Page 157 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
It clings to my skin more than perfume ever did.
After the Salvatores broke the back of the Rossis, my brother signed the peace treaty like a man who knew it was either that or a bullet in his sleep.
Luca gave us terms.
We took them.
Not because we were desperate, but because we knew how to survive. And sometimes survival looks like subservience until the tide turns again.
But things didn't turn the way anyone thought. The Salvatores didn't devour us whole.
They absorbed us.
Folded us in.
Gave us work that paid better than any racket my family ever built.
Weapons transfers. Border deals. Negotiations with men who used to spit on our name now asking for meetings.
And me, Gianna Rossi, the girl they used to say would never rise past a pretty dress and sharp mouth, found herself indispensable.
Not to Luca.
To Valentina. To the queen behind the crown, who saw something in me worth keeping close.
So, I traded stilettos for strategy, lipstick for logistics.
I went to meetings in glass towers and smoked cigarettes on rooftops with men who once laughed when I entered a room.
Now they ask for me by name.
They buy me wine I do not drink and tell me secrets they shouldn't.
They like the way I smile when they're lying.
But power, even borrowed, is a restless thing.
And tonight, I am not in a boardroom.
I am in a bar tucked into the edge of the old quarter, where the walls sweat stories and the lights are always too low to catch the full truth.
I wear a red silk blouse that clings to the right places, dark jeans, and a knife tucked into my boot.
I order bourbon neat, not because I love it, but because it keeps most men three feet away.
The music is old, not nostalgic. Jazz that never made it past the sea. I lean against the counter, fingers drumming on the lacquered wood, watching the crowd peel itself into pairs and postures. I am not here to be touched.
I am here because something inside me is hungry for the noise, the shift, the unpredictable.
The evening promises to pass by with predictable ease, and I'm halfway into dreaming about the hot-honey pepperonni I plan on taking back home with me, when my attention snapsup at Dante Salvatore, the youngest Salvatore brother, the one everyone says is the most beautiful of the three brothers, sitting in the far booth.
He's nursing a half-empty glass, looking like he belongs to a better century. His tie is loosened, shirt unbuttoned just enough to show a gleam of skin and a tattoo I do not recognize.
A woman tries to flirt. He smiles, says nothing, and she wilts away.
He is everything I don't need right now: dark hair, mouth like a sin, eyes that don't ask—they command, and a Salvatore brother to the hilt.
He looks like something carved from decadence.
