12. Rocco
ROCCO
Neil Barker starts lying before I ask him anything. That’s always rude. At least let me do my job first.
“Mr. Castellano,” he says, voice thin and wet, like he has been running. “I was just about to call you.”
Lewis writes something on his tablet. Probably liar.
“Were you.”
“Yes. Of course. I heard you had questions about the report.”
“From whom?”
Silence.
There it is. The first crack.
“Neil.”
“I don’t remember.”
I sit back. The Edinburgh study’s too clean. Too much polished wood and old money for what I want to do right now, which is put Neil Barker in a chair in a room off the docks where the drains are good, and ask him questions with my hands.
What I’m going to do is stay on the phone.
Growth is ugly. Mine has teeth marks.
“You forgot who told you the head of the Castellano family had questions about a report you wrote?” I ask.
“It was an assistant. Someone from the office.”
“Whose office?”
Another pause. A car horn in the background. He is outside. Running, then.
Good. People who run make mistakes.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re bad at this.”
His breath shakes. “Mr. Castellano, I did the job I was asked to do. I never claimed certainty.”
The frozen frame sits on the screen, the tiny crescent tattoo behind the woman’s ear sharpened into a dark little confession.
“No,” I say. “You hid behind uncertainty.”
“That’s not fair.”
Fair. My wife’s sleeping in her sister’s flat because I believed a tape with no face, and Neil Barker wants to discuss fair.
“Where are you?”
“I’m not comfortable disclosing that.”
“Neil.”
“I didn’t fake the videos.”
Interesting. “I didn’t ask if you did.”
Silence again. Longer. Better.
“I need a lawyer,” he says.
“Probably.”
His breathing turns ragged. “I reviewed the footage. I said the face could not be confirmed.”
“You also said no obvious edits.”
“There were no obvious edits.”
“There’s a tattoo on the woman.”
“What?”
Too fast. Not shock. Performance. I’m getting tired of people performing around the part where my wife told the truth.
“A crescent moon behind her left ear,” I say. “Visible for less than a second.”
Neil says nothing.
“Serena doesn’t have a tattoo.”
Still nothing.
“You missed it?”
“The footage is low quality.”
“You missed it?”
His breath catches. “Yes.”
“Try again.”
Lewis looks at me. I lift one finger. Trace. He nods and starts typing.
On the phone, Neil swallows so loudly I hear it. “I was told not to focus on identifying features.”
Something in my chest drops. Not because I’m surprised. Because I am not. That’s worse.
“By whom?”
“I can’t?—”
“By whom?”
A bus sighs somewhere near him. He’s in a city where normal people are buying tickets and getting coffee while he decides whether to die for a lie.
“I don’t know her name.”
“You came through Claudia Castellano.”
“She connected me to someone else.”
“Who?”
“A man.”
“Very helpful. Should I search for one of those?”
Lewis’s mouth twitches.
Neil makes a panicked sound. “Older. Italian. He never gave a name. He said the family needed the conclusion fast. He said the question was whether the footage had been edited, not whether the woman was Mrs. Castellano.”
My hand closes around the edge of the desk.
“And you thought that was normal.”
“Nothing about your family is normal.”
Fair. Still not smart.
“Did he pay you?”
“The invoice went through the usual channel. Castellano discretionary security.”
Lewis’s typing stops. His face changes. Not surprise. Recognition.
“Send me the invoice,” I say.
“I can’t. It’s gone.”
“Invoices don’t vanish.”
“This one did.”
I lean forward. “Neil, listen carefully. I am going to find the invoice, the man, the woman with the tattoo. The only decision you make now is whether I find them through you or over you.”
His voice breaks. “I have a family.”
“So does Serena.”
He goes quiet.
Good. Let him sit with that.
My pregnant wife stood in my office while the men who answer to me called her a whore with better manners, capos who’d have knelt to her a month earlier. She had a family too. A husband who should have been the first person between her and the blade.
I was holding the blade.
“The woman,” I say. “Name.”
“I don’t know it.”
“Tattoo.”
“I only saw stills.”
“Name.”
“There was a folder label.”
Lewis’s fingers hover over the tablet.
“What label?”
Neil breathes once. Twice. “Nadia.”
Of course. The universe likes jokes when it’s being cruel.
“Nadia what?”
“Just Nadia.”
“Who gave you the folder?”
“The older man’s courier. Young. Dark hair. Scar on his lip.”
Lewis writes faster. I don’t look away from the tattoo on the screen.
“You’re going to stay reachable,” I say. “You’re going to send Lewis every file you touched. Every email, call log, message, deleted or not.”
“I told you?—”
“And then you’re going to go somewhere safe and wait. If Rafe finds you first, he will make you useful. If Claudia finds you first, she will make you quiet. If I find out you warned anyone after this call, I will make you regret being memorable.”
Lewis looks up. I shouldn’t have said the last part. I am still me.
Neil whispers, “I’ll send it.”
“Good.”
I hang up.
