Giana had been able to feel Rodrigo's gaze from rooftops a kilometer away, sensed his influence in the way doors opened for her, and watched threats melt away before they could form. He never spoke of it to her or asked her to thank him. He never had to.
Rodrigo had always been paranoid about her safety, even more so after whatever had happened with Leo and the Edgeworth family a few months ago. She had heard Leo talking about a horror-filled night in Istanbul during Gabriella's wake.There had been monsters who had attacked them, and she hadn't been sure if he meant the people or something else entirely.
Whatever happened that night, Rodrigo's protection around her intensified right up until he had set her free.
Giana told herself every day that she hated Rodrigo. Hated his quiet arrogance, his unnerving perception, and the way he looked at her when he thought no one was watching. She had spent six years perfecting her hate, honing it into a shield.
Then Gabriella Colleoni had died, and the world tilted on its axis. Rodrigo had taken over the family the minute she stopped breathing. He had summoned Giana to the Colleoni estate on the day of Gabriella's funeral. In front of his brothers, he told her the family would let her go if she returned the money she had stolen from them with her hacking skills. He hadn't mentioned that he had been the one to give her access to the Colleoni servers to begin with, and Leo and Dario hadn't asked. Even if Gabriella hadn't died, Rodrigo would have ensured Giana's freedom. His mother's death had just sped that plan up.
RodrigowantedGiana to be free of them, but he never told her why. That was the only question she had left, and she had been too much of a coward to ask the last time she saw him.
Giana could still feel the press of his lips against the back of her hand, all those weeks ago.
"I've always said you're not the kind of woman who belongs in a cage," he had said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through her.
And then she had run before he changed his mind.
First to Paris, then to Lisbon, and now here, to where Europe bled into Asia. She had put thousands of miles between herself and the Colleoni empire.
Freedom. Instead of ambrosia, it tasted like loneliness.
An itch of someone watching her traced its way up Giana's spine, knocking her out of her brooding.
Giana resisted the urge to look over her shoulder. That would have given away that she knew they were there. She casually leaned over to ask the table beside her for some of their sugar and scanned the top of the building. Nothing.
Maybe Gabriella Colleoni had driven her crazy after all.
Giana rubbed at her temples, an awkward laugh coming out of her. For the first time in six years, no one was watching. The silence was deafening. It was a gaping void where a constant, low-grade hum of dread had been.
She hated the dread then, but at least she'd known its source. This emptiness… it was shapeless, and somehow, more menacing.
Paranoia is a side effect of survival.
Rodrigo hadn't said that, but he might as well have. It sounded like one of his pronouncements.
Giana forced herself to relax, dragging her focus back to her screen, fingers flying across the keyboard. She was building a program for a shipping magnate in Singapore to track down a thief. It was good money and proof that she was more than a relic of a dead mafia family and a failed artist.
She was Giana Sorrentino, for fuck's sake. If she could survive Gabriella's games, she could survive anything.
The sun dipped lower, painting the whitewashed houses on the hillside in shades of apricot and rose. The call to prayer, theezan, echoed from a nearby minaret, a haunting, beautiful melody that momentarily silenced the tourist chatter.
Giana closed her eyes and prayed that her creative muse would return one day. Her stomach growled in answer, and she sighed.
Maybe she could find a place that servediskender kebaband somewhere to dance the night away, simply because she could.She stretched, arching her back, and let her gaze drift over the thinning crowd.
And that was when she saw the man.
He was sitting two tables over, partially obscured by a potted palm. He wasn't a tourist. The expensive but understated linen shirt, the fit of his trousers, and the quiet intensity were all wrong. He wasn't looking at the sea. He wasn't talking on a phone or reading a book.
He was watching her.
His eyes, cold and flat, met hers for a fraction of a second before sliding away, a casual dismissal that was anything but. She had grown up with men with eyes like that. He stuck out like a sore thumb.
Sloppy,Rodrigo's voice whispered,and for once she agreed with him.
An icy finger of instinct traced a line of warning up her spine. The air in her lungs seemed to thicken to glass.
One man is a coincidence.
