10. Vincenzo
VINCENZO
T he man waiting in the alley keeps checking his watch like he's late for something.
He's wiry and jumpy, with eyes that never stop scanning the space around him. Informants like this don’t last long—not because someone gets to them, but because they always think someone will.
Fear turns your brain to mush over time, and this one looks particularly susceptible to it.
I light a cigarette and lean against the wall across from him. Let him come to me. I have time—not all day, but I'm not in a rush or anything. The information I need is more important than rushing it out of him and getting lies or fear-laced facts that are half-baked and unhelpful.
He walks over to me after a minute. His eyes still flick nervously up the alley, but he's making his move at least. "It wasn’t sanctioned," he says, shifting from foot to foot like he’s afraid the ground might open up beneath him.
He's terrified of me, and he's right to be. If he lies to me, I'll kill him.
"Vescari?" I keep my voice level, but my eyes lock on his as I take a drag of my cigarette.
When Emilio told me someone called to say they had information for me, I thought I'd be meeting some dark figure.
This half-wit is probably a hired hand, someone still in training for whatever position they're seeking, and by the looks of it, he's failing.
He nods, tugging the hood of his sweatshirt higher like he thinks it'll hide his face. "They moved him to a secondary location. It wasn’t the police, and it wasn’t his family.
" He rubs the back of his neck, glancing over his shoulder like he’s being followed.
He's telling me shit I already know, except for the secondary location bit. That's new.
"Drugs?" I narrow my eyes and take a step closer, watching for the twitch in his answer as I flick ash from my burning cigarette.
"Probably—there aren't a lot of details, man." His voice dips, and he hunches his shoulders, turning to check the alley again. He's too jumpy. He'll never make it out here.
I grind the cash under my boot. "And you don’t know who did it." I take another drag and eye him, skeptical that he's even sober. He seems to be tweaking or something.
"I know nothin', dude. Vescari was moved.
That's all I'm saying." He glances at me, then away, like he regrets opening his mouth at all. Then he leans in. "If I had to guess—off the record—it wasn’t a hit. And it sure as hell wasn’t Bianchi-sanctioned.
I'd say it was a crime of passion. Someone fucked him up bad and then tried to make it look like it wasn't them.
" His voice drops to a whisper, and he inches back into the shadow of the wall.
My jaw tightens. "So someone moved him without permission, questioned him off-book, and now he’s dead." I let the words settle, watching his reaction more than listening for a reply.
He nods. "And you're asking the wrong questions if you’re only looking at the body." He backs away a step, already trying to disappear into the alley. "You gotta check all the Costa safehouses, man."
I toss more cigarette ash at him, crush it, then walk away, and he doesn’t follow.
Smart. The last thing I need right now is to have to clean up my own crime scene.
If he thinks checking Emilio's safehouses is the way to get more answers, he knows more than he's letting on—or the people who sent him with intel know more.
I slide into the car, kill the rest of the cigarette in the ashtray, and pull into traffic.
The informant’s words echo as I head toward Emilio’s office, engine humming.
I don’t know what I expect to hear when I tell him, but I know he won’t like knowing Gordo had the balls to interrogate Vescari and beat him, then move him and murder him.
One cleanup location is bad enough, but two means more work. If we can even find it.
Emilio’s pacing. That’s how I know he’s not in the mood to hear anything I have to say, but I say it anyway because he pays me to get to the bottom of things.
When I walk in, he stops and stares up at me.
His white suit is crumpled from being worn all day, and his eyes have sleep circles under them.
"He was held somewhere else before he died. Drugged, maybe, but it wasn't his family." I speak evenly, watching Emilio’s every move as I deliver the news.
He stops pacing and turns. "Who did it?" He stops in his tracks and stares at me like I might pull a name out of my pocket like a fucking rabbit, but I don't have all the answers yet.
He's on edge, and I understand why. He's trying to prove it was his brother to ease his mind as to why Gordo vanished, and he needs to protect himself in the event that the authorities piece together enough evidence.
"The informant didn’t know, but he’s sure it wasn’t someone in our ranks fucking up.
