8. Mateo
8
MATEO
T he dining room is already set when I walk in. Lev’s in his chair, legs swinging, talking to the housekeeper like she’s known him his whole life. Lila sits across from him, stirring a cup of tea she hasn’t touched. She doesn’t look up when I enter, but I can feel her register it.
I take the seat at the head of the table, unfold the napkin, and nod once to the staff before they step out and leave the three of us alone.
Lev is mid-story about a nightmare involving pirates and sharks and, somehow, a dragon made of spaghetti. I listen to every word, even if none of it makes sense. He gestures with his fork and talks too fast, like if he pauses, he’ll lose the thread.
Lila doesn’t say much. She just watches him, and sometimes me. Her gaze flicks to mine when she thinks I’m not paying attention. I catch her once. She looks away just as fast.
There’s a stiffness in the air that wasn’t there yesterday. She doesn’t touch her food. Doesn’t ask me anything. Her silence isn’t cold—it’s calculated. Like she’s replaying every second of what happened on the terrace last night and trying to make sense of it without showing it on her face.
She’s not sure what we are now. Neither am I.
Lev looks over at me between bites of toast, his face sticky with jam, hair still wild from sleep. “Can I hold the sword today?” he asks, mouth half-full. “Just for a little bit. I’ll be careful.”
He says it with total seriousness, like he’s asking to help run the estate.
“Yes,” I say without even pausing to think.
Lila’s head lifts sharply, eyes finally cutting toward me for the first time this morning. “No,” she says, just as fast. Her tone doesn’t rise, but it sharpens. “Absolutely not.”
Lev blinks, confused, his mouth still working on the bite of food. “Why not?”
“Because you’re five,” she says, looking at him, not me. “You don’t need to be holding weapons.”
“It’s not sharp if I don’t take it out,” he whines, clearly disappointed but not bold enough to push it further. His legs swing under the chair as he goes quiet again, shoulders a little lower.
I finish what’s left on my plate, but I don’t argue, not with him watching. But Lila feels it—I can tell. The tension between us isn’t loud, but it sits like an elephant in the room. She won’t even look at me after last night. Not after the way she kissed me like she wanted it and hated herself for it in the same breath.
Lev moves on, back to talking about his dream—something about running down a hallway made of candy that turned into a swamp. I listen with little interest as I eat my breakfast—eggs, bacon, a piece of dry toast, a cup of coffee. He gets stuck on the details, hands waving as he tries to explain what kind of monster was chasing him, and I let him go on. I keep my focus on him, even as I feel her watching me again from across the table. She hasn’t touched her tea.
I stand when my plate is clear, adjusting the cuff of my shirt. Lev glances up, cheeks full.
“You leaving?” he asks. There's a bit of apprehension in his eyes, like he's fearful I'm not coming back. It's probably because Anton just left and never came back.
“For work.” Straightening my tie, I look down at his pleading expression.
“Can I come?”
I nod once. “Next time.”
Lila shoots me a look but doesn’t say a word. I know what it means. She doesn’t want him anywhere near "work"—whatever it is in her mind. I don’t care. The boy’s going to learn eventually. Sooner’s better.
I rest my hand on Lev’s shoulder. “Be good.”
He grins, jam on his teeth. “I’m always good.”
I leave the room without saying a word to her.
When the car pulls up, Rafe’s already inside. Alessio rides up front, flipping through messages on his phone, muttering under his breath about internal logs and delayed compliance reports. I don’t ask questions. If it matters, he’ll bring it to me.
By the time we reach the city, traffic’s still light and the street vendors haven’t started setting up. The sun’s barely cleared the rooftops. The café isn’t open yet, lights off inside, door still locked when we pull up. It’s one of ours—quiet, secure, neutral—we’ve used it for years when discretion matters more than walls.
Alessio heads in first. Rafe waits until I step out before following. He checks the sidewalk and the corners, nods once, then takes his place near the entrance. Inside, the dining room smells faintly of burnt coffee grounds and cleaning solution. Chairs are still stacked on most of the tables. The barista isn’t here yet.
Dario Spinetti waits at a two-top near the back, sweating into the collar of his too-fine shirt. He's breathing too fast, eyes flicking around. Anton’s preferred banker knows I’m not here to waste time.
His hands are already on the folder when I reach the table. He rises halfway, unsure whether he should stand or not. I don’t bother acknowledging it. Alessio sits across from him, leaving the seat beside me open. Rafe doesn’t sit. He posts up against the back wall, arms crossed.
Dario clears his throat and opens the file. “We found the flagged movement last night. Final transaction from the Luxembourg account registered to Anton. It moved one point two million through a Naples-based shell company. The account closed hours later.”
He pushes the paper forward. Alessio’s already circled the entity name. My eyes scan the routing chain. It’s clean, layered through enough fronts to slow most people down. Not us.
“Who owns it?” I ask.
“The shell is tied to a holding firm registered under Giulio Fontana. He’s on the Bianchi payroll.”
“Device?”
“Remote. Password-authenticated, but not from your brother’s equipment. IP puts it in Milan, spoofed through two proxies.”
Of course. Clean enough to pass if no one’s looking. Too confident if someone is.
“And the other activity?”
Dario flips to a second sheet. “Scattered withdrawals over the last six months. Low volume. Different shells. No patterns—until this one. Last move before zero.”
I sit back, keeping my face still. The problem isn’t how they pulled the money. It’s that they did it days before Anton ended up with a bullet through his mouth.
“And the half-million Lila took?”
“She moved that the morning after his death. Accessed everything she had codes for. Consolidated it into a Cayman account registered in her maiden name.”
