"Aurelio won't like being the last to know."
"Aurelio will like having a confirmed traitor in custody more than he dislikes the sequence. Besides, word on the street is he’s giving you more authority as he prepares to retire. This is your operation."
Leone considers. Nods.
"What do you need?" he asks.
"The interrogation room prepped. The one in the sub-level, not the standard rooms. Soundproofing, no cameras, no recording. What happens in that room stays in that room until we decide otherwise."
Emilio shifts his weight. "I'm in the room for the interrogation."
"No."
"Claudio."
"You're too loud. Interrogation requires patience and precision. You have one of those qualities."
"Fuck you. I have both."
"You have neither, and I love you, and you're staying outside the door."
Emilio opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks at Leone. Leone looks back without expression. Emilio exhales through his nose.
"Fine. Outside the door. But if I hear anything I don't like—"
"You won't hear anything. That's the point of soundproofing."
Alexandra closes the laptop. "I'll have the financial evidence organized and printed for the interrogation. If he denies it, the numbers will make him a liar."
"He'll deny it," I say. "They always deny it first. Then they negotiate. Then they threaten. Then they break. The cycle takes anywhere from twenty minutes to several hours, depending on the individual's pain threshold and how much they think they have left to lose."
Charlotte's voice comes from behind me. I turn. She's standing in the doorway of the observation room. Arms crossed. Eyes hard. The tears from the highway, the vulnerability of the motel, the softness of the cabin. All of it is gone. In its place is the woman who counted ceiling tiles and memorized guard rotations and survived three years on the architecture of control.
"He saw my face," she says. "At Marchetti. Through the door. He knows I can identify him, and he's spent three weeks trying to kill me for it. Whatever you do in that room, I want him to know that I'm the reason he's in it."
Leone looks at her. Emilio looks at her. Alexandra looks at her.
I look at her and I see the woman I met not long ago, sitting on a bed with her ankles crossed and her spine straight, telling me the ledgers were fake in a voice that dared me to underestimate her. And I see the woman in the farmhouse kitchen who kissed me like she was trying to set us both on fire. And I see the woman on the county road who said her dead name into the space between us and trusted me to hold it.
All of them. Every version. Standing in a doorway with crossed arms and steel in her eyes.
"He'll know," I say.
She nods. Steps back into the observation room. The door closes.
Emilio whistles, low and quiet. "You're fucked, brother."
"Shut up."
"Completely, irreversibly fucked."
"Emilio."
"And she's going to be so good for you." He grins. The full grin. Then it folds away and the soldier is back. "Ten minutes. I'll cover the east corridor with Carmelo. Emilio on the door. You inside. Interrogate, then we move him to cells for the real fun."
Leone looks at me. "Ready?"
I check my gun. Magazine full. Safety off. The weight is familiar. Comfortable. The weight of a tool designed for a single purpose, and for fifteen years, Salvatore Ferretti has been earning what that tool can do.
