Page 90 of Merciless Daddy

The Astor Street penthouse was held through three layers of companies, but so were several places Gianni had known in Sicily. He understood how our family hid property.

“How close?” I asked.

“Not close enough,” Angela said. “Yet.”

“We take the dispatch office tonight,” Pietro said. “Physical access. Angela enters through the central account while we’re inside.”

“No deaths,” I said.

Tonio sighed. “You take all the joy out of work.”

“You complain when I permit deaths too.”

“Only because I like consistency.”

“What you like is complaining.”

“And I’m completely consistent with that.”

Yelena rose and came around the table. She stopped beside Angela, reading the authorization screen.

“That code is wrong,” she said.

Angela looked up. “It was pulled from a current login.”

“It’s a decoy account.”

She reached for the keyboard, then stopped before touching it. Angela moved the laptop toward her.

Yelena typed six digits.

“Gianni uses his mother’s death date for personal devices,” she said. “He thinks grief makes a password sacred.”

The screen refreshed.

A deeper set of folders appeared.

Tonio whistled.

Yelena pointed to the symbols beside the files. “Red triangle means immediate movement. Black square means financial exposure. A circle means information from somebody he doubts. Two circles mean he intends to verify it personally.”

A row of Caruso properties carried red triangles.

“What does the crown mean?” Pietro asked.

Her face became still.

“Family blood.”

My attention sharpened.

“Target or protection?”

“With Gianni?” she said. “Both.”

She spent the next twenty minutes translating the logic of a man she despised. Not merely language. Ego. Habit. Fear. She showed Angela where he buried false numbers and explained that Gianni marked his most dangerous operations as resolved because he disliked seeing unfinished work.

She was magnificent.