Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Adrian
Regalia sits in a quieter corner of the casino, though that does not make the restaurant quiet. Nothing inside a place like The Regent Club is ever truly quiet.
Even with the lunch service over and the dining room between seatings, the casino is still alive beyond the walls.
A constant low pulse of voices, movement, slot chimes, money changing hands. The sound reaches the restaurant in softened waves, filtered through heavy doors, thick walls, and expensive design choices meant to make people feel they’ve stepped out of one world and into another.
It works. The place is polished without feeling cold.
White tablecloths. Dark wood. Low lighting even in the afternoon.
A long bar, gleaming at one end of the room.
The open kitchen is partially visible from where I pause just inside the entrance, enough stainless steel and order to tell me the people running it know what they’re doing.
The air still holds the remains of lunch service. Garlic, wine, butter, slow-cooked meat, fresh bread, coffee.
Good food. Rich food. The kind that keeps people in their seats longer than they planned.
Bad for security, depending on where the seats are.
I stop there for a second and let my eyes move over the room the way they always do.
Entrances first.
Main entrance behind me. Service entrance through the kitchen. Emergency exit at the far side, partially disguised by the decor but still obvious if you know what to look for. Sight lines from the dining room to each.
Mirrors placed for atmosphere, but useful if you’re paying attention. Corners that could conceal a man for a second or two, though not for long. Table spacing better than average. Enough room to move if somebody had to.
Caterina sits at a table toward the middle-back of the room, not tucked in a corner, not centered like bait, but placed where she can see a decent amount of the dining room and still have some privacy. I’d like the table better if the room were empty of children.
It is not.
She sits with two women I recognize immediately from the files I looked over last night.
Olivia is tall and willowy, even with the pregnancy softening her slightly, dark hair, blue eyes, the kind of beauty that looks effortless until you look twice and realize every detail is exact.
She’s dressed well, but not in a way that screams for notice.
Wedding ring. Hand resting absently near her glass while she talks to Caterina.
Her other hand occasionally reaching to steady the little girl making determined, uneven progress across the stretch of empty floor beside the table.
That has to be Isabella.
A little older than one, if I remember correctly. Dark hair in soft wisps, tiny dress, serious expression that doesn’t match the unstable toddler gait. She toddles three steps, squats abruptly for no reason I can identify, then pushes back up again.
Then there’s Bianca.
Tall too, dark hair, green eyes, the kind of face men write songs about.
Less polished than Olivia in this setting, but not because she’s sloppy.
Because she belongs here in a different way.
Restaurant owner. Head chef. There’s a practical edge to her clothes even in a place this nice.
She’s got one eye on the conversation and the other on the children, splitting her attention with the ease of someone who’s done it a thousand times.
Her son is at the edge of the table, not seated so much as orbiting.
Stephano, nearly three. Dark-haired, energetic, already moving with the heedless certainty toddlers have when they’re not concerned about how hard the floor is.
His little sister is on a blanket not far from Bianca’s chair, crawling with determined enthusiasm toward a slice of bread she must’ve abandoned at some point. Victoria is around the same age as Isabella, but not quite walking yet.
Children change a room.
Every adult here knows that. I can see it in the way chairs have been shifted, bags placed, bodies angled.
They aren’t relaxed. Not really. They’re pretending at a family lunch in an empty restaurant between service hours because children need feeding and mothers need a chance to sit down and talk, and because life apparently continues even when somebody is threatening the people at the top of the family tree.
The women manage that balance better.
The men don’t even try.
Roberto is seated near Olivia, one chair slightly back from the table, suit jacket on, tie loosened by half an inch, dark eyes taking in the room with enough precision that I know immediately Vito was right about him.
There is nothing soft or out-of-practice about him.
He looks like an attorney, sure. Tailored suit. Clean cut. Expensive watch. The kind of man who could walk into a courtroom and command it with ease.
But the suit doesn’t hide the man inside it.
You can tell with some men.
It’s in the shoulders first. Not size. Readiness.
The way he sits without ever quite settling.
The way his eyes move without appearing to.
The way one hand rests close to his thigh, not tense, just near enough to a weapon if something went wrong.
