14. Mateo
14
MATEO
W e reach the safe house just after three. The sun's still up, but the street’s already half-shadowed, narrow enough that nothing cuts through except a sliver of light between the rooftops. Rafe pulls the car to the side without needing to be told. The building looks like every other one on this block—unmarked, paint chipping near the gutters, second-story windows fogged from age and disuse.
We use the back entrance. The door gives with one solid kick, the lock brittle from salty air and time. Inside, the air smells like old plaster and engine grease. The floorboards groan beneath us, but we move quietly, being careful. There's no alarm system or cameras. Places that are protected too well don’t get used. This place was meant to be temporary—disposable.
The first floor is empty. A mattress on the floor, a broken chair, a bucket of cigarette butts in the corner. Rafe opens the door to a storage room and shakes his head. Nothing. I check the kitchen. The cabinets have been gutted, drawers loose. A half-empty bottle of water is on the counter. It’s still cold.
They were here recently.
We move to the second floor. The stairs creak, but Rafe takes them two at a time. The hallway is narrow, doors on either side. I check the one at the end while he starts with the left. Inside is an old metal desk, filing drawers stacked on top and a plastic crate tucked under the window.
He calls me over a minute later. The second door he opened leads to a windowless room—just a table, a folding chair, and a set of shelves mounted to the far wall. The shelves hold two boxes with no labels or locks. Just two cardboard containers like the kind you’d find in an office supply closet.
The first is filled with maps. Southern Italy, mostly—transport lines, old smuggling routes, contact points near the coast. Nothing we didn’t already know. But the second box is different.
Photos—dozens of them—some printed in color, some in black and white, are stacked in envelopes. One of Lila at the open market near Trastevere. One of Lev outside his old school in Monteverde, backpack slung over one shoulder, hand gripping the strap like usual. There’s another—blurred, grainy—of me walking into the courthouse. Not from the front, from a rooftop or a second-story angle. Someone tracked all of us.
Rafe flips through the stack, his jaw clenched tighter with each photo. There’s a pattern. The angles, the composition, the way we’re all shot from a distance. They've been surveilling us, gathering intel. They're the kind of images you catalog before you make a move—not the kind you leave behind unless you're startled away.
At the bottom of the box is a plastic sleeve with a printed document inside. Anton’s will.
At least, what’s left of it.
It’s not the full copy. Several sections have been redacted, blacked out with thick blocks of ink. Financial designations, estate claims, asset transfers—completely blank. But the name “Lila Varo” appears three times in the first two paragraphs, and each one is underlined in red.
I slide the page out and hold it to the light. Someone’s annotated the margins with dates. It's handwritten, frantic, probably done in the dark. There’s a second name in the notes—“Giulio Fontana”—one of the Bianchi associates tied to the Naples account. His name wasn’t in Anton’s inner circle, which means he’s working from the outside in.
Rafe looks at me. “They’re not after her for what she knows.”
“No,” I say, folding the page back into the sleeve. “They’re after her for what she’s worth.”
“They want her alive.” My mind races. Bianchi knows Lila's family has money. They'll take her or Lev and demand a ransom, and even if Serafina pays, they won't let either of them live to see the light of day again. It's doubtful Serafina would ever pay a ransom on Lila, but Lev would have her emptying her bank accounts.
“For now.” Rafe's eyes are cold as he looks up at me.
I don’t like what that means. They don’t want to destroy her. They want to use her.
Rafe starts to speak again, but I stop him. I strike a match and light the first photo. It curls at the edges, blackening fast. I drop it into the metal bin near the shelves. One by one, I follow with the rest. Lila at the market. Lev at the school. Me at the courthouse. Everything burns until the ash sticks to the bottom like sludge. I drop the will copy last and watch it blister.
“Double security at the house,” I say. “All hours. No changes to rotation, but stagger the vehicles and swap the surveillance path every third pass.”
“Same crew?” Rafe asks.
“No,” I answer. “Only the ones you’d trust with your own family. No one new.”
We leave the house exactly as we found it. The drive back home is long and silent. I check my phone twice, but there’s nothing that can’t wait. Alessio will handle the Naples audit. Dario will keep pushing the internal compliance. No one needs me until morning. What I need now is confirmation of what’s coming.
And I already have it.
By the time we reach the estate, the lights are low and the air is still. I don’t stop in the study or the kitchen. I don’t pour a drink or strip off the weight of the day. I walk up the stairs and push the door to Lev's bedroom open.
He's curled in the center of his bed, face down in the blankets, arms thrown out to either side like he passed out mid-sentence. The covers are bunched at the foot. His breathing is steady, slow, undisturbed. There's a coloring book and one black marker on his pillow. I walk in and pick it up, fold the book shut, and set it on the nightstand next to the marker and the glass of water Lila must've left for him.
He's so small, much smaller than I remember ever being or ever seeing Anton. I pause and watch him breathe a few times, smooth his strands of dark hair that stick up, then cover him with his blanket and back out of the room. My heart is growing attached to his presence, and I find it comforting to come home and check on him. I don’t think I ever expected to feel this way, and now that the stakes have been raised, I feel even more strongly that what I'm doing is the correct thing. I have to protect him.
When I walk into my bedroom, the bathroom door is half open. A dim glow spills across the hardwood. Lila's in my bed.
She doesn’t sit up or turn her head when I enter. She doesn’t speak or ask where I’ve been. She lies still, arms folded under her pillow, one leg tucked beneath the other. Her eyes are open.
Without speaking, I unbutton my cuffs, loosen my belt, and slide into the bed behind her. The sheets are cool. She’s warmer than I expect.
My hand finds her hip. She doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t move closer either. When I shift, she stiffens, holding herself rigid like she’s waiting for something to hurt. I rest my hand flat on her waist and leave it there.
It takes time, but her body softens in increments. The tension in her shoulders unwinds just enough that I feel the breath she’s been holding escape through her nose. She presses her back to my chest, slowly and cautiously, like testing water. I stay still.
We don’t speak. We don’t move. But we don’t separate.
Not once. Not until morning.