Chapter Two #2
Or the one who still wonders if that is the lie that kept him alive.
I pick up my espresso.
“Do not be careless with her,” I say to Tomasso.
His expression changes.
The charm fades, not entirely, but enough for the man beneath it to show. “I won’t, Papà.”
Matteo watches his brother, quiet as always.
Tomasso runs a hand through his hair, ruining whatever work he put into it. “Claire is good. I like her.”
“Then act like it.”
“I do.”
“Good.”
He looks at me for a moment, then nods once.
It is not submission. My sons are too much mine for that.
He checks his watch. “I have to go.”
“Driver?” I ask.
“I’ll drive myself.”
“No.”
“Papà.”
“No.”
“I am twenty-seven.”
“And still not bulletproof.”
Matteo says, “Evidence suggests none of us are.”
Tomasso cuts him a look. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I take my phone from my pocket and send one message. “Marco will take you.”
Tomasso exhales, but he does not argue again. He knows where the line is. He has always known. He only likes to toe the line and tease.
He comes to me before he leaves. He is too old for easy affection but too Italian to leave without some gesture of it.
He kisses my cheek.
“Don’t wait up,” he says.
“I won’t.”
Matteo snorts.
Tomasso points toward him as he backs out of the kitchen. “You. Find joy.”
“I have joy.”
“Books don’t count.”
“They do.”
Tomasso smiles, then disappears down the hall. A moment later, the front door opens and closes.
The house settles in his absence.
I look at Matteo.
He has opened his laptop again, but he is not reading.
“You’re staying in?”
“Yes.”
I don’t respond.
His eyes lift. “I’m not lonely, Papà.”
“I did not say you were.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I think many things.”
“That’s the problem.”
I smile.
Matteo leans back in his chair. “I like quiet.”
“I know.”
“I liked it in Italy too.”
“I know that as well.”
He studies me. He has my patience when he wants it and his mother’s ability to see too much beneath the surface.
Sometimes, looking at him is difficult.
Not because he resembles Anna exactly. He does not. They are nearly copies of me.
“Nove mesi a farvi, e poi sembra che io non c’entri niente,” Anna would joke. Nine months making you, and then it seems that I have had nothing to do with it.
No, it’s not her looks that Matteo has.
It’s her perception.
“Was the meeting successful?” he asks.
“With Murray Legal?”
He gives me a look. “Unless you had another meeting today with a corporate compliance attorney you brought in personally.”
“Successful enough.”
“That means yes.”
“It means I am still deciding.”
“No, it means you already decided and are now deciding how much of that decision to admit.”
I take my espresso and sit at the island across from him. “You have become irritating.”
“I was raised by you. It was inevitable.”
That does make me smile.
“She’s good?” he asks.
The question is simple.
My answer should be as simple.
Yes, Victoria Murray is good. Better than I expected.
Younger than most attorneys I would trust with a company this large and complicated, but it doesn't seem to be a deterrent with her. There is steel in her.
“She is direct,” I settle for. It’s not like me to avoid.
Matteo waits.
“She does not frighten easily.”
“Useful.”
“Dangerous.”
He tilts his head slightly. “To us?”
“To herself, maybe.”
That earns me a longer look.
I do not explain.
I see her again, too clearly for a woman who left my office hours ago.
Chestnut-brown hair swept back neatly, smooth enough to be professional but soft enough that I had wondered what it would look like loose. Gray-green eyes that did not drop from mine even when she understood I was testing her.
She had a narrow, elegant face with high cheekbones and a mouth that tried to stay composed even when her body betrayed the smallest reactions.
She dressed like a woman who understands professional armor.
Tailored suit, silk blouse, minimal jewelry. Heels that did something to me. Nothing loud or out of place. Every detail chosen to say she belonged in that room, even if her firm was young, even if the client across from her was powerful enough to change her future with one signed agreement.
She was nervous when she walked in.
I saw that immediately.
Not in her voice. Not in her hands. She was too disciplined for that.
But in the careful stillness. The way she measured the lobby. The way she noticed security without acknowledging it. The way she held herself, as though she could not afford to be anything less than exact.
Then she opened her mouth.
Direct saves billable hours.
I had almost smiled.
That kind of reaction is dangerous.
“Do you think she suspects?” Matteo says.
I return my attention to him. “If she's as intelligent as I think she is.”
“Then why hire her?”
“Because she came anyway.”
“That could make her reckless.”
“Or ambitious.”
