"Right now she's likely cycling between panic and desperate submission," Jino continues. "Begging for her 'King' or her 'Master' because those are the frameworks her brain can access. She might be nonverbal or stuck in mantras. Her arousal responses are probably involuntary and distressing to her. She can't regulate her own emotions anymore without external structure, so she'll spiral deeper until someone provides it—or until her system crashes completely."
I can hear Lorcan saying something, his accent thick even through the phone's tinny speaker.
"Well…" Jino looks at me. "That's up to Giovanni."
"What?" I ask. "What's up to me?"
"Do you want him to release her? Or let her keep spiraling."
I actually snort. "Do I want himto release her? Are you fuckingmad?"
Jino flips into dominant mode, speaking to me like I'm a child. "She's nine hours away, Giovanni. Even if it was safe to go to Boston and get her, it's nine fucking hours away. She needs relief."
Lorcan says something in response.
Jino nods. "The LaRiccia's are on to us. He's right, you need to take care of that."
"Take care of thathow?" I snap. "Are you telling me I need to roll into fucking New York and take out the LaRiccia Crime Family?" I slap my own head. "Why didn't I think of that?"
"No," Jino says, his voice flat and clinical, like he's explaining a simple equation. "You need to make a call. Lorcan has figured out what happened?—"
His hand shoots up before I can react, palm out, forestalling the explosion building in my chest. "No, Emmaleen didn't tell him. She refused to tell him. But there's a scar, Giovanni. And…" He blows out a breath. "His point is this—he'll help you kill DeepFake Rico."
The laugh that bursts out of me is short, sharp, and utterly humorless. It echoes off the empty walls of the living room, bouncing back at me like mockery.
"And then," Jino continues, ignoring my reaction entirely, his tone shifting into something softer, more persuasive, "we'll all be free of them. All of us. No more LaRiccia shadow hanging over your head. No more Rico. No more suspicions. Luca will have his answers and Emmaleen will be safe."
I stop pacing. My shoes scrape against the floor as I pivot on my heel, mind racing through implications, possibilities, traps.
Jino crosses the space between us and extends his hand, the phone resting in his open palm like an offering. Like a weapon. Istare at it for a moment—at the glowing screen, at the call timer ticking upward—before I snatch it from him.
"Yeah," I say into the receiver, my voice rough.
"Listen, G," Lorcan says, and I can hear the shift in his tone immediately. He's calmer now, the manic edge from earlier smoothed away into something steadier, more deliberate. His accent, which had been thick and nearly incomprehensible when he was spiraling, has settled into something easier to parse. "I've got an entire team of deepfake guys. Not on the payroll, mind you—it's just… shit we do on the side. Creative problem-solving, if you will."
I blink. "You cover up murders with deepfakes."
There's a pause, and I can practically hear the smirk spreading across his face three hundred miles away. "I can neither confirm nor deny that allegation," he says, his voice dripping with false solemnity, the kind of mockery you can only get away with when you're talking about felonies.
The chuckle bursts out of me before I can stop it, low and involuntary, scraping past the tightness in my throat. "I'm listening."
He proceeds to tell me how this is gonna go down.
But it's gonna take time.
"At least a week," he says.
Jino is shaking his head.
I ignore Jino.
"All right. What do I do?"
"If they're gonna send a hit," Lorcan continues, his voice steady, deliberate, "they need to be sure. And right now, Giovanni, they'renot sure. They can't be. Ya've given them just enough confusion to hesitate. That hesitation buys us time."
I glance at Jino. He's still shaking his head, arms crossed, jaw locked. I turn away from him, focus on the phone.
"Meanwhile," Lorcan says, "a few days later—while they're still sittin' around some overpriced conference table in Little Italy, debatin' the viability of bringin' about your unnatural demise—I'll have my team kill deepfake Rico."