His face is calm, even handsome in a refined way, but there’s a coldness under it.
Vito’s word from last night comes back to me.
Scalpel.
Yeah.
That tracks.
Giovanni is worse.
Or better, depending on what side of the problem you’re on.
He’s not wearing a suit. Dark shirt, sleeves rolled, broad shoulders. He is not flashy. He doesn’t have to be. The type of man who could fade into a dark corner if needed—prefers it, actually—but can also put a whole room on alert with no added effort.
He sits near Bianca’s side of the table with the stillness of a man nobody around him would ever think to test. I would know who he was even if I hadn't read it. This is the brother who held the line when Luca went away. The one who stepped into the don’s place and kept everything standing.
It takes a certain type of person to do that.
He’s not scanning the room; he doesn't need to assess it the way I am. This is a man who knows, down to the millimeter, where everything is because he's made it his business. And because this is where his wife spends a significant amount of her time.
Vetted staff pass through the dining room with the kind of awareness that tells me he doesn’t need to raise his voice for people to notice where he is.
Nobody would cross him.
Caterina spots me before I make it to the table. Since she's under the protection of her uncles, I decided it was a good time to widen my assessment. I made sure to stay within earshot regardless.
Her gaze lifts from whatever Olivia is saying and lands on me with immediate irritation, like she can feel me bringing work into a moment she wanted to keep separate from the rest of the day.
She doesn’t wave. Doesn’t smile. Just watches me approach with that same sharp, dark look she’s had on me since I stepped out of the SUV this morning.
I keep moving, taking in the placement as I do.
Caterina is exposed from three angles I don’t like.
The children widen the danger zone because any fast move has to account for them.
Olivia’s pregnancy limits her mobility. Bianca has the kitchen at her back, which is good if she knows the space well and bad if somebody else uses the service entrance.
Roberto and Giovanni have instinctively placed themselves where they can see more of the room than the women can, but their attention is split, too. Family setting. False ease.
That’s how people get hit.
Not because they’re stupid, but because they want five minutes of being human.
When I reach the table, Caterina unenthusiastically says, “You found me.”
Her tone suggests she would rather I hadn’t.
I stop at the end of the table rather than stepping in among the chairs and kids.
“I said I’d be assessing the property.”
“You made it sound less intrusive when you said it.”
“Did I.”
One of Olivia’s brows lifts, blue eyes flicking between Caterina and me with interest that doesn’t try to hide itself. This is the former roommate from Wharton and best friend.
Bianca looks me over too, but in a different way. Less curious. More evaluative. Like she’s deciding whether I’m going to ruin the atmosphere of her restaurant just by standing in it.
Fair enough.
Caterina exhales through her nose and makes the introductions.
“Adrian, this is Olivia. Olivia, Adrian.”
Olivia smiles politely. “The famous cousin from Texas.”
There’s humor in it. Light, but pointed.
“I wasn’t aware I’d achieved fame,” I say.
“Only in the last twenty-four hours,” she says.
That gets a snort out of Caterina, which I choose not to take personally.
She turns to the other woman. “And this is Bianca.”
Bianca inclines her head once. “You’re the one ruining everybody’s mood.”
Straight to the point. I like her already.
“Apparently,” I say.
Olivia laughs under her breath.
I have the attention of Giovanni and Roberto. I can feel it like a weight, and I know it's because they want me to feel it.
Good. Let them weigh me. Better now than later.
Isabella chooses that moment to wobble straight toward me on her unsteady little legs.
I shift without thinking, stepping half a foot to the side so I’m not blocking her path or presenting a large, unfamiliar object in her line of travel. She stops anyway, looks up at me with grave suspicion, then turns decisively back toward her mother.
Smart kid.
“Sorry,” Olivia says, though she doesn’t sound particularly apologetic. “She thinks she owns the place.”
“Doesn’t she?” I say.
That earns me the briefest real smile from Roberto.
Interesting.
He has one, then.
Stephano, meanwhile, has found a spoon and appears to believe it is either a sword or a drumstick. Hard to tell. Bianca reaches out one hand without looking and removes it from his grasp before he can test either theory on the tablecloth.