Emilio laughs. Loud, warm, the sound filling the motel room like a space heater. "Oh, she's mean. Claudio, you found a mean one. I'm thrilled."
"Can we focus?" I say.
"We can focus and eat. Multitasking. You should try it." Emilio bites into a burger. Chews. Swallows. His face goes serious in the span of a heartbeat, the grin folding up and disappearing, and the man underneath is the one I know. The one who's killed as many people as I have and carries it differently but carries it all the same. "Salvatore. Talk to me."
"Tuesday and Friday calls," he says. "Eight PM. Six weeks minimum. That coincides almost identically with what Alex figured out about the shipments.”
"That's what I said."
"And Savannah disappearing right when Charlotte's ready to come back and identify him. That's not a coincidence. He's cleaning house."
"Which means he knows we're getting close."
"Or he's paranoid enough to clean regardless." Emilio looks at Charlotte. "The man you saw at Marchetti. The scar. Walk me through it."
Charlotte describes it again. Same details. Same precision. The older European, the military operator, the scar from thumb to wrist. Emilio listens the way he listens to everything important, with his whole body leaned forward and his eyes locked and his jaw tight.
"That's Salvatore," he says when she finishes. "I've seen that scar a hundred times. He got it from a Castillo enforcer in 2019.He tells the story at dinner parties like it's a badge of honor." His mouth tightens. "Fifteen years. He's been sitting at Aurelio's table for fifteen years."
"We don't know it's been fifteen years that he’s been crossing us," I say. "Could be recent. Could have started with Apex Meridian."
"Could have. But a man doesn't build that kind of access overnight. The calls, the keycards, the political contacts. This is deep, Claudio. This is structural."
He's right. I know he's right. And the weight of it settles on all three of us, pressing the room smaller, making the cheap motel walls feel like they're leaning in.
Charlotte finishes her beer. Sets the can on the nightstand next to the Glock.
"So what's the plan?" she says. "And don't say 'we're working on it.' I've been in this car for eight days. I want an actual plan with actual steps and an actual timeline."
Emilio looks at me. I look at him. Same face, same thought.
I sigh. "Tomorrow. Emilio leads. Separate cars. He goes in first, confirms Salvatore is on compound for the morning briefing. Charlotte and I come in through the east garage, same way we left. Leone has the interrogation room set up with one-way glass. Charlotte identifies Salvatore. We move immediately."
"And then?" Charlotte asks.
"Then we have a conversation."
"The kind with a chair and a locked door."
"The kind where he tells us everything about Apex Meridian, the European financier, and whatever phase three means. And if he doesn't tell us voluntarily, Leone and I will find more persuasive methods."
Charlotte nods. No flinch. No hesitation. The woman who bit me on a staircase and counted ceiling tiles in a locked room is gone. In her place is someone harder. Someone who watched four men die on a county road and ate onion rings in a dingy room and is now discussing interrogation tactics with two mafia soldiers like it's a Tuesday morning meeting.
Emilio is watching her. The grin is gone. In its place is the look he gives people he respects, which is a short list and heavily guarded.
"Charlotte," he says.
"Yes."
"Welcome to the family."
She looks at him. Then at me. Then back at him.
"That's the most terrifying thing anyone's ever said to me," she says. "And I've had a gun pointed at my face."
Emilio laughs. I don't. I stand by the window with the rain on the glass and my brother in the chair and the woman I love on the bed, and the word surfaces again, uninvited, undeniable.
Love.
