Chapter 11 NORA
NORA
Sofia slipped into my room early with a tray of fresh tea, her eyes dark with fatigue. When she set the cup down, she mentioned that the conservatory was already clean, delivering the news the same way someone might casually mention the morning paper had arrived.
I walked down the east hall fifteen minutes later to see for myself.
Through the arched glass doors, the whole room gleamed.
The shattered glass panel had been replaced with clean panes, the stone floor smelled sharply of bleach and lemon oil, and the citrus trees stood upright in their pots as if no one had died under their leaves twelve hours ago.
There was no blood, no scuffed tile, not even a single terracotta crumb left behind.
The Moretti cleaning crew worked like ghosts, which told me everything I needed to know about how often people bled in this house.
Enzo showed up at my door at nine sharp, hair damp, a bandage taped along his ribs under his shirt, looking like a man who had slept exactly zero hours and regretted none of it.
"You busy?" He rolled right past me into the room like my consent was a legal fiction, dropping a scuffed leather binder onto the side table.
"I was also going to reorganize my captivity by color," I added, stepping around him to prop the window open for fresh air. "But sure, come in. Bleed on the carpet if you want. It matches your whole general aesthetic."
"Hilarious," he muttered, slumping into the armchair by the window. "I need some help. With the mess from last night."
I pointed at his slumped shoulders. "My help costs a lot of money. And normally you get coffee with it, not bruised ribs."
Enzo winced as he shifted his weight. "Put it on my tab."
I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled my knees up, still in the borrowed sleep shirt, hair a disaster, and folded my arms like I did in every boardroom that had ever paid me an obscene hourly rate. "Talk."
Enzo rubbed his stubbled jaw with a rough hand. "The man who broke in last night, he worked for Bellini. Someone will figure out he's missing soon. If people start asking about a body on our property, we need a clean story ready."
"You mean before the police show up with search warrants and ruin your garden party," I said, one eyebrow raised.
He picked at a loose stitch on his cuff. "We don't do garden parties."
I rested my chin on my knee. "So you want a cover story. For a dead guy."
"Self-defense," he snapped, his jaw tightening like the word had teeth if he didn't spit it out fast.
"I know. I watched." I rubbed my eyes. "Fine. Sit up straight, this part matters. Who else knows besides your cleaning crew and God?"
"Luca. Adrian. You." He counted on his fingers like that made him look less terrified. "Nonna, probably, because Nonna knows everything before it happens."
"Good. Keep it that way." I grabbed the notepad from the nightstand and twirled the chewed pen between my fingers. "First, nobody talks to anyone outside this house. Ever. Second, if cops come asking questions, everyone tells the exact same plain story without making up extra details."
"You're already better at this shit than our actual fucking lawyer," Enzo admitted, a faint grin tugging at his mouth.
I tapped the pen against the paper. "Your lawyer should quit. Third rule. If anyone asks, an armed guy broke into your house and you defended yourself. That is all. No gang names, no drama. Just a break-in that went bad."
Enzo leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "You're really good at making a killing sound like nothing."
I met his gaze flatly. "That's the point. Nobody pays attention to something boring."
He laughed, short and real, and some of the tightness left his shoulders. For a second he looked twenty four instead of a broody mafia guy, and I filed that away, the way I filed everything, because knowing when someone finally exhaled told you more than watching them hold their breath.
Enzo reached into his jacket pocket and slid my phone across the small table toward me. "Luca said you could have it back for work calls. Keep it short."
I grabbed it before he could change his mind, staring at the screen. Right on cue, it buzzed against my palm. I checked the caller ID and groaned.
"Amelia," I told Enzo. "My assistant. Brace yourself."
I answered. "Hi, Amelia."
"Nora! Oh thank God, please don't be mad," Amelia blurted, cars honking loudly on her end of the line. "The Kessler team wants to hold their big announcement next Monday instead, and I didn't know what to tell them!"
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Tell them no. Give them three extra days instead. If they rush it out, they look guilty."
"Okay, got it, breathing room, writing that down." A pause, keys clicking somewhere in London. "Also, quick thing, where are you? Because your calendar says Milan for a spa retreat and I called the spa and they have never heard of you."
Enzo's eyebrows went up. I turned slightly away from him toward the wall. "It's a private wellness thing. Very exclusive. Off the books."
"Off the books like tax off the books or off the books like witness protection?" Amelia asked, and I loved her, I genuinely did, but sometimes her instincts were dangerously sharp for someone who once sent an invoice to the wrong billionaire and started a minor diplomatic incident.
I kept my tone deliberately sweet. "Off the books like none of your fucking business. Focus. Kessler. Three days. Is anything else on fire?"
"The Hartwell twins want to sue each other again."
"Tell them no."
"They're paying us a lot of money to say yes."
"Then tell them no, professionally, and bill them for the privilege of hearing it," I instructed. Enzo was grinning now, openly, enjoying the absolute circus of my real life.
