Page 1 of The Assassin's Captive
1
LORENZO
"She's going to die, Lorenzo…" Emilio Costa slides the manila folder across his mahogany desk with casual indifference, as if he's ordering coffee or sharing a photo of an old friend. "But not until she tells us everything she knows."
I take the folder without opening it, feeling the thickness of accumulated intelligence. Twenty years of taking orders from the Don has taught me that substantial files usually mean complex kills. This one promises complications.
"Serena Barone," Emilio continues, settling back into his leather chair. "She's twenty-eight years old—a criminal prosecutor who specializes in financial crimes and organized corruption. She's been building cases against our art galleries, our legitimate fronts, working in quiet. She could unravel everything we have."
I open the folder and find myself staring at photographs of a woman with sharp cheekbones and dark eyes that seem to challenge the camera. Her black hair is pulled back in a severe twist, and she wears a charcoal suit that reeks of authority andcontrol. She's beautiful, but in a way that would cut a man who tried to touch her without permission.
"She's connecting dots that were never meant to be connected," Emilio says, turning to pour himself whiskey from the crystal decanter on his side table. "Her legal strategies target our financial network with surgical accuracy. Someone is feeding her information, and I want to know who before you snuff out the flame. Do you understand?"
I turn the page, studying more photographs of Serena leaving her apartment near the Roman Forum, entering the courthouse, meeting with colleagues in sterile conference rooms. Someone has been watching her for weeks, documenting her patterns with the thoroughness of a predator studying prey.
"Her work is sealed," Emilio continues, returning to his desk with the amber liquid catching the lamplight. "Court orders, confidential sources, the whole apparatus of legal protection. But protection has limits. Everyone talks eventually."
The photographs show a woman who moves through her world with confidence, who doesn't look over her shoulder or vary her routines. She believes in the system that protects her, trusts in the walls that separate her civilized world from mine. The naivety would be charming if it weren't so dangerous for women like her.
"What do you need to know?" I ask, though I already understand the shape of this assignment.
Emilio's fingers drum against his desk, a rhythm I've learned to recognize over the years. When the Don is thinking, everyone waits. "Everything… How much she has, who's feeding her information, what she plans to do with it. I want to know every source, every witness, every piece of evidence she's collected. I want to know who else knows what she knows because they all have to fall. We can't leave one standing or the head will regrow."
He takes a slow sip of his whiskey, savoring the burn. "Then she dies. The kill order is official, but get information first. Elimination is second."
I close the folder and meet his gaze. "And the timeline?"
"She'll be at the Rome Opera House tomorrow night.La Traviata. She has season tickets. Orchestra section, row seven." It's chilling how well he knows this scenario, and he hasn't had boots on the ground in years. "She goes alone, arrives early, stays for the entire performance." His smile holds no warmth.
I nod as my eyes continue to pick up more details from her file. Serena Barone is a creature of habit, which makes her predictable. Predictable makes her vulnerable. She attends the opera monthly, always the same seat, always alone. She drinks white wine during intermission and reads the program notes with focus, like someone who genuinely cares about the art.
"She's careful," I say, because Emilio expects assessment, not blind obedience. "Not careful enough." I scoff and watch him walk to the box on the mantel across the room and pull a cigar from it, then snip the end into the hearth, light it, and walk back toward me.
He returns to his chair, settling into the leather, and says, "She's smart, I'll give her that. But intelligence without paranoia is a fatal flaw in our world."
"How should I make my approach?" I ask, snapping the folder shut and dropping it on his table.
"Charm her. You clean up well when you need to. Be the kind of man she'd notice, the kind she'd trust." Emilio's smile turns predatory. "She's lonely, whether she admits it or not. Smart women always are. Give her attention, make her feel special. Once you have her trust, getting her alone becomes simple."
"So, quiet?"
"Yes. We don't want a scene. No one can link her abduction back to us. If they do, the whole thing will blow up. Which is whyyou go at this from the angle of a curious and attracted male." His eyes narrow on me as the plan forms in my mind.
I'll be at the opera house tomorrow night, dressed for the part, armed with enough cultural knowledge to seem genuine. I'll engineer a meeting that feels accidental, present myself as someone worth her time. Serena Barone will see what she wants to see—a well-educated man who appreciates art, who finds her interesting, who might be worth the risk of lowering her guard.
"She won't break easily," I observe, because the woman in these photographs doesn't look like someone who crumbles under pressure.
"They all break eventually." Emilio's voice carries the authority of experience. "Pain, fear, isolation—find the right combination and even the strongest will snap. But you're not going to start with pain. You're going to start with seduction."
It's a new approach. I've killed men with my hands, ended lives with bullets and blades and quiet poisons. But this assignment requires different tools—conversation, attention, the careful construction of trust that can be exploited. It's a longer game than I usually play, but no less deadly.
"Time frame for extraction?" I ask.
"A week. Maybe two if she's particularly stubborn. But no longer." Emilio shifts in his seat, turning his gaze to the window where Rome's lights flicker in the distance. "The families are watching. They know events are unfolding, even if they don't know what. We can't afford to look weak by allowing a prosecutor to operate freely."
He takes a long drag from his cigar, watching me as he speaks. "Serena Barone has chosen her side. She's declared war on everything we've built, everything we've protected. That makes her an enemy, and enemies don't get second chances."
"What about her background?" I ask, though I've already begun my own research. "Family, connections, vulnerabilities?"
