Chapter 28
Rodrigo was still staring after Giana when his phone started ringing.
"What?" he answered and then added, "Don't you ever sleep, Leone?"
"How can I sleep when you just pissed in the faces of all the bosses in Sicily? Get over your sulk and meet me in the conference room," Leo replied and hung up on him. His little brother had a point.
The portraits of long-dead Colleoni mercenary lords lining the grand corridor felt like accusatory spectators as he went to find Leo. He thought of Giana's digital portrait she had drawn that captured both sides of him. She saw too much. Always had.
God, you need to eat something, he chastised himself. He had only drunk espresso all morning.
Rodrigo pushed open the door to the conference room and found Leo hunched over a keyboard. His fiancé leaned against a bank of monitors, arms crossed.
"Future big brother," Dante greeted, his hazel eyes flicking over Rodrigo. "Giana left you in one piece, huh? That's surprising."
"Today is just full of them. What's wrong?" Rodrigo asked.
Leo swiveled his chair. "Luca was a fountain of knowledge once Dante applied the right persuasion."
"Never seen a soldier of fortune squeal like a stuck pig so quick before," Dante commented with a shake of his head. "He's lucky that I didn't let Athena have a round because she was more than ready to hit something this morning. You're fortunate that it wasn't you, Rodrigo."
"She would have had to get in line," he replied. He looked them over and frowned. "Whatever Luca said can wait. We all need food. I can't think straight."
Leo's brows lifted. "Since when do you care about eating when we have enemies coming for us?"
"We are Colleoni's. Enemies are always coming for us," Rodrigo pointed out before calling the kitchens and asking for breakfast to be brought up.
"See, honey, this is why you should take my name instead of me taking yours," Dante said, giving Leo's shoulder a rub.
"I'm not having this argument with you right now," Leo grumbled and then tapped his other shoulder. "Massage me properly if you're going to do it, or don't bother."
Dante tickled Leo's ear, making him hiss, but he was smiling when he did it. Dante obeyed his brother's wishes and started on the knots in his shoulders.
Rodrigo was happy to see that his brother had finally found someone who understood him. He wondered what it felt like to have that, but he closed that longing down. Just because Giana hadn't killed him yet didn't mean she wouldn't in the future.
Once the coffee, juice, and pastries had been delivered, Leo pulled up a mug shot of a thick-built man with a shaved head.
"This is Vincenzo's lieutenant, Bruno, the one who took a dive off the farmhouse balcony. He was in charge of Luca, and Luca was feeding him patrol schedules, perimeter weak points, specifically targeting the East Wing service entrance."
Rodrigo's gaze sharpened. "The gap."
"The gap," Leo confirmed, pulling up a schematic of the villa grounds on the central screen. A section near the old stables was highlighted in pulsing red.
"Turns out Marco Conti, one of the East Wing patrol leads, wasn't just sloppy. He was paid off. Luca handed him cash packets during shift changes in the blind spot near the old well house. Conti created the 'routine' gap Luca exploited to slip out last night."
"Conti's location?" Rodrigo's voice was dangerously quiet.
"Locked in Cell Two," Dante supplied smoothly. "Pissing himself. Claims he didn't know it was Falcone getting the info, just that the money was good, and Luca promised it was just to see his girlfriend. Bullshit, obviously. He knew exactly whose payroll he was on."
Rodrigo stared at the pulsing red zone on the screen. A small, exploitable weakness had turned into a near-fatal vulnerability because of greed.
Gabriella would have flayed Conti alive and hung his skin on the front gate as a warning. The impulse roared within him, primal and dark. He would keep it in mind.
"Bruno is definitely Vincenzo's man?" Rodrigo asked, forcing the rage down.
"One of his top lieutenants," Leo confirmed.
"Handpicked for the job, and Luca was terrified of him.
Said he reported directly to Vincenzo, but also mentioned Bruno seemed jumpy lately.
Like he was answering to someone else breathing down his neck too.
Could be internal Falcone politics. Could be bullshit.
Luca wasn't high enough in the chain of command to know for sure. "
"But Bruno is dead thanks to Fred and Dario," Dante stated. "So whatever chain Luca was part of, it's severed at the Palermo end."
"And we have Luca and Conti," Rodrigo mused. "Vincenzo knows that and that we know about the betrayal and Giana's torture."
He paced slowly before the screens. Vincenzo would come for them soon. He could feel it in his bones.
"Seal this gap," he ordered, stopping his pacing. "Double patrols on all sectors. Full electronic sweep for any other vulnerabilities we might have missed. No more performance art for whoever is watching. Kick them out of our systems. I want this place locked down tighter than Gabriella's vault."
Leo didn't question it. "Done."
"Conti stays in the cell. Make sure he's comfortable and fed. No more slapping him about. Luca is also a potential future bargaining chip or a source of deeper intel." Dante gave him a curt nod.
"What about the Sicilians?" Leo asked. "Vincenzo won't take Bruno's death or Luca's disappearance lying down. Especially after that call."
"Let him come," Rodrigo said. "He steps onto Colleoni ground, he dies.
Send that message through back channels.
Make it clear: the engagement stands. Giana is under my protection.
Any move against her is a declaration of war against me.
