"Salvatore handles security logistics for the Bonaccorso operation," he says. "Card systems, access levels, political contacts. He's been with the family for fifteen years. Aurelio trusts him."
"And you don't."
"I don't trust the timeline. Your name hits our system, and six hours later a hit team shows up at your door. We find you, bring you to the compound, and forty-eight hours later another team breaches through a service corridor using a keycard that Salvatore had the access and authority to program." He pauses. "And now, according to Emilio, Salvatore has been asking where I took you. By name. Not 'the witness.' Not 'the asset.' Charlotte. Your name."
The coffee in my stomach turns sour.
"Nobody at Salvatore's level should know your name," Claudio continues. "You were logged as a protected intake. Restricted file. Only Leone, me, Alexandra, and Aurelio had access to your full identity."
"Unless someone opened the file who shouldn't have."
"Yep. Unless someone opened the file who shouldn't have."
We look at each other across the kitchen. The wood stove is dead. The room is cold. The light through the window is flat and grey and the mountain air coming through the gaps in the frame smells like pine and frost and the particular emptiness of places where no one can hear you.
"The man I saw at Marchetti," I say. "The one at the meeting."
Claudio goes still. Completely. Even his breathing pauses, and the absence of it is louder than sound.
"He had a scar on his left hand," I say. "Thick. Raised. Running from his thumb to his wrist. And an expensive watch. Gold face, custom. The kind you don't buy on a soldier's salary."
"Charlotte."
"Is that Salvatore?"
He doesn't answer.
"I need you to tell me," I say. "If I'm going to give you the one thing keeping me valuable, I need to know I'm giving it to the right person."
"The description matches."
"Matches, or is him?"
"I can't confirm until you see his face. In person. Without him knowing you're looking."
"Then take me back."
The words come out before I've fully decided to say them. But they're right. They're the move. Six days on the road, running from a threat I've been holding the answer to since before I got in that car. The information has been mine, my insurance policy,my leverage, the one card I could play to stay alive. And I've been clutching it so hard my fingers have gone numb.
Claudio is watching me. Not the cold surveillance look. The other one. The one from last night, when he put his forehead against mine and asked me to be sure. The look of a man who sees what I'm offering and understands what it costs.
"Not yet," he says. "We go back on my terms. When I've set the identification up properly, when the five of us are in position, when Salvatore doesn't know we're coming." He steps closer. Not crowding. Closing distance. "You've held this for weeks. You can hold it a little longer."
"The clock is ticking."
"I know. I'll handle the clock."
"How?"
"I'll call Leone. Explain what we have. He'll buy more time."
"And if he can't?"
"Then we move faster." He reaches out. His hand finds my jaw. Tilts my face up. His thumb traces my cheekbone once, and the touch is so gentle compared to everything else about him that it makes my breath catch. "You're not disposable, Charlotte. Not to the operation. Not to me."
I should pull away. Charlotte Richardson pulls away. Charlotte Richardson doesn't lean into the hands of men who carry guns and speak about people in terms of leverage and assets.
I lean into his hand anyway.
