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“Where does Mikhail stand in all this? Can he touch this from where he is in prison?” Nikolai asked.

Ivan shook his head. “Mikhail has been watched every hour since the arrest. It’s not likely he’s behind this.”

“Where’s Sokolov now?” Maxim asked.

“Sokolov disappeared forty-eight hours before Mikhail was arrested,” Kit explained.

Then Alessia’s phone vibrated on the table. Her eyes dropped toward the screen, and I saw the name before she turned it over.

Nonna.

Fuck.

I’d forgotten about her grandparents. I had been so focused on getting Alessia somewhere safe that I had left her grandparents in danger. My stomach tightened. It was a basic failure, the kind that got people killed, and I scolded myself internally for it.

“Paolo and Teresa need protection,” I said. “Tonight.”

Alessia looked at me. “They’re not going to a Bellandi property.”

“I didn’t say Bellandi.”

“You were about to move them somewhere.”

“No. I wasn’t.” I turned back to Alessia. “I was going to contact them and ask them where they want to go, whether it be with the Bellandis or us.”

Some of the tension left her shoulders.

“Riley should make the call though,” I added.

“Why Riley?”

“Because your grandparents are more likely to listen to a sweet little Irish woman offering them tea rather than five armed Russian men discussing their relocation.”

Riley grinned. “That might be the nicest thing you have ever said about me.”

Kit secured the call before Riley rang the Carusos. Teresa answered on the third ring with enough suspicion in her voice to suggest she expected either a salesperson or a priest bearing bad news.

“Mrs. Caruso?” Riley began. “My name is Riley Morozov. I’m sitting here with Alessia as we speak.”

“Put my granddaughter on the phone.”

Alessia leaned closer. “I’m here, Nonna.”

Teresa started speaking Italian immediately. I understood only part of it, but the tone required no translation. She was afraid, and with that came accusations and questions. Questions about where she was, why she left New York, and why Alessia hadn’t called sooner. Alessia answered quietly.

“I didn’t want to scare you.”

Teresa’s reply came firmly enough that Alessia closed her eyes.

“What did she say?” Sloane asked.

“That she is already frightened, so I have failed magnificently.”

A man’s voice joined the call. Paolo Caruso sounded older and calmer than his wife, though not less stubborn.

“We are not leaving our home because criminals are fighting. Criminals are always fighting,” he declared, in that uncompromising way of old men.

“Nonno,” Alessia replied, “the criminals already knew where I was.”