And it wasn’t the Bianchis." I cross my arms and lean against the wall, letting him stew on it.
"It's Gordo, man. You have to let me work this the right way, Boss.
If the polizia get their hands on a bad report, it'll lead to a 416-bis.
You know if that happens, we all go under.
No hired hand in the entire country will be able to dissolve that much evidence. "
Emilio mutters something under his breath then grumbles, "Luca Bernardi. That little shit’s too close to this. We act now." Emilio slams his palm on the desk, rattling a half-empty glass of grappa.
"We can’t," I say, holding his gaze and refusing to flinch. "Not yet." I keep my tone calm, steady. Someone has to be. I'm shaking my head at him because he's too impulsive. This is why his son needs to take over already. Someone has to rein in his impulsivity.
"The 416-bis case is gaining ground. We don’t have time to wait." He starts pacing again, one hand gripping the back of his neck. I can see the way his eyes bulge and know he's angry and losing touch on reality.
"And if we kill him now, we hand Greco a martyr," I counter, stepping into his path to make him stop moving and listen.
"We hold any more activity until we see the Bianchi response.
I've got it under control, Boss. Let me deal with Alessia.
" I let the name hang there, watching the effect it has on him.
"You can't let this go to trial. I know she's my niece, but if killing her is the only way to keep things silent?—"
"No," I say firmly. "If we kill her, they will double down. They'll look into her death and see she's connected, and it gives them more proof. We wait and pressure her to do the right thing for us."
"And if she doesn't?" he asks, narrowing his eyes. I can see the fury behind them, but he is leaning into my logic at this point.
"She will."
After another twenty minutes of convincing him to trust me, I duck out.
The heat has been turned up to roughly the temperature of the sun, and with Bernardi and Greco pushing to open their 416-bis investigation, I need to apply more of this pressure to Alessia, so that's where I go.
Her lab this late is a long shot, but my guys outside her apartment say she's not come home yet.
Alessia looks up the moment I walk into the lab. Her eyes are dark with irritation—or maybe it’s nerves. She doesn’t ask why I’m here, but she doesn't act surprised to see me. She sets down her pen and looks up at me as I walk closer.
"Have you heard whether Bernardi is setting up a task force?
" I keep my voice low, watching the twitch in her fingers.
I wish it were as easy as explaining to her what it would mean if she doesn't falsify that report before it's too late, but just because someone is born to the family doesn't make them loyal.
She works for enemy number one, and that makes her a liability.
"No," she says, her eyes flicking away from mine too quickly. Her response is flat and immediate, a little too fast to be convincing. She picks up the pen again and pretends to jot a note, which betrays her sense of anxiety. Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I think about how this will play out when she realizes she’ll either protect us or they will kill her.
I watch her for a moment. "They’ll open one soon, and things will move faster then.
We can't afford noise, Alessia." Stepping closer to her, I notice her tension, the way her shoulders are tight.
She's trapped in this mess by no fault of her own, and I know all she probably wants is for this to go away.
"Thanks for the update," she says, tossing her pen onto the desk. "I’ll alert the press." Her sarcasm barely covers the tension in her voice.
"Don’t do that," I say evenly, stepping closer so she can feel the warning in my tone.
"Don't get hostile with me. I'm here to help you.
I am trying to protect you." While that's only a partial truth, I mean it more today than I did over a week ago when I first told her.
Fucking a woman changes the way you look at her, and there's nothing you can do to change that.
She stiffens but doesn’t look up. "If you’re here to intimidate me, try harder. I’m not scared of you." She turns her chair slightly, probably to avoid looking at me, but I notice how afraid she looks. I want to reach out and rub her shoulders, loosen some of that tension.
"I’m not here to scare you, Bella." I shake my head once, then take a step closer. "I’m here to tell you the only thing keeping you out of the crosshairs right now is your last name—and even that’s starting to wear thin.
" I cross the space between us to stand behind her.
She smells like a strange mix of perfume and chemicals.
I brush the hair over her shoulder and let my hand linger as my knuckles brush over her cheek.