Good. She knew the clock was running out. The money is hers, so I can’t fault her for taking it. Better her than the Bianchis.
I close the folder and tap my knuckles once against the tabletop. “Trace the Naples branch. I want the internal approvals, device logs, timestamps, and employee movement for the last two weeks. Pull access rosters, security footage, anything they archived. Start with the manager. Work your way down.”
Alessio nods, already pulling his phone from his jacket pocket.
Dario hesitates. “If we dig that deep, they’ll see it coming. The branch will report the audit immediately.”
“That’s the idea. I want them looking over their shoulders before we get there." Fear makes people move. Makes them sloppy. If they think we’re digging, they’ll start cleaning—erasing names, shifting money, pulling strings. And in that panic, they’ll show me who’s still alive on the inside. Who pulled Anton’s accounts apart while he bled out. I don’t want silence. I want movement. I want to watch them scramble to cover the trail they think they buried six months ago.
Let them see it coming. Let them know I’m not just tracking the money. I’m coming to collect.
We leave the café just after nine. Traffic has started to build, but not enough to slow us down. The city blurs past the windows in soft streaks of gray and gold. I make a few calls. Push two shipments forward. Sign off on a new distribution route Anton never got around to approving. Nothing about the day feels off, but I can’t shake the quiet undercurrent in my head.
They emptied his accounts like they knew no one would come looking. But I came anyway. I spend the rest of the day in the city, moving from one meeting to the next. I check on a warehouse we’ve had eyes on for weeks. Walk a construction site we’re using as cover. Sit down with a man behind on payments and explain why that won’t happen again. One of Anton’s old contacts wants to renegotiate terms—he leaves the conversation with the same terms and less pride. No one asks questions. No one wastes time. I don’t stop long enough to eat.
By late afternoon, the estate is still and low-lit. Most of the staff are gone, lights dimmed. I spend a few hours in my office sorting through procurement figures, taking notes on what needs to shift now that Anton’s mess is on my desk for good. It’s quiet work. Nothing urgent—until Alessio walks into my office. He closes the door behind him and drops a folder on the edge of my desk and sits down across from my desk, waiting for me to look up. I don’t ask. He knows I hate being interrupted unless it matters. I finish reading the last few lines of the import manifest in front of me, then move it aside.
“It’s done,” he says.
I open the folder.
First image, the car—early model, black, window halfway down, parked just outside a train station on the southern edge of Naples. Second image, Pasquale D’Amico. Slumped against the steering wheel, head tilted forward, two entry wounds just behind the ear. The blood covers the seat, the dash, and most of the interior door panel. His left hand is still curled like he saw it coming too late.
It’s messier than I expected. A point-blank double-tap in a parked car always is.
“Time?” I ask.
“Between seven and nine this morning. Gas station attendant reported it after seeing blood on the windshield. No one got close. The windows were fogged. Engine off. Phone stripped. SIM melted under the seat.”
I study the photos for another few seconds before I speak again.
The hit was cleaner than I expected. Fast, quiet, no unnecessary attention. It shouldn’t have been that smooth—not with a target already spooked and looking for a way in. Whoever pulled the trigger didn’t flinch. That works in our favor.
I set the folder down and lean back in the chair. “Is it clean?”
Alessio nods once. “Unregistered weapon. Burner car. No traffic cameras nearby. We swept the inside for trace—gloves used, no prints. Local cleanup crew handled the scene and paid off the fuel clerk.”
I nod, satisfied. “Good. Keep it buried. Make sure his name disappears by morning. I don’t want it circulating.”
“I’ll lock it down tonight,” he says. “Rafe’s pulling the remaining digital trail from our side. Message ping to Lila’s account is already deleted.”
“Scrub anything connected to the burner he used. I don’t want it leading back to this house.”
Alessio rises from the chair. “Consider it gone.” He leaves without asking if I need anything else.
I stay seated another minute, watching the edge of the folder as the light from the window slides across it. D’Amico made his choice when he sent that message. He gambled on desperation. He lost.
I get up and head toward the dining room. Lev is already in the middle of a story when I walk in—something about a school project and how glue sticks are better than tape, but not if you’re building a castle. He talks with his hands. His fork is on the table, untouched.
Lila sits across from him, elbows off the table, hands folded neatly in her lap. She doesn’t look at me when I sit down. Neither of them pauses. Lev keeps going like I’ve been there the whole time.
My plate is already waiting. Still warm. I cut into the chicken as Lev explains how the drawbridge fell off three times but he fixed it with a pencil and a shoelace. Lila listens. She smiles a little, only at him.
Dinner stretches longer than usual. Lev eats slowly, distracted by his own story. Lila barely touches her food. Her wine glass is full. Mine stays empty.
When Lev finally gets up from the table, he presses a kiss to her cheek, waves at me, and bolts toward the hallway, muttering something about finishing a drawing.
Lila is quiet for a moment, chewing carefully, and when she dabs her lips with her napkin, I know she's going to speak. Regretfully, what she says isn't what I expect.
"Will I see any of Anton's money? Or is that all yours too?" She doesn’t look at me when she speaks. I scowl at the idea that she cares more about the money than anything else.
"It's gone," I say plainly, taking another bite of chicken. I know he has more stashed somewhere, but the Bianchis probably know better than I do where it is. I'm not concerned about that, though it seems to be their primary concern.
Lila stands, dropping her napkin on the table, and walks out without saying a word. I sense she's planning something and I don't like that.
Men like my brother are easy to understand. They make plans in the open, involve others. But Lila is secretive and quiet, stewing inside her own mind. Dangerous. I can't trust her.
But I don't have to. I just have to watch her. And that's what I'm going to do.