Bello's sacrifice was more than just manpower; he'd burned favors to keep the cops out of this. Called in markers that will take years to repay. I make a mental note: that's loyalty, and it'll need to be returned.
"Who was the target?"
Enzo hesitates, just long enough to betray the weight of the answer. "Mia Pascale is the casualty. Her bodyguard's the critical."
"Fuck," I mutter.
Mia Pascale is a minor celebrity, asocial influencer, the kind of woman with her own perfume line and a rabid horde of followers. The kind of woman who makes headlines if she so much as sneezes in public.Just like the entertainerruns through my head, and I file that thought underlater.
My phone vibrates, the name on the screen makes my scalp tighten: Damiano.
"Is this important?" Already sensing it will be.
"Not sure yet." Damiano's voice is a little too level. "But I'm pulling chatter off the police bands and private lines. Something big went down tonight."
Enzo and Bello lean in, their attention shifting as if guided by an invisible string.
"Go on," I command.
"There was a home invasion in Summerlin," Damiano continues. "High-end neighborhood. A bodyguard is dead. The wife escaped, but the husband and kid were taken."
Nothing that public happens in my city without my knowledge, much less my permission.
"Names?" Enzo asks.
"They're keeping it quiet so far," Damiano says. "But the husband—he's political, state level."
The phrase people use about feeling like someone walked over your grave finally makes sense to me. I feel it now; it's like an electric chill in my molars. Someone's digging up something I worked a decade to bury.
"When?" I ask.
"About an hour ago. Same window as the club hit."
Two public strikes. Two violations. Different signatures. Same intent.
"This isn't noise," Enzo wagers.
"No," I agree. "It's a message."
"And it's sloppy," I add.
Enzo shifts his weight.
"They want us chasing smoke," I continue. "Cartels don't work like this. Locals don't either. This is someone who understands optics, not territory."
"Political," Bello guesses.
"Exactly."
"My screen's lighting up," Damiano says. "Sending you the address."
My phone buzzes with a string of digits: the Summerlin house, a sprawling estate in a gated community with twenty-four-hour surveillance and private patrols.
"Anything on the wife?" Bello asks.
"She's in PR," Damiano says. "High-level. Does comms for the husband and her father."
That stops me cold.
