Page 5 of The Assassin's Captive
She talks for maybe five minutes, then hangs up and continues toward her apartment. The man in gray waits thirty seconds before following. I count to ten and fall in behind him.
We make a strange procession through the winding streets near the Roman Forum—Serena in the lead, unaware of her shadows, the man in gray maintaining his distance, and me bringing up the rear. The afternoon sun slants through the narrow alleys, creating pockets of shadow that make surveillance both easier and more dangerous.
Then Serena does something unexpected.
She stops outside the Ministry of Justice building and turns around. Not casually, not as if she's forgotten something, but with the sudden sharpness of someone who's realized she's being watched. Her eyes scan the street, moving from face to face, and for one terrible moment, her gaze lands directly on me.
I freeze. I'm parked across the street, partially hidden behind a delivery truck, but her stare feels like a physical touch. She's too far away for me to read her expression, but something in her posture suggests recognition. Or suspicion.
The man in gray has melted into a doorway, invisible now that she's alert. But I have nowhere to go, no way to disappear without starting my engine and driving away—a movement that would confirm her suspicions.
We stare at each other across the width of Via dei Cappuccini. She's perfectly still, her grocery bag hanging from one hand, her phone in the other. I can see her thinking, calculating, trying to decide if what she's seeing is real or paranoia.
Then she turns and walks into the Ministry building.
I sit in my car for ten minutes, waiting for her to emerge, but she doesn't. The man in gray has vanished completely. The street returns to its normal rhythm of pedestrians and traffic, but I can't shake the feeling that she'll retreat and that I've lost my shot.
I move on with the belief that she will protect herself more fully now that she knows someone is watching her, even if she fears it's me, and I head home, where I call Victor, Emilio's son and my equal in this family.
"I need you to run a plate," I say when he answers.
"Personal or professional?"
"Professional."
I give him the license number from the sedan. Victor has contacts in the traffic division, which means he has access to registration databases that would take me hours to hack. He owes me three favors from a situation last year that required both discretion and violence.
"Give me an hour," he says.
I spend the time reviewing what I know about Serena's current caseload. The Bianchi trial is her highest-profile case—a money laundering operation that connects several Rome businesses to offshore accounts. If someone wanted to monitor her progress, to know how much evidence she's gathered, that would be the logical target.
But there could be others. Her work touches dozens of criminal enterprises, and any one of them might have reason to keep tabs on her movements.
Victor calls back at eleven with my information, but I’m not pleased with what he says.
"Your sedan belongs to Marco Tessari," he says. "Registered address in Trastevere. But here's the interesting part—he's got a record. Assault, intimidation, witness tampering. All charges dropped or dismissed."
"Who does he work for?"
"No official employment records. But his bank account shows regular deposits from a consulting firm called Adriatic Solutions."
I know the name. Adriatic Solutions is a front company used by several Rome families to launder money and hire muscle. If Tessari is on their payroll, then someone with serious resources is interested in Serena's activities.
"Anything else?"
"Yeah. He's been arrested twice in the past year, both times for surveillance-related activities. Following people, taking photos. Always gets released within hours."
I hang up and stare at the ceiling of my apartment. Two different surveillance teams, possibly three if the man in gray was working independently. Serena is being watched by professionals, which means her cases have attracted attention from people who don't solve problems through legal channels.
This complicates my assignment. Emilio wants information about her current investigations, but he's not the only one interested in her work. If I move too aggressively, if I expose myself, I could trigger a response from competing interests. Not to mention the authorities who will only use it as proof that the case she's building is priority.
I need to be more careful, more patient.
But patience becomes harder the next day when I follow her to the courthouse and see Tessari's sedan parked in the same spot. He's bolder now, openly photographing people who enter and exit the building. When Serena emerges at lunchtime, he follows her to a small restaurant near the Tiber.
I watch from across the street as she sits alone at a corner table, reviewing documents while she eats. Tessari parks where he can observe the restaurant entrance. He makes no attemptto enter, doesn't try to get closer. He's gathering intelligence, documenting her routine, building a profile of her habits.
The thought that someone else is hunting her triggers something protective in me that I don't want to examine. She's my target, my assignment. No one else should be watching her movements, cataloging her vulnerabilities.
