I shrugged. “I’ll try.”
He rolled his eyes. “He won’t,” he told Serafina, “but that’s okay. He never does.”
She reached up—one hand on my cheek, the other slipping to cradle her belly—and whispered in Sicilian, “I think he might. If only to save me Tonio’s so-called jokes.”
“So,” Marco said, “you just here for chit-chat?”
“Not, not chit-chat,” I said. I transferred the thumb drive from my pocket to the desktop. “Some news on our friend.”
Serafina closed the laptop and looked up. Her eyes were sharp—family sharp, a thing that lived in the bloodline. “Russo?”
“Russo and the man who met him. Plate numbers, photos, routine.” I nudged the phone toward her. “The man in the coat, a foreigner? New to Chicago, or at least new to this side of it.”
Serafina flicked open the gallery and began scrolling. I watched the flicker of her face as she worked: concentration, a slight flare of nostril at something that didn’t fit, then the tilt of her mouth as she hit on a connection I hadn’t seen. She was good at this, and her father in Sicily finally understood it.
“I know that face,” she said, not to me. “He was at the fundraiser in Palermo last year. With Valenti’s consigliere.”
“Means Gianni’s not just running. He’s meeting,” Marco said.
“Or being met,” Serafina corrected, and took a fast sip from her glass. She turned her attention on me. “What else?”
I gave them the highlights. Russo’s car, the way he checked for tails but never saw me, the hand-off in the diner and the timing of the meeting. I described the envelope, the way the man never ordered food, only watched the street. I handed over the notes I’d taken on my phone—just names and times, the kind of stuff you could burn with a magnet swipe if needed.
Marco listened with his body: arms folded, knee bouncing under the table, the tip of his tongue running the inside of his lip when I said anything that mattered. He waited until I was done, then glanced at Serafina. “You think it’s money? Or something heavier?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she looked at me and asked, “What’s your read?”
That was the thing about Serafina. She never asked unless she wanted the truth.
“Russo’s scared. But he’s not just scared for himself. He’s trying to keep his wife and kid out of it.” I hesitated, unsure if this part was my place. “He checks the phone, then throws it in a sewer grate every time. Always a new burner. Means he expects to be traced.”
Marco gave a low whistle. “Paranoia, or justified?”
“Both,” I said. “He knows the Valentis. He knows what happens to accountants who fuck up.”
Serafina considered that, then pushed the glass toward me, full. “Drink it,” she said, and her voice left no space for argument.
I drank. It burned clean, so strong I coughed. She smiled, a quick, bright flash, then fixed Marco with a look. “We tell Dante?”
Don Caruso. The eldest of the brothers—a formidable man.
“Mmhmm,” Marco said. “We’ll see what he says.”
Serafina nodded, then wrote something in a notebook, tearing the page out and folding it into her pocket. “Good work, cugino,” she said. “We’ll let you know when it’s time.”
There was a beat, then Marco broke the mood with a forced grin. “Stay for dinner,” he said. “Serafina’s been eating like a dockworker. You could use a few pounds too. Then after, you hit the club. No doubt your brothers will be here.”
She rolled her eyes. “You see him lately, Marco? He’s muscle and scars. Leave him alone.”
Marco ignored her, poured another round, and looked at me with a softer edge. “Seriously, stay. I have a girl coming who’s perfect for you. Smart, pretty, Sicilian but not the kind who’ll talk your ear off.”
I shook my head. “No girls. Not tonight.”
He raised a brow. “Not ever?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to have that conversation, not even with them. It wasn’t just about women, or trust, or the idea of letting someone close enough to fuck up my sleep for another decade. It was about the nightmare. The one that always ended the same way: hands blood-slick, the warehouse stink, the feeling of a life ending under your grip.
Serafina must have seen something in my face, because she reached over and squeezed my wrist, hard and certain, the way she did when we were kids and I’d split my knuckles on the schoolyard. “Don’t listen to him,” she said. “The only thing you need tonight is to sit and breathe.”