Matteo closes his laptop fully now. “And you trust ambition?”
“I trust it more than innocence.”
He considers that.
Innocence is unpredictable. It jumps into shark-infested waters and tries to keep its head above the surface. Ambition jumps in as well, but takes precautions first because it wants to be sure the prize is worth the risk.
Victoria Murray may not know at all, but she knows enough to be careful.
That balance is useful.
It is also dangerous.
For her.
For me, if I am foolish.
I do not make a habit of foolishness.
“What does Lorenzo think?” Matteo asks.
“Lorenzo thinks her firm is capable and hungry.”
“And you?”
I take another sip of espresso.
It has gone bitter.
“I think she will do the work.”
Matteo’s gaze stays steady. “That is not what I asked.”
“No.”
“Papà.”
There is warning in his voice now. Soft, but present.
I hear the son. I hear the man. I hear the boy who once stood too quietly in a hallway and understood far more than a child should have.
“I know what I am doing,” I say.
He looks at me for another moment, then nods.
Not because he believes me entirely, but because he knows well enough that he cannot force the rest.
“I’m going to read in the library,” he says, gathering his book and laptop.
“Postwar economic policy?”
“Yes.”
“Tomasso may be right about you.”
“I’ll survive the shame.”
He comes around the island and rests one hand briefly on my shoulder as he passes.
A small gesture gone almost as soon as it comes.
But I feel it after he leaves.
The kitchen is quiet again.
A different quiet now.
I finish the espresso, then walk through the house slowly, past the dining room, past the darkened sitting room, into my study.
The dark shelves hold books in Italian and English. The fireplace is burning low, warming the room. Deep leather chairs sit in front of it, welcoming. I walk past them to the heavy desk positioned so I can see the door and the windows.
I pull the business card out of my pocket and drop it on the desk before taking a seat.
White card with neat black lettering.
Murray Legal Group.Victoria Murray
I look at it for a moment longer, then pick it up.
It is only paper. It should not bring back the feel of her fingers.
But it does.
A brief brush when I took the card. A smaller thing when I shook her hand at the end. Not enough for anyone to remark upon. Not enough to violate the rules of a professional meeting.
Enough for me to know she felt it.
She hid it well.
Not perfectly.
I move to the window.
Beyond the glass, the garden is dark except where the lights catch the stone path. Farther out, past the wall, Chicago stretches in steel and light. A city from which I still haven’t taken as much as I’d like.
That has been the work for two years. Quiet entry, followed by careful acquisition. No noise until I wanted it. Alliances where useful. Enemies removed where necessary. All of that in the dark while building a company to stand in daylight, strong enough to support what happens elsewhere.
Now there are more eyes, more questions.
More people looking at Conti Enterprises and wondering how a family from Naples climbed so quickly in a city that regularly chews people up and spits them out.
Victoria Murray is one of those people.
The difference is, she did not pretend otherwise.
She looked at me across my conference table and told me silence could become a liability.
I have killed men for less direct warnings.
Not recently.
And not women like her.
My mouth curves before I can stop it.
That, too, is a warning.
I look down at the card again.
She is too young for me.
Nearly thirty, yes, but still younger than she realizes when she is sitting across from a man who has already made peace with the ugly parts of himself. She has ambition, intelligence, discipline, and a pulse that betrayed her when my thumb touched her hand.
She also has a firm to protect, associates who trust her, a future she is trying to build with both hands.
A decent man would leave that alone.
I have never pretended to be a decent man.
But I am not careless. That is the distinction.
I return to the desk and set the card down precisely where it was.
Then I open the folder Lorenzo had sent over after the meeting. Engagement terms, proposed revisions, document access parameters. All clean on the surface. All carefully structured to show her what she needs while keeping her away from what she does not.
She will push, though.
I knew that within ten minutes of meeting her.
She will ask questions with that composed face and those cool gray-green eyes. She will notice what others miss. She will press where she shouldn’t.
She should be more afraid.
I suspect she will be.
I suspect she will come anyway.
My phone lights up on the desk with a message from Lorenzo.
Murray received the revisions. She says she’ll respond tonight.
I read it twice.
Then I put the phone down.
Outside the study, somewhere in the house, Matteo is settled down with his book.
Somewhere beyond the gates, Tomasso is on his way to a woman who may or may not matter tomorrow.
And here, in my hand, is the first thread of a problem I have no business pulling.
Victoria Murray.
I sit behind my desk, open the document, and begin to read.