Page 69

The other is older. Italian vowels sanded down by this city. Alphonso. Senior Lucci. Not the head. But high enough that what he says will travel.

They sit. Heaters hum. A waiter appears and vanishes.

I listen…

Zane talks like a man who thinks charm is a weapon. He tells Elias he looks expensive. Zane tells the boy the coat does things to him, that he wants to rip it off.

Alphonso is worse in a quieter way—questions about where Elias drinks, who he knows, whether he is the kind of boy who likes rooms at the back of places like Dino’s.

They flirt sleazily, each man trying to outdo the other.

I feel sick to my stomach.

They lean in. They laugh at things that are not funny.

Elias plays it. Soft. Interested. Just lost enough. I can hear the smile in his voice and I hate that I can hear it.

Hardy’s breathing does not change.

I continue to listen to the wire…

“Tito’s not coming here,” Zane says at last, pleased with himself. “He’s making an appearance later. New place. Lucci-owned. Club night. Doors late. You want a real introduction, that’s your window, baby.”

Alphonso confirms it with a name and a street I already file internally.

I look at Hardy. “Hold fire.”

Hardy’s finger stays off the trigger like it was never going there. He nods once. The last thing we need is two bodies in a boutique hotel garden and a clan that bolts before Tito walks into a room I can control.

The plan is clear to me now. We hit them at the club night. We let this play. We do not spook the family for the pleasure of dropping Alphonso and Zane here and now.

Then Zane’s hand moves. I see it from above before the wire catches Elias’s small intake of breath. His palm on Elias’s knee. Then higher. Up his leg under the table where the heaters cannot hide the shape of it.

Rage goes through my blood like a clean pour of vodka. Hot. Immediate.

I want the shot. I want Zane’s skull opened on the marble table while Alphonso is still smiling.

I want to go down the stairs and do it with my hands.

Hardy’s hand lands on my shoulder. Not heavy. But heavy enough to being me out of my murderous thoughts.

“He’s as loyal as they come,” Hardy says, voice low, English and precise. “Let him work his own way out of it. That is why you put him there.”

I nod. but I do not look away from the garden.

Elias shifts. I hear his laugh, light, the kind that closes a door without slamming it.

The hand comes off him. Zane says something about later. Alphonso checks a watch that costs more than the heaters.

The meeting thins. They stand and leave the garden by the path that feeds the hotel’s side door. Elias sits one minute longer, as instructed, then he rises and goes back inside. The wire picks up his footsteps and then the lobby and then nothing I need.

I take a breath I did not know I was holding. It comes out as a sigh that fogs the glass in front of my mouth.

Relief. Not peace. Not even close.

Zane walked away from that table with his hand still warm from his leg. I vow it privately, the way I vowed things in a kitchen with blood on my knuckles. I will take Zane out myself.

Not a contract. Not Hardy’s distance. Me.