CHAPTER SEVEN #2
Rossi noticed the separation and gravitated toward her, a slick, condescending smile plastered across his face.
"So, Signorina Emir," Rossi said loudly enough for the surrounding men to hear, but keeping his back angled so Sandro could not see his expression.
"I hear you run a bakery. Tell me, does a woman with your...
delicate hands actually knead the dough, or do you just stand behind the register and smile at the tourists? "
A few of the younger soldiers chuckled into their drinks.
"I do a bit of everything, Signor Rossi," Zina replied calmly, her voice perfectly even.
"Fascinating," Rossi sneered lightly, leaning closer. "It is truly a modern fairytale. The barista playing the princess. You must be very proud of your upward mobility. Though I suppose serving coffee is not so different from serving the Don, is it?"
It was a deeply derogatory remark, laced with implications that she was nothing more than a paid companion. The men around Rossi exchanged amused glances, waiting for the civilian to blush, cry, or run to Sandro.
Zina did none of those things. She took a slow sip of her water, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make Rossi uncomfortable. She looked at him, her dark eyes devoid of intimidation, and simply offered a faint, unbothered smile.
She did not care about his insults. Her attention was focused on his body language.
Rossi was sweating, despite the cool air conditioning in the lounge.
While he spoke to her, his eyes continuously darted toward the double doors leading to the east wing.
He tapped his signet ring against his glass in a rapid, arrhythmic pattern.
The three men flanking him were not relaxed; their weight was shifted forward onto the balls of their feet, and their hands hovered unconsciously near the lapels of their jackets, where their shoulder holsters sat.
Zina had grown up surrounded by the most lethal men in the Middle East. She knew exactly what impending violence looked like. This was not the casual arrogance of a new Capo. This was the coiled, terrified adrenaline of men preparing to execute a coup.
She could not alert Sandro directly. If she walked across the room and whispered that she had deduced a treasonous plot based on micro-expressions and tactical positioning, Sandro would instantly realize she was not a civilian.
She needed a proxy. She needed someone in the Moretti family to make the discovery.
She looked around the table for someone else who could make the discovery. Sandro's mother was one possibility, sitting regally near the fireplace, but Sandro's sister, Francesca, seemed like a much better option.
Zina’s eyes drifted across the room and landed on Francesca, Sandro’s sister. Francesca was standing near a marble bust, looking incredibly bored by the posturing of the lieutenants.
Zina stood up, gracefully bypassing Rossi without a second glance, and walked toward Francesca.
"Signora Ricci," Zina said softly, using Francesca’s married name. "I hope you don't mind my intrusion. I was admiring the brushwork on that landscape above the mantle. Sandro mentioned you have an appreciation for art."
Francesca looked slightly surprised by the approach, but the mention of her true passion thawed her usual icy exterior. "I do. The piece you are looking at is a minor local artist, nothing special. The true collection is in the east gallery."
"I would love to see it," Zina said, infusing her voice with genuine curiosity. "If you have the time to show me, of course."
"Very well," Francesca agreed, setting her champagne flute down. "Come with me. It is quieter in that wing anyway."
Zina immediately recognized the opportunity. She glanced toward Sandro, silently asking for his approval. Sandro caught her eye from across the room, smiled warmly, and told them to go ahead.
The two women left together.
Zina followed Francesca out of the crowded lounge and into the echoing, dimly lit corridors of the estate.
The walls here were lined with magnificent oil paintings and marble sculptures, but Zina wasn't looking at the art.
Her ears were perfectly tuned to the synchronized footsteps moving through the parallel service corridor.
Rossi and his men had slipped out of the lounge moments after they did.
"This piece," Francesca said, gesturing to a canvas depicting a storm at sea, "was acquired by my grandfather, shortly after he secured the ports."
"It is breathtaking," Zina murmured, purposefully slowing her pace, subtly guiding Francesca closer to the wooden doors that separated the gallery from the private residential suites—the suites where Antonio and Rosa resided.
Through the thick wood, the muffled, urgent voices of men carried into the quiet gallery.
Francesca stopped talking. She frowned, stepping closer to the door, her head tilting.
"...cut the cameras in the elder’s wing," Rossi’s harsh voice drifted through the gap beneath the door.
"We take the old man out first. Vittorio dies in his bed tonight.
The moment word gets to the lounge, Sandro will be paralyzed by the panic.
In the chaos, we drop Antonio and the Don, and the northern ports are ours. Move."
Francesca’s face went bone white. Her eyes widened in paralyzing horror.
Before Francesca could gasp, the wooden doors swung open violently.
Rossi and three of his men froze, stepping directly into the gallery to find the Don’s sister and the civilian girl standing five feet away, having heard every single word.
"Grab them!" Rossi hissed, drawing a suppressed pistol from his jacket.
Zina’s instincts screamed at her to drop Rossi.
She could have shattered the knee of the first man, disarmed Rossi, and put two bullets in the chests of the trailing soldiers before they could even draw their weapons.
The coiled energy of the Kazan assassin flared in her blood, begging to be unleashed.
But if she did, the cover was dead. The mission was dead.
She forced her muscles to go limp. She allowed the first soldier to grab her roughly by the arm, twisting it behind her back.
Francesca did not have the restraint of an assassin. The moment a soldier grabbed her shoulders, Francesca unleashed a blood-curdling, piercing scream that shattered the silence of the east wing and echoed all the way back to the main lounge.
"Shut her up!" Rossi panicked, raising his weapon.
The doors at the far end of the gallery burst open with the force of an explosion.
Sandro Moretti did not walk into the hallway; he erupted into it. He was a force of terrifying violence. Matteo and Nico were right behind him, their weapons already drawn, but Sandro did not wait for his enforcers.