I am done playing fucking games with them.
Tell the Edgeworths, Altun, and Julian that if they want out, now is the chance to go because I'm locking this place down. "
Dante snorted. "You really think we are going to leave when shit is getting interesting? You're dreaming, Rodrigo."
"The offer to go is still there. If the others want to stay, they will be paid," he replied and got up. "I need to go and check on Giana."
"Wear a cup!" Dante called cheerily after him. All things considered, it wasn't bad advice.
Rodrigo found Giana at her laptop in his lounge room, her eyes fixed on the screen, lost in whatever she was working on. Her hair was out, still drying from her shower, and he wanted to run his fingers through it.
"You are staring," she said, looking up from her screen.
"I was patiently waiting until you were finished," he replied, leaning against the door frame.
"Patient. Rodrigo Colleoni? Doesn't sound right."
If only you knew how patient I've been.
"I wanted to see if you were up for a short walk," he said, suddenly nervous that she would reject him and go back to being angry.
"Is this about the mysterious present you mentioned?" she asked and stretched. Rodrigo did his best not to stare at the shape of her breasts under the T-shirt she wore. "Okay, I'm working on a plan, but I could use a break."
"This way," he said, turning and walking back toward the corridor leading to the stables. He heard the soft tread of her feet on the stone floor behind him.
"You better not be giving me a horse, Rodrigo, because the last time I attempted to ride one of the Colleoni pets, it tried to bite me on the ass," she said, humor tinging her voice.
"I can't blame the horse for trying," he replied before he could check himself.
Giana just bumped her shoulder against his. "Hey. Don't flirt with me when I am meant to be mad at you."
"Seems like the best time to flirt with you."
Giana clicked her tongue. "I swear, you have a death wish some days."
Every day until you came back into my life, to be precise.
Rodrigo led her through the dusty quiet of the unused stable block, past empty stalls smelling faintly of hay and ammonia. He stopped before a reinforced door and stepped aside, gesturing for her to enter. "Go on."
Giana hesitated on the threshold, peering into the brightly lit space. Her eyes widened. The rough stone walls had been smoothed and painted a soft, warm white. Large, industrial-style windows let in the sunshine. The concrete floor was covered in overlapping, thick rugs in deep blues and greens.
The centerpiece was a massive reclaimed oak worktable, scarred and beautiful, surrounded by sturdy easels.
Shelves lined one wall, filled with paints in every conceivable hue and finish.
Brushes of every size and bristle type hung neatly on a magnetic strip.
Canvases of various sizes leaned against another wall.
Rodrigo had tracked down the specific brands of the equipment she liked, the pigments she had mentioned favoring in her art school records years ago.
Giana took a tentative step inside, then another, her gaze darting from the paints to the brushes to the canvases. She stopped in the center of the room, turning slowly, her expression unreadable.
Rodrigo followed her in, closing the door softly behind them. He watched her, his heart pounding against his ribs like a trapped bird. This was more terrifying than facing down Vincenzo's entire army.
"What is this?" she whispered, her voice husky.
"It's yours," he said simply. He walked toward the shelves, running a finger along the neatly arranged tubes of paint. "I got the brands you used. The things you preferred. No cameras. No guards permitted inside. Ever. It's a place just for you. If you want it."
She turned to face him fully, her eyes searching his. "You… You did this? For me?"
"I've had people working on it since I got you back from Izmir.
" He swallowed, the admission feeling like a confession.
"I don't know how long this shit with Vincenzo will last, and I didn't want you to feel trapped here like you did when Gabriella was alive.
I wanted to give you somewhere to escape to.
Help you forget, even for just a little while. "
Giana walked slowly to the massive oak table, running her fingertips over its surface. She picked up a sable brush, testing the weight and spring of the bristles. The silence stretched.
"Why?" she asked finally, her voice barely audible. She didn't look at him, her gaze fixed on the brush in her hand. "After what just happened… after the call, after the office… why show me this now?"
Rodrigo took another step closer. He could smell the faint trace of her perfume still rising from her skin, mixed with the clean, sharp scent of the new paints.
"Because I remember the woman who loved to paint storms and fire." He reached out slowly, giving her every chance to pull away. His fingers brushed the curve of her cheek. "And I want to see what you can create when you're free."
Giana's dark eyes were wide, shimmering with a vulnerability that mirrored the terrifying chasm opening inside him. She looked down at the brush in her hand, then back at the shelves, the canvases, the sunlight streaming through the windows.
"Free," she echoed. Her gaze snapped back to his, sharp, assessing. "No cameras? You swear it?"
"I promise," he said and crossed his heart. The small, silly action eased some of the tension from her face.
Her fingers lightly brushed over the stacked canvases. "These shapes. They match the spaces of the walls in the villa."
"I told you I had a particular artist in mind to fill the gaps. You were always my favorite," he said, and loved the way her eyes lit up.
"Is that so? What if I want to only paint nudes?" she asked, her expression turning mischievous.
"All depends." Rodrigo considered, rubbing his chin. "Are they all of you? Because if they are, I'm going to have to put them on my bedroom walls and get you more canvases."
Giana was still laughing as she took his face in her hands and kissed him.