Page 48 of Vows Made in Silence
We return to the war room. The screens flicker with satellite images, drone feeds, street cams. Still no sign of Gallo.
But there’s something else. A glitch.
"Loop that back," I tell Turk, pointing to a freeze-frame from three hours ago.
He rewinds. Play it again.
The camera overlooking the rear exit of the gallery—long after we cleared it.
A figure moves. Shadowed. Hooded. Carrying a duffel.
Too small to be Gallo. Too careful to be a grunt.
"Enhance," I bark.
The image sharpens.
And my stomach knots.
Giuliana.
Alone.
How? Leo, how did she get past everyone and leave this compound?
"Boss," he stammers. "She mentioned she was going to lay down and clean up. Two of our guys followed her but didn’t go in the room. They all returned a few hours later so I didn’t think anything of it."
My fists clench, knuckles aching. I don’t know what hits harder—the fact that she ghosted the team without so much as a whisper… or that she’s sitting on intel she hasn’t shared.
She didn’t just walk out for nothing. No one slips past compound security unless they’ve got a damn good reason.
Whatever she’s chasing, it was worth gambling her life—and that means it’s dangerous as hell.
The woman I just watched cradle our son like he was her whole world also lied to me—walked out that door with a purpose she didn’t trust me to share. And that’s the kind of silence that gets people killed in this life.
Did she think I wouldn’t find out? That I wouldn’t retrace every step, interrogate every shadow?
What did she take?
What did she see?
What does she know that even she doesn’t understand?
Guilt battles rage in my gut, and my mind spirals with questions I don’t want to ask out loud. Was it fear that made her run… or something worse? Was it protection—or betrayal?
She looked me in the eye. Told me she trusted me.
But trust in this world is a double-edged knife—clean one second, coated in blood the next.
Turk studies the still frame of her slipping away on the monitor. His face is carved from stone. “She knew the risks. Knew theperimeter would close. Whatever she went after… she believed it was worth it.”
I grit my teeth. "Or someone convinced her it was."
Because I know Giuliana—better than anyone. She doesn’t make reckless moves. Not without cause. Not unless someone whispered in her ear and spun a lie dressed as truth.
She didn’t just leave…
She chose not to tell me.
