Chapter 22
The hammering on Dario's door was the kind of insistent, rhythmic pounding that bypassed sleep and went straight for his fight-or-flight response.
He groaned, burying his face deeper into the pillow. He had barely managed to scrape together an hour of fitful sleep after the engagement dinner and the subsequent late-night security clusterfuck.
"Dario! Get your big ass up!" Leo's voice cut through the thick oak.
"Fuck off, Leo," Dario mumbled into the pillow, his voice thick with sleep. "It's the middle of the fucking night."
The pounding intensified. "Dario! Rodrigo is sending you on a mission. We know who was sneaking out."
Dario shoved himself upright, the sheets tangling around his waist as his brain caught up. The image of the shadowy figure slinking away like a thief flashed through his mind.
Cold rage momentarily burned away the exhaustion. Someone inside their walls was playing for the other side. Someone who had helped put Giana in that fucking dog crate in Izmir.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, the cool stone floor a shock against his bare feet.
"All right! Keep your fucking panties on!" he yelled, scrubbing a hand over his face, feeling the rough stubble on his jaw. He grabbed the pair of worn black sweatpants discarded on the floor and yanked them on, padding to the door bare-chested.
He flung it open. Leo stood there, looking far too alert for whatever ungodly hour it was. His dark curls were messy, but his eyes were focused.
"Finally," Leo snapped, his gaze flicking over Dario's disheveled state with barely concealed impatience. "Get dressed. Fred's already gearing up, and I need you on the road."
Dario blinked. "Fred? As in, 'I killed your client while you were taking a piss in Rome, ' Frederica?"
"The very same," Leo confirmed, dark amusement in his eyes. "Rodrigo's orders. You're the tracker. She's the ghost. Only observe and report. No engagement unless you can extract them cleanly. Tranqs only. Target's on the move and heading northeast toward Treviso."
"Treviso?" Dario frowned, running a hand through his sleep-tousled curls. "What the fuck's in Treviso besides decent Prosecco and tourists getting lost?"
"That's what you're going to find out," Leo said, shoving a tablet toward him.
On the screen was a live GPS tracker, a pulsing red dot moving steadily along a highway. Below it, a dossier photo of Luca Moretti. Clean-cut, serious face, looking like he took his mercenary duties way too seriously.
"Luca left the villa via the East Wing service entrance, just like Giana spotted. He used the patrol gap to slip through. Iz and I are tracking his phone and vehicle. He's driving a dark blue Fiat Ducato van, registered to a shell company we use for low-profile logistics."
Dario studied the moving dot. "And Fred and I are supposed to… what? Follow him to his nonna's for Sunday lunch?"
"Follow him. See who he meets, where he goes, and why Treviso." Leo's gaze hardened. "Rodrigo wants to know who inside Falcone's organization Luca's feeding intel to."
"Right. Observe and report, blah blah blah. Got it." Dario handed the tablet back. "Ten minutes." He started to shut the door, but Leo stopped it with a hand.
"Dario." Leo's voice lowered, losing some of its overcaffeinated edge and sounding more like his little brother.
"Rodrigo is wound tighter than usual. He needs a clean win here, so don't fuck it up, and try not to strangle Fred before you get them.
You will only get one of her bullets in your ass, and we need you too much right now. "
Dario managed a tired, lopsided grin. "No promises on the strangling. And Leo? Get Dante and go to bed. You look like shit. I can take it from here."
Fucking Frederica. Of all the mercenaries in the house, Rodrigo could have picked to go with him, it had to be her.
He could see the sense in it. Luca would have friends amongst the other men, and they didn't know who else was in on this shit with Falcone. Everything about Frederica got under his skin faster than a switchblade, and being stuck on a job together was going to be a pain in his ass.
Eight minutes later, dressed in dark, nondescript cargo pants, a black thermal shirt, and a worn leather jacket that concealed the two holstered guns at his back, Dario shouldered a compact duffel full of knives and other toys and headed for the villa's underground garage.
Frederica was already there, leaning against the matte-black Audi RS6 Avant that was their ride.
Her dark hair was pulled back in a thick braid, her face devoid of makeup, and she looked all sharp angles and focused intensity.
She was dressed similarly to Dario, in boots, functional black jeans, and a snug black turtleneck that showed off the defined muscles of her arms and shoulders.
He wanted to ask her to arm wrestle, and that was a response he had never had to a woman before.