That gets her attention. Her head turns slightly as if she is looking down at my shoes and back at me. "So this is about my father." Her voice is flat, but I can see more tension climbing into her shoulders.
"Emilio knows he killed Matteo. No one’s pretending otherwise." I don’t sugarcoat it, and I don’t blink.
She exhales through her nose, sharp and angry. "Then why am I still here? Why haven’t you dragged me into the street yet? I have the proof. I ran the test. I know how this goes." Her voice quavers, but she grits her teeth firmly.
"Because I told them not to." I watch her face as I say it, not knowing how it will affect her. I let the words land. "But I can’t protect you if you say the wrong thing to the wrong person. Greco wants a headline. You give it to her, and you’re done.
Emilio… He doesn't want…" I keep my voice low, like I’m already mourning what comes next if she fucks this up.
"You’re trying to manipulate me." She pushes back from the desk, eyes locked on mine with sharp defiance as she finally turns to face me.
"No," I say, holding her gaze without blinking. "I’m trying to keep you alive." My hand rises to cup her cheek, and she averts her eyes.
"Why would they kill me?" Her bottom lip quivers as she asks the question, but I know she already knows the truth. Rats in this business aren't welcome. She's not in the business, but she knows the stakes, and that makes her cat bait.
"Alessia, trust me. I want them to back off, but the only way is if you don't tell them what you know.
And we either have to change evidence or we have to burn the body.
" I'm in this line of work, so it comes naturally to me.
But she's not. She's innocent of it all, having run away before she knew too much.
"Please leave," she says firmly, and I sigh and back away.
My time will be better spent keeping her safe from any Bianchi interest for right now.
They will want the truth, but they won't want the 416-bis case opened, either.
Dragging Vescari's name into this will mean the downfall of multiple Roman families, and if she doesn't play ball, she will strike out fast.
I leave her alone to process what I've said, and I don't know what she'll do. So far, her life has been left alone because Gordo put a bounty on anyone who came near her. Now, who knows?
The drive across town is quiet except for the hum of the engine and the occasional buzz of a message I ignore.
My route takes me through Trastevere’s back streets, narrow alleys and shuttered storefronts passing like a reel I’ve seen too many times.
I pull up a block away from the last safe house we stopped keeping tabs on—a place even Emilio doesn't mention anymore.
If Gordo kept Vescari stashed somewhere off the record, this is the most likely spot.
The house off Via Portuense is one of the family's quiet spots—unmarked, rarely used.
There are no cameras on it at all and no major security.
It does have a keypad lock and the kind of insulation in the walls that makes for a quieter atmosphere inside—not to block out city noise, but to keep the torture sounds inside.
If Gordo was gonna do something, this would be the place.
Inside, the place smells like bleach, but the floor tells a different story.
There are scuff marks across the floor and a smear of something dark near the drain in the kitchen sink that could be blood.
I check the vent slats, under the sink, the seams of the windows, and find nothing.
My eyes scan every surface, every corner, every shelf and cupboard.
It feels like it could take hours to fully tear this place apart, but my eyes catch on something.
The socket near the back room is loose, so I walk over and pry it open with a key.
Inside, I find a folded piece of paper and a burner phone with its SIM out, tucked behind exposed wires.
Carefully, I pry them out while using my key fob to hold the live wires to the side.
Whoever hid this shit in here wasn't messing around.
I think they were hoping that someone would come looking and get a shock.
I shove both the SIM and the paper into my jacket pocket without thinking twice.
If there is a call history on that SIM, I'll be able to lift it off, maybe other things too.
If Gordo is smart, though, he won't have left this much proof anywhere.
Still, if there's a chance it was Vescari who put this here, we can use whatever is on this to help convince Alessia to do the right thing.
Gordo bringing Vescari back to one of Emilio's safehouses wasn't just stupid, it was reckless—the first fuckup in a line of massive fuckery. If we don’t bury this fast, it’ll be the crack that brings the whole goddamn house down.
I head back to the car with the SIM burning a hole in my pocket. I want to dig into this and find any other loose end out there so I can tie them up and hang Bernardi's 416-bis investigation by its skinny neck and put this nightmare behind us.