His first pass was instinctive, but he was moving too fast. He checked the obvious places. The edges. The corners. The shallow recesses worn smooth by centuries of water.
Nothing.
His pulse spiked, irritation threading through his focus.Slow down.
Across the gravel ring, movement caught his eye. Mitch pounced. Matteo never saw him coming.
Mitch closed the distance with ruthless efficiency, one hand clamping over Matteo’s mouth while the other drove hard into his midsection. Matteo folded with a muffled sound, his knees buckling. Mitch caught him before he hit the ground and dragged him sideways, disappearing with him into a narrow maintenance gap hidden in the hedge, a slice of shadow where trimmed greenery concealed stone and service access.
Mitch appeared seconds later and nodded to Enzo.Taken care of. No reporting back to Rocco now.Enzo forced himself to breathe. It was time to find the treasure. People were starting to point and stare.
Kathleen was suddenly beside him, laughing and pressing her body to his.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard.
“People are staring and getting curious,” she finally said as they broke apart. She had a wide smile on her face as she bent down and splashed him.
He stared at her and then glanced around. She was right. Damn. He pasted a grin on his face and laughed, playing along. He pulled her in for a hug and kept searching the waterfall over her head.
“I have to go up the steps,” he said, and then let her go.
He climbed up one step, water crashing against his legs, his hands braced against the slick stone. He felt water hit him in the back, and he turned and shot Kathleen a big smile. She blew him a kiss.
He turned and studied the structure again, not the beauty of it, but its construction. The seams. The places where stone met stone. Where a slight overhang might shield something from view.
He reached behind the curtain of water to his left, where a bit of the stair had broken away and caused a recess in the facade. His hand brushed something unnatural. Metal.
His heart slammed.
Enzo tightened his grip and pulled.
Whatever it was came free easily, small and solid in his palm. Sleek. Cold. About the size of a small cell phone. Too smooth to be stone. It was sealed inside a clear waterproof sleeve, wedged so precisely into the ledge that it had disappeared completely unless you knew exactly where to look.
He didn’t examine it.
Didn’t need to. He knew exactly what it was. He’d used them often enough in his old job.
He shoved it into his pocket and straightened, water streaming from his clothes as he stepped back down to Kathleen. He kissed her and swept her into his arms and then carried her out onto the gravel, the two of them laughing the whole time.
The air shifted. The tourists laughed and wandered on their way. Enzo breathed a sigh of relief.
The woman moved, leaving the hedge line. As she approached, her pace was measured, expression calm, eyes sharp and assessing. Close enough now that Enzo could see the faint tension in her jaw, the way her gaze flicked briefly to the fountain, then to him.
Over the woman’s shoulder, Alex stiffened.
Kathleen inhaled sharply.
The woman stopped a few feet away, the sound of the fountain filling the space between them.
“You found something,” she said, her tone conversational.
Enzo didn’t answer.
The gravel crunched softly as others adjusted their positions, the invisible circle tightening without anyone making a sudden move.
The woman smiled faintly. “That was faster than I expected.”
Enzo met her gaze, his body still damp, his hand relaxed at his side, every muscle coiled.
