8. Enzo #2
I stand, brushing off my coat. "I've had enough for today."
The street outside smells like citrus and smoke.
I glance once over my shoulder.
The waitstaff inside hasn't even noticed the body yet.
They'll figure it out soon enough.
My ride is already waiting at the corner, and I head back to the estate.
I call Aria twice on her number, but both times, it goes to voicemail.
I don't leave a message.
I just lower the phone to my thigh, clenching my hand around it as if it might answer on its own.
The silence stings more than I expected it to.
If she were ignoring me, that would be one thing.
But this...this silence feels like distance with a motive.
We cut through the heart of the city fast, passing the cathedral and the strip of harbor where the ships sway like drunk men at attention.
The iron gates of the Salvatore estate come into view, edged with new cameras and reinforced wiring.
Luca doesn't tighten security unless something has already gone wrong.
The guards at the front wave us through.
One of them steps forward the moment I get out. "Cristiano's looking for you," he says. "East wing."
Cristiano Conti has been staying at the estate for the better part of a year, ever since his sister Alessandra married into the family and brought her own pedigree with her.
Old Roman ties.
Quiet, cold money.
Things the Salvatores can use when the more obvious channels need insulation.
I nod once and head inside.
The manor's halls are lit golden, casting long reflections along the polished floors, the light broken only by the glint of crystal and the hush of staff moving fast, but quietly.
Alessandra passes me in the corridor, her perfume trailing like bergamot and secrets.
She says nothing.
She just gives me a nod, as if she already knows what I'm about to walk into.
I find Cristiano in the south parlor.
And he's not alone.
A third man is there, leaning against the grand piano, long legs crossed at the ankle, dark hair tousled like he just stepped out of a sea breeze.
He's drinking something pale, with no ice, and watching me like he's waiting for a reason to be entertained.
"Enzo," Cristiano says smoothly. "Good timing."
"Depends on who you ask." I pull out the nearest chair, then sit and reach for the basket of fruit at the center of the table.
The apple I choose is cold and glossy, its skin tight beneath my thumb.
I draw my knife from my pocket and begin slicing it clean, piece by piece, like there's nothing in the world worth rushing.
Cristiano gestures toward the other man. "This is Giovanni. Alessandra's older brother. You've met in passing, I believe."
Giovanni Conti straightens and steps forward, hand extended.
His suit is expensive, the kind of navy that reads black in low light.
His smile is practiced, a little crooked, a little self-aware.
"So, this is the man who always stands to Luca's right."
I shake his hand, firm and slow. "And you're the man who likes to walk into rooms like he owns them."
Giovanni laughs, a low sound that carries a little too far.
"What can I say? I get bored easily. Figured it was time to see what all the fuss was about."
Cristiano rolls his eyes. "Giovanni's here to assist with some of the old Cosa Nostra channels in the south. There's a lot of overlap with our business, especially around the ports."
"I'm here to make life easier," Giovanni says, tilting his glass. "Not more complicated. Unless complicated is more fun."
There's something about him I immediately don't like.
He talks like a man who never has to raise a blade to be taken seriously.
It seems like charm is his armor, and that makes him dangerous in a different way.
The kind of dangerous Luca keeps close until the blade's too near the neck.
Cristiano watches me watching Giovanni.
"He's useful, Enzo. Try not to scare him off in the first hour."
"I don't scare easily," Giovanni says, eyes gleaming. "Besides, you've already got a reputation, Moretti. I'm just here to learn."
I ignore that and glance at Cristiano. "Is this what you pulled me back for?"
Cristiano shakes his head. "No. That's just the appetizer."
Giovani sits across from me without asking, plucks a grape from the silver tray between us, and pops it into his mouth like this is his home and I am the guest.
"I hear there's been unrest lately," he continues. "Little rumors in Palermo. Small fires in Venice. And now this thing with Valentina."
I still. He watches me like he was waiting for that. "What thing with Valentina?" My voice is even, flat.
Giovanni lifts his shoulders in a slow shrug. "We just heard, it's such a shame. Valentina is missing."
I stand. He does not flinch at the sudden movement, in fact, he only smiles wider.
"You hear anything else," I say, reaching for my jacket, "you bring it straight to Luca."
"Of course." He rises too. "But Enzo?"
I pause at the door.
"There's a wind shifting," he says softly. "Try not to be on the wrong side when it does."
I leave without answering, boots striking hard against the marble, my mind already piecing things together, the most urgent of them being the need to talk to Luca immediately.
I make it halfway to the inner corridor when I hear my name.
It is one of Luca's soldiers, Sal, jogging up behind me, his phone in hand and his face pale.
"You need to see this," he says, shoving the device into my hand.
The screen is showing the feed from a news station.
Grainy footage.
A smoking car near a bend in the road just outside the city.
Flames pouring out from under the hood, the chassis crushed beyond recognition.
The chyron crawls slowly and mercilessly beneath it.
"Fatal car crash outside Nuova Speranza. No survivors found. Sources confirm one of the passengers was Aria Lombardi, recently associated with the Salvatore estate."
I don't hear the rest.
My heart's pounding too hard.
The blood rushing in my ears drowns out everything but the roar of disbelief.
No.
She can't be.
She was just?—
I feel the noise inside me before I even realize I'm moving.
Someone says my name, but it's too far away, too soft.
My body moves like it remembers something my brain can't accept.
I turn, pushing out of the club, through the stone archway, and into the street.
The sky above is blinding, the kind of flat gray that presses too close, too low.
I fish my phone from my jacket.
Call log. No answer. No messages.
She was just here.
Just in my bed.
Just in my arms.
Her skin against mine.
Her laugh like silk wrapped in fire.
The way her eyes cut through every wall I'd spent a lifetime building.
She told me there was someone her family wanted her to marry.
She asked me where I stood.
I touched her like I had the right.
And now they're saying she's gone.
"Bullshit," I mutter under my breath, gripping the phone so tight my knuckles crack.
I stare down at my screen again, then press dial.
It rings once. Then again. Then goes straight to voicemail.
I try once more, then again, and again, each attempt more frantic than the last, until my hands are shaking and sweat beads at the back of my neck, my pulse thundering so loudly I can hardly hear the silence on the other end.
It is not just silence.
It is absence.
It is the kind of void that swallows everything, the kind that tells you with no uncertainty that whatever you lost is not coming back.
I stand there with the phone in my hand, every muscle in my body tight with dread, like something inside me is clawing to get out.
My breath comes shallow and hard, too loud in the stillness of the room, and I feel it then—that creeping, gutting truth that I am too late.
My throat closes, heat rising so fast it blinds me.
I stagger back, bracing a hand on the wall like I need something solid to remind me I'm still standing. "I didn't get to say I loved her," I whisper, but the sound of it feels wrong in my mouth, too small, too useless, too late.
The words fall flat against the polished stone beneath my boots, and I say them again, louder this time, harsher, because maybe if I keep saying it, the past will change.
But nothing does. No one answers. No voice comes over the line to tell me I'm wrong.
There's only that same silence, that same stillness, and it feels like punishment.
I didn't get to say I loved her. I didn't get to say I loved her.
I say it until my voice breaks, until I feel something inside me start to fracture.
The phone slips from my hand and hits the floor, the sharp crack of it splitting the quiet, but I don't move to pick it up.
I just stand there, head bowed, fists clenched, every part of me screaming for a second chance that will never come.