Chapter 44
Scaffolding had become the new aesthetic of the Colleoni compound. Rodrigo stood at the window of his office, watching workers swarm over the eastern wall like ants rebuilding a damaged nest.
The green fire had left scorch marks that no amount of scrubbing could erase, so they were replacing entire sections of stone. The old with the new. It seemed fitting.
A week had passed since Vincenzo Falcone's head had decorated the walls of the rundown villa.
His body had been found three days later by debt collectors who had tracked him down with the information Giana had so helpfully distributed.
What remained of him fit in a closed casket, and not a single family sent flowers to the funeral.
The Falcone empire had shattered like glass. Some pieces had been swept up by the Calabrians, others by the Neapolitans.
The old Don, Vincenzo's uncle, had finally gotten his wish to retire, retreating to a quiet villa in the countryside where no one would bother him. The threat from Sicily had ended, not with a dramatic final battle, but with a whimper and a stack of incriminating documents.
Serapis, however, remained a shadow on the horizon. Leo and the Edgeworths were already hunting, following threads that stretched back decades. That fight would come, but not today.
Today, there was only paperwork. God, Rodrigo hated paperwork.
"You're brooding again."
Rodrigo turned to find Giana watching him from her desk. It was positioned across from his, and was covered in monitors, encrypted drives, and assorted organized chaos. She had moved in three days ago, and already the office felt incomplete without her presence.
"I don't brood," he replied stubbornly.
"You absolutely brood. You stand at the windows and stare into the middle distance with your jaw clenched." She mimicked his posture, squaring her shoulders and furrowing her brow. "Very dramatic. Very tortured. Are you contemplating how hard it is to be handsome?"
Rodrigo grinned at her silliness. "I was thinking."
"Brooding," she corrected, turning back to her screen. "I intercepted another communication from the Ndrangheta. They're testing our response times on the northern shipping routes."
Rodrigo moved to look over her shoulder, one hand resting on the back of her chair. "Forward it to Dario. He can handle the response."
"He's already done it." She tilted her head back to look up at him. "He was trained just as well as you. He doesn't need you hovering."
Rodrigo rubbed at his temple. "Old habits."
"The worst kind." She smiled when he bent to kiss her forehead. She caught his jaw and redirected him to her lips instead.
The knock at the door interrupted them. One of the household staff, Maria, stood in the doorway with a knowing smile that she quickly suppressed.
"Signora, the painting you requested has been hung in the east gallery."
"Thank you, Maria. I'll come see it shortly."
Signora. The staff had started using the title, a quiet acknowledgment of what Giana had become. Not just Rodrigo's lover or his partner, but the co-head of the family.
She had earned it through blood and fire and twenty-seven hours of digital destruction. The soldiers respected her. The household deferred to her. Even Dario had started getting her advice and affectionately calling her 'sorellina.'
After Maria left, Rodrigo pulled Giana to her feet. "Have a break and show me your new masterpiece."
"I hope you like it," she said, planting a kiss on his jaw.
They walked through the villa together, past rooms being replastered and windows being reglazed.
Giana had started painting again in the days since their return from Vincenzo's villa.
Small pieces at first, almost hesitant, like she was relearning a language she had forgotten.
The canvases had grown larger, bolder. Darker too, but threaded with light.
She had given him a beautiful new camera, which had made him choke up, and they were determined to decorate the villa walls together.
Giana's newest painting depicted a woman standing at the edge of a cliff, her back to the viewer, facing a storm-dark sea. She wasn't cowering or falling but leaning into the wind, arms slightly raised, as if daring it to try and move her.
"It's you," Rodrigo said quietly.
"It's who I want to be." Giana leaned against his side. "I'm still working on it."
"You're already there." He pressed a kiss to her temple. "You just haven't realized it yet."
They made their way back through the villa, and Rodrigo paused at the terrace doors. Outside, the evening light had gone golden, painting everything in shades of amber and rose.
Beneath their balcony, Dario sat at the wrought iron table with Frederica, a bottle of wine open between them. Their body language had shifted in the past week. Still combative, still sharp, but differently so.
"If Serapis has been collecting artifacts for decades, my father might have supplied more than just the ring," Frederica was saying.
"He has all these records of other jobs and other buyers who used aliases.
I have to go back to Rhodes to get the rest out of him because he can be cagey about his past jobs, and it's easier to sweet-talk him in person. "
Dario leaned closer, their shoulders nearly touching. "So we get the list out of him and track them down. We need to cut off Serapis's arsenal before he can use it against us again."
Frederica looked up at him, surprise flickering across her face. "We?"
Dario shrugged, and Rodrigo caught a hint of his brother's old smirk. "What? You think I'm going to sit around here watching Rodrigo moon over Giana while you go have all the fun?"
She actually laughed, the sound bright and unexpected in the evening air. Something sparked between them, visible even from this distance.
"That's going to be either the best thing that ever happened to Dario or a complete disaster," Giana murmured beside Rodrigo.
"Probably both," he agreed. "And I don't moon over you."
"No? That's a shame. It would probably be more fun than the brooding," she teased, and he tickled her side in retaliation.
They watched for a moment longer before slipping away, leaving Dario and Frederica to their planning and their wine.
Back in their room, Giana curled up on the window seat while Rodrigo loosened his tie. He caught her watching him, a soft smile playing at her lips.
"What?" he asked.
"Just thinking about how lucky I am."
Rodrigo crossed to her, kneeling so they were eye level. "That's my line."
"Too bad. I claimed it." She reached out, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw. "A few weeks ago, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. Now I have a desk in your office and paintings on the walls and a family that actually feels like one."
"Our office," he corrected. "Our walls. Our family."
Her smile widened. "Our."
He pulled her close, breathing her in. "You ready for tomorrow?"
"As ready as I'll ever be. Leo's been texting me every hour with increasingly panicked questions about flower arrangements."
"I don't think the flowers matter, do they?"
"Apparently, they do. I'm just glad Leo is taking care of them instead of me." She pulled back slightly, her eyes dancing. "Can I see your suit?"
"Can I see your dress?"
"Sorry." She pressed a finger to his lips. "It has to be a surprise."
Rodrigo caught her hand, kissing her fingertips one by one. He could wait. For her, he could wait forever.