Chapter 9 Leone
Chapter Nine: Leone
Alexandra is sitting on the bed with the phone in her hand when I come back.
She's pale. Not scared pale. Angry pale. White that sits in someone's face right before they throw a punch or flip a table. Her knuckles are bloodless around the phone, and when she looks up at me, her eyes are flat and hard.
"Someone sent me a photo," she says.
I take the phone from her. The image fills the screen. Alexandra and Emilio in the east corridor, mid-stride, her face clearly visible. The angle is high, slightly to the left. Security camera footage, or a phone held above a crowd. Taken today. Inside the compound.
The rage comes fast and clean.
I don't let it show. I pocket the phone, crouch in front of her, and take her hands. They're cold.
"When did this come in?"
"Twenty minutes ago. Probably less." Her voice is steady, but her fingers grip mine hard enough to hurt. "Leone, that photo was taken inside. Not from the street. Not from a drone. Someone in this building is watching me."
"I know."
"You found Renzo. You shut him down. So who the fuck else is feeding them information?"
"I don't know yet." I squeeze her hands. "But I will."
She searches my face, and I can see the calculation happening behind her eyes. The same pattern recognition she applies to financial documents, now applied to me. Checking for lies, for deflection, for any sign that I'm going to handle this by locking her away and pretending it didn't happen.
"Don't shut me out," she says quietly.
"I'm not."
"Don't lock that door and disappear for days. Not now. Not after last night."
I bring her hands to my mouth. Press my lips against her knuckles. Her breath stutters, and I feel her fingers relax a fraction.
"I'm not going anywhere," I say against her skin. "And neither are you."
I leave her long enough to pull Claudio and Emilio into the corridor. Claudio takes the phone, studies the image, and his face goes empty. That's his version of fury. Emilio's is louder.
"Inside?" Emilio's voice comes out like a growl. "That's taken from the east wing junction. There's only one camera at that angle, and it feeds to the security office."
"Pull the logs," I say. "Every access point for the last forty-eight hours. I want to know who was in that security office, who touched that terminal, and who had remote access to the feed."
"And when we find them?" Claudio asks.
"Bring them to me."
Claudio nods, turns, disappears. Emilio lingers.
"Leone." He drops his voice. "This isn’t surveillance. This is a message. They wanted her to see it. They wanted her scared."
"She's not scared."
"No. She's pissed. Which might be worse." He rubs the bruise on his jaw. "Want me to stay outside the door tonight?"
I consider it. An extra body, an extra gun. But Emilio outside the door means Emilio knowing I'm inside, all night, with a woman I haven't officially claimed. The twins already suspect, but suspicion and confirmation are different currencies.
"No," I say. "I'll handle it."
He gives me a look that says he knows exactly what handle it means, then walks away.
I go back inside. Alexandra is at the desk, bent over the documents again, scribbling notes with a fury that's going to tear through the paper. She doesn't look up when I close the door.
"We need to talk about Apex Meridian," she says.
"We need to talk about the photo."
"The photo is a scare tactic. Apex Meridian is the actual threat." She finally looks up, pen between her teeth, and the combination of rage and intelligence in her eyes makes my chest tight. "Whoever sent that photo wants me distracted. I refuse to be distracted."
I almost smile. Almost.
"Fine," I say. "Talk."
She pulls three pages from the stack and lays them out.
"The New York address is registered to a holding company that owns twelve subsidiaries.
Most of them are ghost operations, empty shells with no employees and no revenue.
But two of them are real. One is a tech consulting firm.
The other is a logistics company that specializes in international freight. "
"Weapons distribution."
"That's my guess. The logistics company has contracts in fourteen countries. Legitimate contracts, on paper. But the shipping volume doesn't match the revenue. They're moving shit off the books, and whatever it is, it's heavy and it's expensive."
I lean over her shoulder, scanning the documents.
She's highlighted key figures, drawn arrows between related entries, circled discrepancies in red.
Her work is meticulous. Ruthless. She's torn this data apart the way I tear apart tactical positions, looking for the gap, the weakness, the soft spot where pressure will collapse the whole structure.