"Fine. Also your mum called the office looking for you. Twice."
My stomach dropped to the floor. "What did you tell her?"
Amelia's keyboard clacked furiously over the line. "That you're unreachable on a client retreat and doing very important secret work. Which, again, is what I keep telling everyone, and it's starting to sound like I'm covering for an affair."
"You are covering for something," I muttered.
"What was that?"
"Nothing. Good work. Keep saying exactly that." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I'll call her myself when I can."
"Please do, because she asked me if you'd eloped, and I did not have a good answer for that."
Enzo was full on laughing now, silent, shoulders shaking, one hand pressed to the bandage on his ribs like laughing hurt and he refused to stop anyway.
"Bye, Amelia," I said, and hung up before she could ask me anything else that required actual truth.
Enzo wiped his eyes. "Eloped. Blake, if this is your version of a honeymoon, I'm worried about your standards."
I pointed toward the open doorway. "Get out." A sharp laugh broke past my teeth anyway. I shook my head, pressing two fingers against my temple as the sheer absurdity of it all cracked right through my defenses.
He left with the notepad and my three rules and a look on his face that was almost gratitude, which he clearly didn't know what to do with, so he covered it by insulting my handwriting on the way out the door.
Luca showed up an hour later, dressed in a sharp black suit without a single weapon in sight. Three slow, deliberate raps sounded against the wood before the latch shifted, and he paused in the frame until I offered a silent nod of permission.
He shut the heavy door quietly behind him. "Enzo tells me you fixed his problem in twenty minutes."
I crossed my arms over my chest. "I gave him some simple rules. Real advice would take longer and cost a lot more."
"He said you called murder boring."
I raised an eyebrow at him. "I called it manageable. Simple is how you stay out of trouble."
The corner of his mouth twitched, the barest hint of amusement breaking through his usual stone mask. He crossed the floor and halted beside the glass, slipping his hands into his pockets while scanning the hedges below for any sign of movement.
He leaned one shoulder against the glass and let his gaze drift back over to where I stood. "You didn't have to help him."
"No." I held his gaze without flinching. "I could have let your little brother panic and bring the feds down on your heads. It would have been fun to watch."
He tilted his head slightly and studied my face. "Why didn't you?"
I met his hard stare without blinking. "Aside from not wanting armed cops swarming the pool while I'm trying to relax?"
I paused, letting the silence stretch between us. "Because he looked like he needed someone to tell him what to do, that wasn't a threat," I said. "And because a version of this family surviving intact is apparently good for my own continued survival. Selfish, really."
"Selfish," he repeated, like he was testing the word for weight and finding it lighter than advertised.
"Don't read into it," I warned. "I still fucking hate you for the kidnapping."
"Noted," he replied, his voice dropping an octave. "For the record, I never doubted that."
His shoes click against the polished wood as he bridges the distance between us, moving with that deliberate, unhurried stride of a man who takes up space because nobody has ever dared to stop him.
He stops barely a foot in front of me. I tilt my chin back to keep my eyes locked on his, refusing to give an inch of ground.
The space between us tightens instantly, stripped of the shouting and gunfire from the night before, leaving only the quiet scrape of his gaze against mine and my own stubborn refusal to blink first.
He stopped so close I caught the scent of cedar and clean soap. "You did well last night. Watching a man die in front of you. Most people freeze up."
I held his stare without blinking. "I deal with things on my own time. Not while people are watching."
"When's later?"
"Currently booked," I shot back. "Try back never."
A low, rough sound caught in his throat before he choked it back.
He lifted one hand, his knuckles brushing my cheek as he tucked a loose strand of dark hair behind my ear.
His thumb lingered, trailing the curve of my jawline down toward the hollow of my throat before sliding away.
I stood entirely still, refusing to flinch, refusing to step back, holding his gaze as heat flared along my skin.
"You keep surprising me, little bird," he murmured, his voice dropping into a register that made the quiet room seem infinitely smaller.
"Good," I whispered, my voice rougher than I wanted. "Keep you on your toes. Wouldn't want you getting comfortable while I plan my escape."
"Comfortable," he echoed, his thumb brushing the sensitive skin of my jaw, "is not a word I'd use for a single fucking thing about this week."
I swallowed down the dry friction in my throat before I could betray how fast my pulse had climbed. "Same."
His hand dropped to his side with agonizing slowness. "Then we understand each other perfectly."
His dark eyes stayed fixed on mine, unblinking, while the silence between us stretched taut. Then he stepped back, smooth and controlled, buttoning his suit jacket with two quick flicks of his fingers. The casual mask settled back over his features, sharp and unreadable once more.
He turned on his heel without another word, his leather oxfords clicking across the polished floorboards. The heavy door shut behind him, the latch clicking into place, and then there was only the quiet scrape of his footsteps fading down the hall.