Thirty-nine
Ciro
San Francisco dropped away under the wing just after she landed. It took forever to get into landing rotation in Santa Monica.
I spent the flight tracking time instead of distance, watching the distance hold no matter how fast we moved, replaying the last thing she said instead of anything that mattered. By the time we touched down, she was already in Malibu at the gate.
Three hours.
Close enough to matter. Not close enough to get in front of her.
Jim had a car waiting when I stepped off the plane, one of his men behind the wheel and the door already open before I reached it. He didn’t waste time with questions.
“She’s still at the Colony,” he said as I got in. “Gate denied. She pulled off. Coffee shop just outside.”
I nodded once and pulled my phone from my pocket, the screen already lit with the last update.
“Get me to that coffee shop,” I say, settling into the seat as the door shut and the car pulls away from the terminal.
“Will do.”
The car merges onto the Pacific Coast Highway, the city falling away behind us in slow layers of glass and concrete. Traffic moves without urgency, steady enough to hold but not enough to open, and the driver keeps us in line with it instead of pushing through.
I sit in the back seat, one hand braced against the center console, my phone resting loose in the other as I watch the road stretch ahead. The ocean runs along our left, dark and flat under the late light, while the hills rise on the right, cutting off everything I don’t need to see.
“How far out are we?” I ask.
“Forty minutes if the traffic holds,” he says. “Longer if it doesn’t.”
I shift forward slightly, adjusting my angle to see past the car in front of us.
We push north, the road tightening and releasing in slow intervals that don’t open long enough to pass. I shift forward in the seat, adjusting my angle to see around the car ahead, and then back again, like there’s something I’m supposed to catch in the movement that isn’t there.
My phone stays in my hand, the screen dark and unchanged. There’s no message, no update, and that doesn’t fit
I look out toward the water for a second and then back to the road, tracking distance without trusting it.
“She should have moved by now,” I say.
The driver checks the mirror, and then the traffic ahead. “From the coffee shop?”
“From anywhere,” I say. “She’s a sitting duck.”
He doesn’t answer that, and I keep watching the road as traffic compresses in front of us. When the phone vibrates in my hand, Jim’s name cuts across the screen, and I answer before it rings a second time. “Where is she?”
“She’s sitting in the coffee shop window just watching,” he says. “She talked to a woman who lives in the Colony and asked her to call her mother. Nothing yet.”
I shift forward, my hand braced against the console. “What happened at the gate? Did she get in?”
“No,” he says. “Denied. My guy at the gate says she gave the name Chiara. He called the house, and they told her they don’t know her.”
I watch the line of cars ahead of us, the brake lights stacking and releasing. “And then.”
There’s a brief pause on the line, the sound of traffic filling the space as the car eases forward a few feet.
“And now,” I say, my eyes fixed on the road ahead as the lane compresses again.
“She’s at a coffee shop just outside the gate,” he says. “We have her and I have a couple inside sitting close if there’s a problem.”
I hold there for a second, tracking the movement in front of us, my thumb pressing into the edge of the phone.
“Has the mother called anyone? Packed a bag? Anything?”
“Not yet,” he says. “We heard her get the phone call, and she thanked her neighbor. When they disconnected, she looked at the picture, and that’s what has her worried. She knows it’s Chiara, but she’s not sure if it’s a trap.”
“Can you blame her?” I ask, watching the brake lights ahead of us stack as the car eases with traffic. “Can you reach her without being seen?” I add, shifting forward slightly, my hand bracing against the console as I track the line of cars.
“I’m worried we risk her running,” Jim says. “We’re just out of her view, but I’m very close,” his voice tightening a fraction. “I’m with a team ready to move if needed.”
“What is your team doing,” I ask, my eyes still on the road as the lane compresses again.
“They’re right there,” Jim says. “Two tables off her left. They haven’t talked to her or identified themselves.”
There’s a pause, but this one is different, and I feel it before he says anything.
“Hold on,” Jim says.
I don’t move, my hand still pressed against the console. “What?”
Muffled voices cut through the line, his attention shifting away from me for a second as he answers someone else, the sound of movement and distance bleeding into the call.
“Say that again,” Jim says, lower now.
I sit forward, my grip tightening on the phone as I lean into the space between the seats. “Jim?”
Another beat follows, and then the sound of him moving—footsteps, a door, something closing off the noise—like he’s stepped away to take it clean.
When he comes back, his tone has changed.
“Massimo’s moving,” he says.
I straighten in the seat, my hand tightening on the console. “From where?”
“Hollywood,” he says. “He just got a call. They think someone flagged Chiara coming in.”
I look out at the road, and then back ahead as the driver eases off the accelerator. “Do we have another team on him?”
“Yes,” Jim says. “Only close enough to watch. Not to hear.”
“Then how does he know?” I ask.
“All we can tell is that he got a phone call, and then he was moving quickly,” Jim replies.
I shift forward again, my hand pressing into the console. “Where is he relative to her?”
“Sunset,” Jim says. “Heading west out of Hollywood.”
Traffic tightens in front of us, brake lights stacking.
“How fast,” I ask.
“He’s not pushing it,” Jim says. “Traffic’s heavy. It’s going to take him time.”
I hold there for a second, watching the line ahead close and settle.
“All they see is his sister,” I say. “They don’t know if his mother is there. Chiara alone is a win.”
“Agreed,” he says. “If they move now, they flag themselves and risk not getting her mother—if that’s why she’s here.”
I brace harder against the console as the car takes the curve along the coast. “Call her. She needs to know he’s coming.”
There’s a beat on the line.
“She’s not answering,” Jim says. “She looked at the screen and rejected the call.”
“Try again anyway,” I say, my grip tightening slightly on the phone.
“We did.”
I glance down at the screen, and then back up at the traffic ahead. “Text her.”
“No response,” he says. “She’s not looking at it.”
“Then pull her out,” I say.
“If we step in blind, we bring every set of eyes with us,” Jim says. “I can’t be sure where Massimo has people.”
“I’m not asking for clean,” I say, my voice flattening as I push it through. “I’m telling you to get her out of that coffee shop.”
“Ciro—”
“I’m not negotiating this,” I cut in, my palm pressing flat against the seat as the car bends along the coastline. “You intervene. Now.”
Silence stretches for a second, the car settling back into the flow of traffic as I hold the phone to my ear.
I look past the car in front of us, tracking the lane instead of the distance.
“Drive faster,” I say to the driver.
He nods once, easing off the accelerator just enough to match the line as it compresses and releases.
“Patrizia is moving,” Jim announces, and my heart nearly stops. “She just backed out of her driveway.”