections."
"Where is she now?"
"That's the situation." Claudio's voice tightens slightly. "Someone tried to kill her two hours ago. Professional hit. She barely got out of her apartment alive."
"The financier."
"Has to be. No one else knows those ledgers exist. If she's seen them, if she can connect them to whatever Giovanni is building, she's a liability he can't afford."
I lean against the wall. A legal assistant who stumbled onto the wrong files. A hit team sent to silence her. The conspiracy protecting itself the way conspiracies always do.
"What do you want to do?"
"Bring her in." Claudio's response is immediate. "Not to hurt her. To assess. She's either a liability or a weapon. I need to know which."
"And if she's a liability?"
Silence. Then: "Then we handle it. But I don't think she is. Anyone smart enough to recognize those patterns is smart enough to be useful. Like Alex is."
I trust Claudio's instincts. He's been like a brother to me for fifteen years, the one I send when precision matters more than force. If he thinks this woman is worth the risk, she probably is.
"Do it," I say. "Bring her to the compound. Keep it quiet."
"Already in motion. I'll have her within the hour."
