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He’s gone pale, his jaw clenched so tight I can see a muscle jumping in his cheek.
But his eyes when they meet mine are steady, full of the same disgust and fury I feel churning in my own gut.
I know this play. I’ve seen it countless times.
When a man’s got no truth left to bargain with, when the pain’s stripped everything else away, he’ll grasp for the most vicious lie he can spit out.
As if a lie big enough and ugly enough might buy him one more minute of mercy.
It won’t. It never does. But I understand the animal instinct of it, even if I don’t believe a single poisonous word. Luca’s my brother. My trusted friend.
He’s bled for this family, for me, more times than I can count.
I turn back to Caruso, grabbing a fistful of his hair and wrenching his head back until he’s looking up at me.
“You fucking liar,” I snarl, my voice low and vicious. “You think I’ll believe that shit? Luca’s my brother. He’s bled for this family, for me, more times than a rat like you could count.”
I lean in closer, close enough to smell the blood and the piss and the fear rolling off him.
“The desperate lies of a dead man walking don’t get to touch that,” I croon. “I won’t allow it.”
I let go of his hair with a rough jerk, watching his head loll forward.
Then I step back, letting my disgust show plain on my face.
“Luca,” I say, not taking my eyes off Caruso. “Let’s finish this.”
Luca steps up beside me, his presence solid and reassuring. A constant I can count on, even in the midst of all this filth.
Together, we finish what we came here to do.
I stay under the scalding spray longer than I need to, watching the last traces of blood swirl down the drain, trying not to think about the fact that this—the cellar, the screams, the stench of a decade’s loyalty crumbling to ashes—is the one part of my life I can never explain to Katerina.
She knows what her family is, what flows through her veins whether she wants it or not. But she’s spent years building walls between herself and this world, one emergency room shift at a time, and I’ve just come from a room with a dead man’s blood caked under my nails.
There’s no version of today’s truth I can give her.
I’m still grappling with that when the second message comes, just past noon, a hundred times worse than the first.
A scrap, a fragment, plucked from the ether of some burner network Russo’s men use and wipe every few hours. Caught more by chance than skill.
Six words. Half a phrase, hacked off at both ends.
…Barone has the doctor too…
The blood turns to ice in my veins as the words sink in, colder than it’s been since that night on the street, bleeding out under the hands of a stranger.
They know about her.
Not everything, but enough to put a target on her back. My hands shake as I set down the page, a tremor I can’t seem to stop. I press my palms flat to the desk, dragging in one breath after another until I can think past the red haze of panic.
If they find her, if they even get close, I know exactly what they’ll do. I saw what they did to Dino, and he was a soldier who knew the risks. My Katerina’s not part of this. All she did was save a dying man at the side of the road, because that’s who she is. And now they know she’s a pressure point they can use against me.
I’m moving before I’ve fully decided to stand, driven by a fierce, desperate need to keep her safe.
I call down to security, my voice tight but controlled. Double the guard rotation. Then double it again, until it feels almost sufficient. Perimeter checks every twenty minutes.
A man outside her door day and night, close enough to hear trouble, far enough not to make her feel caged. No one enters or leaves without my express permission.