My hand rests on the back of her chair. Close to her neck but not touching. I can feel the heat coming off her skin, smell the shampoo in her hair, my shampoo, and the proximity does things to my focus that I can't afford.
"The tech consulting firm," I say. "What does it do?"
"On paper? Data infrastructure. Security systems. Network architecture.
" She leans back, and her shoulder brushes my arm.
Neither of us moves away. "Off paper? I don't know yet.
But a company that builds security systems would have access to surveillance networks, communication channels, encrypted data.
The access you'd need to monitor two warring families without either of them knowing. "
The implication is clear.
"They're not funding the war," I say slowly. "They're watching it. In real time."
"Both families. Every move, every transaction, every conversation that touches a compromised network.
" She turns in the chair to face me, and her knee presses against my thigh.
Warm even through fabric. "Leone, if they have access to your communication infrastructure, they can see everything.
Every order you give. Every strike you plan. Every..."
She trails off. Her eyes drop to my mouth, then back up. Quick. Involuntary.
"Every what?" I ask, but my voice has changed. Lower. The conversation is slipping sideways and we both feel it.
"Every vulnerability," she says. Her voice is quieter now.
We're close. Too close for a conversation about surveillance networks and shell corporations. Her knee is still against my thigh, and her pulse jumps at the base of her throat, fast and visible.
"We should focus," she says.
"We should."
Neither of us moves.
The compound is quiet around us. Late enough that the patrols have thinned, early enough that the night shift hasn't fully settled. The only sound is the ventilation system and our breathing, which has synced without either of us noticing.
I step back. It takes more effort than it should.
"Keep working the Apex Meridian trail," I say. "I'll brief Aurelio on the photo and the surveillance angle. We'll compare notes."
She nods. Turns back to the desk. But her hand finds mine as I pass, fingers catching my wrist, holding me for a beat.
"Be careful," she says.
"Always."
"Liar."
I extract my wrist from her grip and leave before I make a mistake that will keep us both up all night.
The briefing with Aurelio takes two hours.
I lay out everything. The photo. The security breach.
Alexandra's analysis of Apex Meridian, the tech firm, the logistics company, the implication that our communications may be compromised.
Aurelio listens without interruption, his face carved from the same grey stone as always.
When I finish, he's quiet for a long time.
"The girl found all of this?" he asks.
"Yes."
"In how long?"
"Days. What took our analysts months, she pieced together in days."
Aurelio taps his finger on the desk. Once. Twice. "She's valuable."
"Yes."
"Which makes her dangerous. To whoever is behind this."
"I know."
"And to us. If she's taken. If she talks."
My jaw locks and panic rises in my chest, making breathing normally extremely difficult. "She won't be taken."
"You can guarantee that?"
"I can guarantee that anyone who tries will die before they touch her."
Aurelio studies me across the desk. The lamp throws deep shadows across his face, and suddenly he looks ancient. Not tired. Ancient. Like a man who has seen this exact scenario play out a hundred times across a hundred generations. He coughs and it takes him a moment to recover.
"You love her," he says. Not a question.
I don't answer. The word feels wrong in my mouth. Too small for what's happening inside my chest. Too clean for the mess it's made of my priorities.
"Leone." Aurelio leans forward. "I asked you a question."
"She matters to me."
"That's not what I asked."
I meet his eyes. "Yes."
He nods slowly. Settles back in his chair.
"Then here are my terms. She stays in the compound.
She continues her analysis. She reports to you, you report to me.
Her safety is your responsibility, and if it compromises your ability to function as my right hand, I will remove her from the equation.
Not permanently," he adds, catching the look on my face.
"But decisively. Do we understand each other? "
"Yes, sir."
"One more thing." He stands, walks to the window, looks out at the compound.
"If she's right about Apex Meridian, if someone has infiltrated our communications, then nothing we say in this building is safe.
I want a full security audit. New encryption.
Sweep every room, every phone, every terminal. Start tonight."
"Understood."
"And Leone?" He glances back at me. "Protect her. Not because she's yours. Because she might be the only person who can unravel this before it buries us."
I nod once and leave.
The security audit starts immediately.