This is different.
Vittoria doesn't want credit. She wants to help.
I liked her before, with her easy warmth and the way she made me feel less like an intruder. But knowing this? Knowing she feeds people in secret because she thinks anything else would cheapen it?
I like her more now. A lot more.
"Mommy?" Lily's voice pulls me back. "You're not eating."
"Sorry, baby." I take another bite of lasagna. "Just thinking."
"About what?"
About how the people I expected to be arrogant rich people might actually be decent human beings. About how confusing that is.
"About how lucky we are to have such yummy food."
Lily accepts this answer with the easy trust of a four-year-old. "Can we have cake now?"
"I guess you can have cake baby, yes."
Lily cheers, and I cut her a small slice of the chocolate monstrosity Giulia packed. She digs in with enthusiasm, getting frosting on her nose within seconds.
I watch her eat, this tiny perfect person I somehow made.
How lucky am I?
Nico
Sleep isn't coming tonight. Hasn't come properly in weeks, if I'm honest. My brain refuses to shut down, cycling through shipping manifests, supplier discrepancies, and the weight of everything sitting on Pietro's shoulders that he pretends isn't crushing him.
Three in the morning. The compound is silent except for the occasional creak of the old house settling into itself. No gunshots in the distance. No urgent phone calls. No blood to clean up.
Things have been quiet. Too quiet, maybe.
I throw off the covers and pad barefoot to my desk. The whiskey bottle calls to me, but I ignore it. Last night's hangover taught me that lesson well enough.
Instead, I open my laptop.
Kristen Thomas's file glows on the screen. I've read it six times already. No criminal record. No suspicious associations. Just a woman trying to survive.
But something doesn't add up.
I scroll to the financial section. Liam's team is thorough. Bank statements, credit reports, the works. Kristen's account shows a pattern: money comes in from her various jobs, money goes out for rent, utilities, groceries. Standard struggling single mother stuff.
Except for one thing.
Every month, like clockwork, fifteen hundred dollars transfers to an account belonging to Jack Walker. Her estranged husband.
Not to a bank. Not to a medical facility. To him.
I pull up the loan documents Liam dug up. One hundred thousand dollars, supposedly for Lily's heart surgery. The loan is in Kristen's name. The money deposited into her account three years ago.
But she's paying Jack.
Why would she pay her husband for a loan in her own name?
My fingers tap against the desk. The pattern recognition that keeps me alive in this business is screaming that something's wrong here. Normal people might assume she's just paying back money he fronted. That he took the loan out for her and she's repaying him.
