I sink onto the stone bench. The one she used to sit on while she watched us play as children. My fingers close around the rosary in my pocket. I’ve carried it since the funeral. Pressedthem against my thigh more times than I can count. But I’ve never taken it out. Never held them. Never prayed.
Tonight I pull it free. The beads are cool against my palm. Smooth from decades of her fingers. She believed. I stopped the day we buried her.
I don’t know if anyone’s listening. But there’s nothing else.
So I try.
Let me reach her in time.
They dig into my palm. I don’t deserve this. The blood on my hands. The things I’ve done in rooms no prayer can reach.
But she.
Damnit. I did the same thing to Isabella. Caged her instead of trusting her. Same fear. Same cowardice.
Let me find her alive.
I swear on this. On Mama’s fingers that wore them smooth. I won’t run from her. Not again.
I don’t know how long I sit there. Moving through my fingers the way they moved through Mama’s.
I hear her before I see her. Footsteps on the stone path. Light. Familiar. Giada doesn’t speak when she reaches me. She just sits down beside me on the bench. Near enough that our shoulders almost touch.
We stay like that for a while. Silent.
“You’ll find her, Renzo.”
“I know.”
“And then you’ll apologize for being an overprotective idiot.”
The tension drains from my shoulders. “I know that too.”
Giada’s hand finds mine in the dark. Squeezes once. She doesn’t say anything else. Doesn’t need to.
I just have to find her first.
The earpiece comes alive. I’d almost forgotten I was wearing it.
“Renzo.” Marco. Sharp. “I found her.”
I’m on my feet before he finishes the sentence. “Where?”
“Flavio’s estate. Her phone pinged from inside the main building. Signal’s weak but consistent. She’s there.”
Flavio’s estate. Forty minutes out, maybe less if I push it.
“You’re sure?”
“Ninety percent. It’s the best confirmation we’re going to get.”
Ninety percent. Good enough.
“Get Dante. Get Nico. Everyone ready to move in ten minutes.”
“Already on it.”
I look at Giada. She’s standing now too, her eyes bright in the moonlight.
