CHAPTER 19
RAFE
Nora chooses the black dress.
Three options hang inside the guest room wardrobe. I did not purchase them. Leo’s assistant delivered clothing after the warehouse fire, which means I cannot be accused of selecting the cut, length, or color.
This distinction does not make looking at her easier.
The dress falls below her knees and leaves her shoulders covered, but the fabric follows her body when she moves. She wears low black shoes suitable for running rather than the heels included in the delivery.
Her hair is pinned at the back, exposing the side of her neck where my hand rested during the kiss.
I force my attention to the weapon on the dresser.
“You are staring,” she says.
“Yes.”
“Is there a security reason?”
“No.”
She meets my gaze through the mirror.
The image places me behind her without touching.
I understand how dangerous that position appears.
I step to the side.
Nora notices.
“You do not have to leave the room.”
“I was not leaving.”
“You moved.”
“Yes.”
“Because?”
“You said no touching without permission.”
“I did not say you couldn’t stand behind me.”
“No.”
Her eyes remain on mine in the mirror.
The air changes.
I look away first.
“The dress allows the ankle holster,” I say.
Nora glances toward the small weapon I placed beside the shoes.
“I have never fired a gun.”
“It is a last option.”
“That sounds like a reason not to carry one.”
“If someone takes you from me—”
She turns fully.
“Not from you.”
I correct the language. “If someone separates us.”
“Better.”
“You may need a weapon.”
“I have pepper spray.”
“The men tonight will expect it.”
“Because you told them?”
“Because Tommaso reviews incident reports.”
She considers the handgun.
“I want the spray and the alarm transmitter. No gun.”
I dislike the decision.
I also asked her to choose.
“Agreed.”
I secure the transmitter inside her bracelet and show her how to trigger it. One press alerts my phone. Two alerts Nico and Leo. Holding it for three seconds activates the restaurant fire alarm and unlocks the side exits through a system Leo arranged legally.
“Legally,” Nora repeats.
“Yes.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I am impressed he found a legitimate method.”
She almost smiles.
The expression fades when my phone vibrates.
Marcello.
I answer.
“We are leaving now.”
“You will bring the accountant through the front entrance,” he says.
“No.”
“This is my restaurant.”
“She enters through the route we choose.”
“You have created enough spectacle.”
“You summoned her using Mina.”
“Mina was never in danger.”
“Tommaso wanted us to believe she was.”
Silence.
Marcello understands the accusation.
“He will be present,” Marcello says.
“I assumed.”
“Rafael, listen to me. Whatever you believe you found, you do not expose family business in front of an outsider.”
I look at Nora.
She is close enough to hear every word.
“She stopped being an outsider when her name entered Orpheus.”
Marcello’s voice cools. “Bring the drive.”
“No.”
“Then do not come.”
Nora holds out her hand.
For the phone.
I give it to her.
“This is Nora Quinn.”
Marcello is silent for a beat.
“Ms. Quinn.”
“You requested the meeting.”
“I requested Rafael.”
“You used my colleague to pressure him.”
“To pressure both of you.”
“At least we agree.”
Marcello has spent decades speaking to men who confuse his calm with inevitability. Nora does not.
“What do you want?” she asks.
“The information removed from Aurelia.”
“You mean the records proving someone inside your family ordered my death and stole eighty-six million dollars?”
Marcello does not answer immediately.
Nora looks at me.
We did not intend to reveal the total before the meeting.
She has decided the reaction is worth the information.
“Eighty-six,” Marcello says.
Surprise.
Real, unless he is better than I believe.
Nora hears it too.
“We will attend,” she says. “The drive does not.”
She returns the phone.
Marcello speaks to me.
“Front entrance.”
“Side kitchen.”
A pause.
“Fine.”
The call ends.
“You changed the plan,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Without warning.”
“Yes.”
Nora looks at me directly.
“How did that feel?”
The question irritates me.
It also teaches.
“Unacceptable.”
“Did it create danger?”
“Possibly.”
“Did the result give us information?”
“Yes.”
“Does that make the decision automatically right?”
“No.”
She nods. “Good.”
I understand the demonstration.
She is not excusing her choice. She is showing me what it is like to be managed by someone with a defensible reason.
“I should have warned you,” she says.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
The apology is simple and proportionate.
It does not distribute equal blame between us.
That makes it possible to accept.
“Marcello did not know the amount,” I say.
“Or wanted us to think he didn’t.”
“You heard the pause.”
“I did.”
“You believe it.”
“I believe he had not prepared for that number.”
The distinction is hers.
I put on my coat.
Pain pulls through my shoulder. I hide it badly enough that Nora notices.
“You need the sling.”
“No.”
“You were told to use it.”
“It restricts movement.”
“That is the purpose.”
“It also signals injury.”
“Everyone knows about the warehouse.”
