Page 2 of Beautiful Evidence

Before I can leave the suite, the door creaks open behind me. I turn to find Dr. Luca Bernardi in the doorway, his coat still half-buttoned and a fresh espresso in one hand. He doesn’tstep inside. The dark circles beneath his eyes suggest another sleepless night. He doesn’t ask what I’m working on.

"Get that one wrapped up quickly," he says, his tone clipped but casual enough to sound like a suggestion. It isn’t. "They want it logged and done. No deep dives and second-guessing. Just process what you have and move on." He's being colder than normal, but maybe he understands who this man is too. I don't question him, but maybe I should.

His gaze flicks to the covered drawer behind me, then back to my face. "And don’t ask questions." He’s gone before I can respond, and the door swings shut behind him.

I strip off my gloves, toss them into the bin, and make my way out of the exam suite. My legs are stiff from standing too long, and I flex my fingers a few times to get the blood flowing again. The hallway is quiet, the morgue still in that early stretch of silence before the rest of the world wakes up. I pass through the final set of double doors and head for the office that barely feels like mine—just a room with my name on it and a plain desk.

An envelope waits on my chair, out of place in the sterile order of the room. There’s no postage, no seal—just my name, scrawled out by hand. I glance around to see if someone nearby is moving or if maybe I can see who left it, but there isn't a soul in this place but me yet. I get a dose of goosebumps as I bend to pick it up. The paper crinkles faintly as I open the flap and slide out a single photograph.

It was taken yesterday.

I’m outside the café on Via Natale del Grande. My coat is crooked at the collar. My hair hangs damp from the rain. Beside me, unmistakable in his hulking frame and crooked posture, ismy father. I never even saw him there. I never knew he was there.

I turn the photo over, already certain the back will be blank. It doesn’t need to say anything. The photo itself carries the message, sharp as a blade pressed to my neck. The warning is in the image itself, in the fact that it exists at all. The meaning settles like ash in my throat, choking me.

They know…

I carry it to the sink, grab the lighter I use for lighting candles in my office to help me forget the scent of decaying flesh, and light it up. The flame licks at the edge of the photo. The paper curls fast, edges blackening, image disappearing. First my face, then his. Then nothing but ash.

Now trembling, I wash my hands again because the heat of the water might pull me back into my body. The shock runs over my skin and makes me nauseous. Someone has been watching me. Someone powerful and dangerous, and they sent Mateo here for a reason. Something tells me this is going to get messy fast. I shake myself loose but I can't snap out of it.

The pressure in my chest doesn’t lift. The weight settles deeper.

I have no idea what's coming next. Only that something is.

And I'll be damned if I'm going to sit back and let it happen.

2

VINCENZO

They call it fallout, like there was ever going to be a clean end to the Vescari mess.

Matteo’s body surfaced less than twenty-four hours ago, and already the higher-ups are scrambling to control the narrative. No one wants to admit the possibility that Gordo Costa made a move against the Bianchis, but the silence around his disappearance makes the betrayal feel real. When people vanish without warning, it isn’t because they’re innocent.

Emilio sits behind his desk at the back of the trattoria, calmly stirring his espresso with a slow hand. He doesn’t look at me right away but his terse anger is simmering under the surface. It always impresses me how he can bottle that rage up and mask it with such intentional control. Men like him are dangerous as fuck.

"You know who his daughter is." His words are pointy, pricking my ears. Gordo Costa's daughter doesn't get a choice in the matter. Fortunately for us, she chose a great profession, and she's naive, thinking that changing her last name will hide her from us. Foolish woman…

I nod at him and he continues.

"She’s the one who cut Vescari open," Emilio says, voice low. "If there’s something in that body worth hiding, she’s already seen it."

"Then she’s in a position to screw us," I reply. "Even if she doesn't realize what she's looking at." Thinking of how Gordo crossed his brother boils my blood. Emilio is our Don, the man half of Italy reports to. Gordo has now gone silent in the wake of this death, and we either cap the flow of blood and right his wrongs, or the whole fucking city will burn.

Emilio nods once with a stony gaze. "Watch her. Get ahead of this before it turns into another fire we can’t put out." He smiles faintly, still not meeting my eyes, and nods at nothing. "You know what to do."

I rise as he gestures his dismissal, the conversation already done in his mind. There’s nothing left to clarify. I give a short nod and head for the door, the job already taking shape in my head.

The file comes through encrypted less than an hour later to my email. Dr. Alessia Leone, born Alessia Costa. She changed her name when she turned eighteen. Earned her MD and PhD on government grants and sleepless nights. She has no siblings, one living aunt, no children, and no partner. Her best friend is listed as next of kin on her electronic identity card. Everything about her whispers quiet, deliberate, and controlled—a woman who’s built her life around routine in a world that feeds on chaos.

Her apartment is in Trastevere, third floor walk-up, no elevator. She has a one-bedroom, one-bathroom, with a small balcony. Probably the type to lock up at night, not realizing men like mehave ways of circumventing traditional security measures. She has no clue what's coming.

I read her file thrice. Then I build her cage.

We park the van half a block from her building, tucked behind a defunct florist’s shop. I bring in a two-man rotation team—men I trust to watch without interfering. They aren’t briefed on who she is, and I don’t offer explanations. They’re here to observe, not to speculate, and I keep it that way.

The listening devices go in first—her car is clean. I wire a small mic beneath the steering column and leave the interior untouched. Behind the dumpster near her building, I mount another, disguised to blend with the rusted bolts. Corner of the alley gets one to monitor both angles of her comings and goings.

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