13. Enzo
ENZO
Two days later
T here are a number of matters to be handled today. I'm headed to the Salvatores now, and while I know Luca won't open with the only agenda that has been haunting me, I'm also certain it won't be too long before it comes up.
I'd hoped to buy more time.
But the call came in yesterday midafternoon, while I was finishing a weapons inventory in the back room of the compound.
The steel cases were still open on the table, ammunition lined in careful rows, when Marco's name lit up my phone.
I answered without delay, wiping the grease from my fingers as his voice came through on the line, dark in the way it always was when something serious had landed on his desk.
He didn't start with questions or orders.
He gave me a name.
One name.
I said nothing for several seconds.
My hand remained frozen on the table, curled around a strip of cloth I had been using to clean the barrel of a pistol.
I waited for him to correct himself, to give me a different name, to explain that this was someone else.
But nothing changed.
I asked if he was sure. He said yes.
Which brings me to where I am headed now.
The doors to the Salvatore family study aren't made to be opened in silence.
They groan on thick hinges, the sound stretched long and low like a warning, announcing every entrance whether the man on the other side wants it or not.
Giovanni pushes them open with a touch too much flair, his knuckles still slightly red from whatever he dealt with this morning.
I walk in beside him, shoulders straight, eyes forward. The room is dim despite the hour, lit only by the morning light slanting in through the tall windows, catching on the dust motes like they were secrets that couldn't settle.
Luca sits behind the carved desk with a cigarette burning slowly between his fingers, the smoke rising in a clean line that curves once, then vanishes.
Marco is at his side, standing by the window, arms folded, his posture sharper than usual, which is saying something.
His jacket is off, shirt cuffs rolled, and he watches us with that quiet calculation I've grown too used to reading.
If he nods once, it's permission.
If he doesn't nod at all, you already know you've failed him.
I catch sight of Sofia near the corner, perched in one of the velvet-backed chairs with a glass of wine she doesn't seem to be drinking.
Her legs are crossed, but her foot doesn't bounce.
Her spine's too straight for someone who is relaxed, and even the way she holds the glass is careful, her fingers curled just enough to avoid showing a tremor.
She shouldn't be here.
Whatever this meeting is, it's not one of those leisurely afternoons where wives drift in and out of the conversation like silk curtains. Something's wrong.
Even if no one says it.
Giuseppe, the butler, is standing in his usual place, tucked into the shadows by the door.
He doesn't speak.
He never does.
But he listens like it's a holy act. Nothing that passes through this room leaves without brushing past him first.
I don't speak until spoken to.
That's a rule as old as the floorboards.
But Giovanni, true to form, breaks the silence first.
I walk in and stop before the desk.
Giovanni lingers beside me, and for half a breath, no one moves.
The air hums with a quiet sort of menace, one that creeps into your bones and settles there, cold and alert.
Then Giovanni opens his mouth.
"Dramatic as always. You'd think we were reading out a will in here."
I do not look at him. But I feel Marco stiffen just slightly, a ripple under the surface. Sofia blinks once. Even Giuseppe's expression, usually blank as a wall, seems to still further.
Luca does not react for a full beat. Then a smile ghosts across his mouth, the kind that cuts rather than soothes.
"Giovanni," he murmurs, "you have a gift for choosing the wrong moment with perfect precision."
Giovanni spreads his hands in mock surrender. "What can I say? It keeps things interesting."
I shift my stance. Just a fraction. But enough to show that I am here for business, not banter. Luca reads the movement the way a hawk reads a twitch in the grass. His eyes slide to mine and stay there.
"There's a task," he says, finally.
The words are smooth, unhurried, yet they land like dropped stones. He does not speak often unless it matters. Today, it matters.
"A courier from the Adriatic side turned up dead last week," Luca continues, tapping a single finger against the rim of his glass.
"One of ours. One of mine. The route was clean.
The drop was routine. Yet he ended up floating near the marina with his tongue in his pocket and no teeth left in his jaw. "
I nod once.
Not surprised. Not pleased.
Luca's men do not get touched without consequence.
Not unless someone wants a war.
Marco steps forward now, tossing a thin manila folder onto the desk with enough force to slide it across the leather in my direction.
I catch it with one hand and open it without breaking eye contact with either of them.
Inside is a photograph. Grainy. Midday light casting shadows across a man's face I don't recognize.
He's sitting at a café somewhere coastal, sunglasses pushed into the collar of his shirt, phone in one hand, cigarette in the other.
A second photo shows him leaving in a dark car.
The license plate is blurred.
"Name?" I ask.
"Stefano Amari," Marco answers. "Used to be muscle for the Conti brothers before they were absorbed into our partners at the ports. Since then, he's gone quiet. Too quiet. Now he's been seen in places he shouldn't be, having conversations with men we no longer trust."