“Knowing and seeing are different.”
Nora picks up the sling.
“You are wearing it in the car. Remove it before we enter.”
“That is unnecessary.”
“Joint medical decision.”
“There is no such category.”
“There is now.”
She waits.
I put on the sling.
Nico drives.
Leo follows in a second vehicle with two attorneys and one security specialist. Marcello’s restaurant occupies a corner building in River North, its brick exterior and dark windows designed to suggest history older than the money that restored it.
The Bellandis have held meetings there for twenty-seven years.
My mother’s birthday dinners happened in the upstairs room.
Tommaso was made a captain in the private dining area.
Three men died in the basement before the kitchen renovation.
Nora looks at the building.
“What are you not telling me?”
“Many things happened here.”
“Helpful.”
“The upstairs dining room has two exits. Kitchen stairs lead to the alley. The basement is locked from inside the manager’s office.”
“Which room?”
“Private dining.”
“Windows?”
“Street-facing, reinforced.”
“Cameras?”
“Every corridor. None inside the room.”
She absorbs the information without asking for the building’s entire history.
Nico parks near the kitchen entrance.
I remove the sling.
Nora watches but does not argue.
The alley is cold and smells of garlic, wet brick, and exhaust from the kitchen vents. A cook opens the steel door after checking my face through the camera.
I enter first.
Nora’s hand touches my back.
Lightly.
A request for attention, not support.
I look at her.
“Beside,” she says.
I step aside.
We walk together through the kitchen.
Conversation stops.
Some employees recognize me. All recognize Nora as someone they have been instructed not to acknowledge.
Tommaso wants her to feel observed.
She notices.
Her shoulders settle into professional stillness, the posture she uses when entering meetings where men expect her to defend the right to speak.
I want to remove every person watching.
I do not.
At the corridor outside the dining room, Nora pauses.
“What?”
“The server at the bar.”
I follow her gaze.
A young man polishes a glass. White shirt. Black vest. No visible weapon.
“He looked at your injured shoulder before your face,” she says.
I study his hands.
No restaurant calluses.
Weight balanced forward.
Security disguised as staff.
“Tommaso’s,” I say.
“Does Marcello know?”
“Likely.”
“Another?”
I scan reflections in the framed photographs along the wall.
A woman near the coat room wears an earpiece beneath her hair.
“Two.”
Nora’s observation has already changed the room.
I contact Nico silently through the transmitter.
He positions men near both.
Leo arrives from the front.
He joins us in the corridor, adjusting his cuff.
“Mina is secure,” he says to Nora. “She would like it recorded that she dislikes all of us.”
“That is stable,” Nora replies.
Leo looks at my shoulder. “You should be in a hospital.”
“I was.”
“For several hours. A triumph.”
“Who is inside?”
“Marcello. Tommaso. Two advisers. No weapons visible.”
“Visible,” Nora says.
Leo looks at her. “You learn quickly.”
“She notices what is wrong.”
“And you notice what can kill us.”
Nora glances between us. “You both make family dinners exhausting.”
Leo smiles.
I do not.
He opens the door.
Marcello sits at the head of the table.
Tommaso is on his right.
My uncle has aged during the past week. Silver hair combed back, dark suit fitted precisely, hands resting on the table without jewelry except the gold wedding band he has worn since his wife died.
Tommaso appears untouched by the crisis.
Charcoal suit. Pale shirt. No tie. Dark blond hair arranged carelessly by someone paid to create the effect. He rises when Nora enters.
The courtesy is deliberate.
“Nora Quinn.”
He knows her middle name too. I hear it in the pause he chooses not to fill.
Nora does not offer her hand.
“Tommaso Bellandi.”
His smile deepens. “You researched me.”
“I read the organizational chart.”
He laughs as if she made a joke.
Marcello looks at the empty space behind me.
“Where is the drive?”
“Safe.”
“From whom?”
Nora answers.
“Everyone in this room.”
Tommaso’s gaze shifts toward her.
Interest, not offense.
That concerns me.
We sit.
Nora takes the chair beside mine, not the one placed across the table for her.
A small change.
A declaration.
Marcello notices.
“The situation has exceeded the boundaries of an internal matter,” he says.
“It exceeded them when someone tried to kill me on a public street,” Nora replies.
“You removed records belonging to Aurelia.”
“I preserved evidence connected to my scheduled murder.”
“You cannot verify the meaning of every transaction.”
“I verified twenty-two.”
Tommaso leans back. “An impressive number for one evening.”
Nora becomes completely still.
He should not know how long she worked.
He realizes the mistake after speaking.
Too late.
She looks at him.
“I never said I found them in one evening.”
The room changes.
Tommaso smiles again, but the expression no longer reaches his eyes.
Marcello turns his head slightly toward him.
Nora places both hands on the table.
The meeting has begun.