"Took you long enough, Sleeping Beauty," she said and pushed off the car, her hazel eyes sweeping over him, lingering on the few glimpses of his tattoos on his wrists and the open V of his shirt.
He almost asked if she wanted him to take his shirt off so she could get a closer look, but didn't want to risk getting shot before he was properly awake.
"Some of us need more beauty sleep than others," he replied, and winked at her.
"Hope you're bringing your A-game, unlike Rome," she added, killing his flirtatious mood.
Instead, Dario felt the old, familiar irritation flare. Rome. The eternal fucking benchmark of his professional humiliation. He had been assigned to protect some minor Balkan diplomat with more enemies than sense.
He had stepped away for literally two minutes to take a piss and returned to find the diplomat slumped in his chair, a single, perfect hole drilled between his eyes, and Frederica Alesci melting back into the shadows of the palazzo garden like smoke.
She had left a fucking calling card of a single, spent 7.62mm casing with a heart carved into it with the tip of a knife, placed neatly on the dead man's lap. It was the ultimate 'fuck you.'
Dario could still hear his mother screeching at him from the afterlife over it.
He dropped his duffel into the Audi's trunk with a thud. "Funny. Remind me again, how's that client you were paid to protect doing? Oh, wait… You don't do protection, do you? Just termination. Clean, efficient, and utterly fucking predictable."
"Protection is for amateurs and bodyguards who take bathroom breaks at inopportune moments. Elimination is permanent security." Frederica tossed him the keys. "You drive and try not to crash. I need to monitor the feed." She slid into the passenger seat without another word.
Dario caught the keys, the cold metal biting into his palm. Elimination is permanent security. The woman was a Spartan proverb wrapped in a serious attitude problem.
Dario got in, firing up the Audi's powerful engine, and pulled up the tracking app Leo had synced to the car's system. Luca's dot was still moving steadily northeast on the A4 autostrada, past Vicenza, heading toward Treviso.
"He's making good time, considering he's driving a piece of shit van," Dario muttered, pulling out of the garage and onto the villa's long, winding driveway.
"He's not stopping for anything either," Frederica observed, her eyes glued to another tablet she pulled from a slim bag at her feet.
She had multiple windows open of the live GPS, a map overlay, and what looked like traffic cam access Leo or Iz had patched her into.
"He's either confident or stupid. I can't tell which. "
"Or he knows exactly where he's going and who he's meeting," Dario countered, pushing the Audi hard as they hit the main road, heading for the autostrada entrance. "Treviso's not exactly a hub for clandestine shit. Too busy and picturesque."
Frederica didn't look up. "Picturesque places make excellent cover. Tourists, students, constant movement. It's easier to blend and disappear."
Dario focused on the road, weaving through the sparse pre-dawn traffic with controlled aggression. The silence stretched, thick with unspoken history and professional rivalry. He could feel Frederica's focused energy beside him, a tightly coiled spring that was trapped in a small space.
He preferred his partners on stakeouts to be easy-going.
Not one that hit him with a barbed comment every time he tried to make conversation.
Frederica only did it to him. She was ridiculously friendly to everyone else.
It only irritated him more because he was the likable one of his brothers.
The Charmer. She was completely impervious to it, and it was just one more thing that annoyed him about her.
Dario risked a glance at her profile, sharp against the screen's light. "So why did you take this job with the guy whose rep you torpedoed? Did Kon twist your arm or promise you a shiny new sniper rifle?"
Frederica's gaze didn't waver from the tablet.
"Kon asked, and I owed him a favor. I said no to him before when he was dealing with the Aurora, and I regret not being there.
" A faint curve touched her lips. "Besides, I couldn't let you have all the fun.
This felt like a job that needed a bit of subtlety, and you do subtle about as well as a big bear does ballet. "
Dario barked a laugh, the sound sharp in the quiet car. "Subtlety's overrated, Frederica. Sometimes you just need a big fucking hammer. Or a very fast car."
He saw the A4 sign and swung the Audi onto the on-ramp, pressing the accelerator. The engine roared, pinning them back in their seats as they merged into the light stream of trucks and late-night travelers.
The miles blurred past, the landscape flattening from rolling Tuscan hills to the greener, more ordered plains of the Veneto.
Vineyards gave way to industrial outskirts, then the sprawling suburbs of Verona and Padua.