Giovanni leans closer, glancing at the file. "He's not just talking to ex-Conti. There's whispers he's feeding information to the other side of the mountain. And if that's true, it's not just betrayal. It's a declaration."
Luca lifts his glass and takes a slow sip. Then he says the thing that makes the room turn colder.
"I want you to confirm it. Then I want you to clean it."
The way he says clean tells me everything.
This is not about making an example.
This is about sending a message that doesn't need to be spoken aloud.
"Location?" I ask, sliding the file closed.
"Dubrovnik," Marco replies. "He's rented a place on the southern slope. Waterfront. Secluded. Perfect view of the harbor. He thinks we've forgotten him."
I tuck the folder under my arm and nod once. "He's wrong."
"Good," Luca says, the final syllable sharp as glass. "Then you'll leave by tonight. Giovanni will arrange your crossing."
Sofia shifts slightly in her seat, setting down her glass with too much care.
Her face is pale now.
I don't know if it's the wine or the name in the file.
But I know she's afraid.
And fear has a scent I never forget.
"There's one more thing."
That's all. No flourish, no elaboration.
Just those five syllables, and suddenly every nerve under my skin sharpens like the teeth of a blade that's about to be unsheathed.
Giovanni stiffens beside me, but his face shows nothing.
Marco, seated at Luca's left, shifts his gaze to me, as though he already knows this is mine to carry.
From the shadows, Guiseppe steps forward.
No words from him either.
He carries a silver salver in both hands, polished bright enough to catch the reflection of every unspoken truth in this room.
On it rests a single envelope, sealed with red wax the color of old blood, hardened and cracked like something ancient.
The seal glints faintly under the chandelier.
The knife beside it gleams sharper.
Luca doesn't lift his hand, doesn't nod, but his eyes move to mine and hold.
I see everything in that look.
Power. Knowledge. A quiet warning.
This is not a request.
My boots make no sound across the rug as I step forward.
I stop before the salver and look at the envelope, then at Luca.
His expression does not shift, but the message in his gaze is louder than any order.
This is yours.
Take it.
Understand.
I pick up the envelope.
The paper is thick between my fingers, heavier than it should be, soaked with whatever message it carries.
My thumb brushes the edge, then I lift the knife.
The blade is cold, but I have used it before.
Many times. I cut through the seal and slide the knife back onto the tray with a quiet that feels final.
Like the drawing of a curtain before a show that will not be remembered for applause, but for carnage.
The envelope gives.
Inside, there's a single folded sheet of white paper.
I glance up once, and Luca gives the smallest nod.
"Read it."
I pull the paper out with two fingers.
My hands have done this before, too many times.
Each time, I feel the same thing: a heat under the skin, a buzz in the blood, the edge of anticipation that sits on your tongue like copper before the shot is fired.
It's a ritual.
One I've honored since the day I took my first order.
But this time, something is wrong.
My body reacts before my brain does.
The paper is half-open, the names hidden inside still unread, and already my heart tightens in a way it never has.
My breath pulls shorter, more shallow.
The silence doesn't shift, but I swear the walls move in.
I unfold it slowly, eyes scanning the list of names, even though my vision tunnels before I see the first one.
Aria Lombardi.
The name does not belong here.
The ink stares back at me.
Crisp. Final.
Like it has always been waiting to bleed through the paper.
I knew this was coming. I've known it since Marco told me she's still alive.
And yet, I hoped. I hoped I wouldn't be the one tasked with killing her.
My throat closes around the syllables, and all I can hear is her voice, five years ago, low and trembling in the dark, asking me if I would ever choose something beyond this life.
My hands do not tremble. But the list is shaking, because the world I have built my life around has just carved a mark into the only name I ever allowed to mean something to me outside of duty.
I feel Giovanni's presence tighten at my side, not because he knows, but because he feels the way the tension has changed.
Marco shifts in his seat. Luca does not. He watches me, and his face gives away nothing, but the silence tells me everything I need to know.
He knows.
He has known.
Maybe not at the beginning.
Maybe not when she first vanished.
But over time, you can see cracks in armor that even steel cannot hide.
You can hear a man's restraint in the pauses between his kills.
You can tell when silence means something.
I open my mouth, but no sound comes out.
Luca lifts one brow. "There a problem, Enzo?"
The paper crinkles in my hand. I smooth it.
"No," I say, the lie sitting rough behind my teeth.
He nods. Not at me, but to the room.
The meeting, the silence, the performance—it all resumes its rhythm, as though nothing in this world has changed.
But I am no longer standing in a study. I am standing at a cliff's edge, and I am staring at a name that should never have been written.
Not on this paper. Not in that ink. Not with that seal.
I look at it again. Then I fold the paper, slowly and cleanly, the way I always do, and replace it in the envelope.