The room stays quiet after. That kind of quiet has teeth.
Lewis lowers his tablet. “We have his location. Glasgow bus station.”
“Send two men. Quietly.”
“Alive?”
I look at him. “Breathing and able to type.”
“That narrows it.”
I rub my hand over my mouth. I’m tired in the ugly places under the ribs where guilt sits and makes itself at home.
“Nadia,” I say.
Lewis nods. “I’ll search Rafe’s clubs first.”
“Why?”
“The tattoo. Rafe owns a private room at Eclipse.” Lewis shrugs. “Sometimes criminals are subtle. Sometimes they name a club Eclipse and hire dancers with moon tattoos.”
Serena would have laughed at that.
Everything comes back to her. Every joke, every silence, every room.
I stand and go to the window. Across the city, beyond rain and stone and my own failure, Serena’s in Lucia’s flat. My men are outside the block. Loose perimeter. No approach.
My order. Still ugly.
I want to go back. I want to walk up those stairs again and stand outside that chained door until she opens it or tells me to rot.
I want Matteo gone, too. Ugly. Honest. Mine. One call and I could dismantle him without leaving marks the police understand.
But wanting isn’t law. Serena said no. Not to Matteo. To me. That is the only answer that matters.
I don’t get to make her safer by removing the man who made her feel safe after I made myself the danger.
That sentence tastes like glass. I swallow it anyway.
“Boss,” Lewis says. I turn. He’s looking at his tablet. “We have a hit on Nadia.”
I cross the room. He turns the screen toward me.
A woman stares out from a club promo photo. Dark hair. A crescent moon tattoo behind her left ear, shown clearly because she’s looking over one bare shoulder at the camera.
Her name is Nadia Rivas. Rafe’s club, Eclipse. Booked for private events. Cash preferred. No fixed address.
She’s not Serena. I know that already.
But seeing her face still breaks something open. Because she looks enough like my wife from the wrong angle if a man wants to be hurt more than he wants to be right.
Similar build. Same coloring. With Serena’s coat, Serena’s ring copied badly, Serena’s face hidden, a room dark enough, a husband angry enough?—
I turn away. Too fucking late.
“Find her,” I say. “Not through Rafe first. He’ll move her. Cash routes. Drivers. Makeup artists. Anyone who saw her leave with the coat or ring.”
“Yes.”
My phone buzzes. For one impossible second, I think Serena.
It’s Vittorio. I let it ring. I let it stop.
Then Claudia. Her name lights the screen before it’s finished going dark. Too close together. Not proof. Another thread.
I answer Claudia and put it on speaker without a word.
“Rocco,” she says. “Vittorio is looking for you.”
“Is he,” I say.
“He’s worried. We both are. You left the council call abruptly.”
“I had work.”
“About Serena?”
The question is soft. Like she’s trying to pet a dog that may bite.
“About my wife.”
A pause. Tiny. “Of course.”
I almost ask her about Nadia. About the folder, the older Italian man, the way her grief always seems to walk into rooms before her and unlock doors she shouldn’t have access to.
I do not. Not yet. Claudia lies beautifully when she has time to dress for it. I need her thinking I’m still a man she can soothe sideways.
“Come home. Let Vittorio handle Edinburgh. Serena may respond better when things are calmer.”
Serena. Not my wife. Like she’s a problem on a schedule.
“She responded clearly enough.”
Another pause. “You saw her?”
There. Too sharp. Too quick.
“Briefly.”
“Was Matteo there?”
Something in me goes quiet.
“Why?”
“Because he’s dangerous.”
I smile. It’s not pleasant. “Is he?”
“He betrayed your direct order and took your wife into hiding.”
“He protected her.”
Claudia says nothing. For the first time since this began, she misses the beat. But the silence is there.
“Rocco,” she says finally, “I know you’re in pain.”
“Do you?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then stop using it.”
On the line, Claudia breathes in. Controlled. Angry under it.
“I’ve only tried to help you.”
“Then help by staying away from Serena.”
“I haven’t gone near her.”
“Keep it that way.”
“She lied to you.”
My whole body goes cold. Cold is worse. Cold means the dangerous part of me has stopped needing volume.
“Careful,” I say.
The line goes quiet. Then Claudia’s voice changes back to soft. “I’m sorry. I only meant?—”
“I know what you meant.”
I hang up.
Lewis lets out a slow breath. “That was subtle.”
“I was aiming for polite.”
“You missed.”
“Tragic.”
My phone buzzes again. Vittorio. I ignore it. Then a text.
Council expects clarity by morning. Matteo cannot stand. Serena cannot dictate terms from a Russo flat.
Lewis reads it over my shoulder. “He’s pressing.”
“He’s afraid.”
“Of what?”
“That I’ll remember who benefits if Serena stays guilty.”
Lewis says nothing. Good.
I open the file Neil sends. It arrives in pieces, messy and half-deleted. A call log. Two invoice screenshots. One message thread with names removed badly because Neil’s a coward, not a professional.