“Fuck no.”
My mouth twitches.
She jerks her chin toward the hall. “I go, you go.”
“Got it.”
Luciano leads the way, and the rest of us follow him through the house and down a narrow hall I didn’t notice earlier, past one locked door, then another. He punches in a code, opens reinforced steel, and I stop short just inside.
Blyad.
The room beyond looks less like security and more like paranoia had a baby with a military contractor.
Screens. Rows of them. Walls full of camera feeds from every angle of the estate, inside and out. Backup monitors. Locked cabinets. Concrete. Steel. Enough surveillance equipment to make Santo’s place look charming.
I glance sideways at Santo. “Damn. Thought you were bad.”
Santo’s eyes sweep the room once, cool and assessing. “We’re going to have a conversation later about how you did this.”
Luciano doesn’t even blink. “Get in line.”
His wife is already in there.
She stands near the far wall in a pale dress that should still belong to a wedding night, except her face is too tight and her eyes are too sharp for anything romantic. She’s one hand on the table, the other wrapped around a glass she hasn’t touched. Her gaze cuts to Luciano the second we enter, then past him, checking all of us like the answer might be written on someone’s face.
It isn’t.
Luciano moves to the main monitor. “This is from ten minutes after Santo and Vasilisa left.”
The screen changes.
Footage from one of the outside corners of the property. Dim, but clean in that expensive-camera way that still catches too much. Part of the side drive. A curve in the landscaping. A stretch of wall. The kind of place someone would mistake for a blind spot if they were stupid enough.
Valentina comes into frame.
She’s walking quickly, one hand lifting her dress slightly at the hem as she moves, like maybe she was trying to get a minute alone. Maybe air. Maybe a call. Maybe just out of the noise.
A man steps into view.
My eyes narrow.
Suit. Security. A guard.
“Isn’t that your guard?” I ask.
Luciano’s face goes dead. “Yeah. New guy I hired back in Florida.”
The footage rolls.
Valentina stops in front of him. Says something. I can’t hear shit, but she doesn’t look scared. Just annoyed or questioning.
Then the bastard moves.
Fast.
He grabs her, opens the trunk of a black sedan parked just out of frame, and throws her in hard enough that her legs disappear in one violent blurof fabric and hair. The trunk slams. He gets in the driver’s seat. The car tears off.
No hesitation. No panic.Planned.
