Page 30 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
Luca Salvatore plays the perfect host, all quiet menace in his three-piece suit, his smile more blade than charm.
Marco prowls behind him like a shadow given form, his gaze never still.
I keep my distance.
I am not here for them.
Enzo is nowhere to be seen.
Not on the ballroom floor, not in the arcades of champagne and caviar.
Not among the soldiers who line the room's edges, watching with the stillness of men who are used to blood being spilled in silence.
I know better than to ask.
Instead, I make my way to the gallery.
The corridor beyond the ballroom hums with quiet opulence.
Oil paintings stretch wall to wall, each one a portrait of a Salvatore ancestor, their features sharp with legacy, their eyes dead with conviction.
The floors beneath my heels are obsidian and gold, a mosaic that tells the story of the family's rise from Sicilian blood to international empire.
Smuggling, laundering, consolidation.
Their power grew not by fire, but by cold, exacting strategy.
They offered protection where the law failed, filled gaps the city refused to acknowledge.
And then they built palaces on the bones of their rivals.
Ten minutes later, after performing just enough pleasantries to remain forgettable, I slip away from the ballroom and into the quieter corridors that thread through the estate like veins beneath silk.
A server turns the corner ahead of me, silver tray glinting with half-finished flutes of champagne, but he doesn't look up.
No one ever does in these in-between spaces, where the marble gives way to shadow and the chandeliers no longer bother to glimmer.
I move carefully, my heels softened against the Persian rugs that run the length of the side hall, their patterns dark with age and money.
Up ahead, through the glow of a low sconce, I see him.
Enzo stands at the landing of the upper mezzanine, his silhouette cast in dusky gold as he leans one arm along the banister.
He is dressed in black, as always, the sharp line of his jaw kissed by the faint light above, the scar over his brow pale against the depth of his gaze.
He does not move when he sees me.
He does not smile.
He simply tilts his head once in quiet acknowledgement, a gesture so subtle and spare it feels carved from stone.
I ascend the stairs without speaking, the hem of my gown trailing behind me like smoke.
The music from the ballroom fades with each step, until only silence stretches between us.
Enzo doesn't wait.
He turns with the ease of a man born in shadows and slips down a corridor so narrow it vanishes between two columns, nearly hidden behind a gilded mirror.
