Page 80 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
That's the way it goes. No flinching. No long-winded lectures. Just the facts and the fallout.
"We've traced a second account," Giovanni says smoothly. "Laundered through a shell in Marseille, same hands that moved the Orvieto shipment last winter."
His sister looks up at that, eyes sharpening.
Giovanni, ever the good brother, doesn't pause.
"Blanco and I will take the south quadrant. Cristiano can hold the docks with Enzo."
I nod once, feeling Giovanni glance toward me again.
He can sense that I'm not present, although he doesn't quite know why.
The truth is, ever since Valentina Salvatore has come home, I've wondered whether I was too harsh on Aria.
She never wanted this life.
She never understood that family in our world does not come with choices.
That legacy is not a thing you slip out of like a dress that doesn't suit you.
I asked her once what she wanted, and she said something quiet.
Something simple.
Something that would never survive here.
She left. And I let her.
Because staying would have killed her.
But what I didn't do—what I couldn't do—was forget her.
Giovanni's words from earlier loop through my head.Everything is for family.
What he doesn't know is that Aria was the first thing that ever made me want more than loyalty and blood.
The first thing that ever made me wonder what I would do if I had to choose.
And now I can't stop wondering who else knows.
"Enzo," Luca says.
I look up. My voice is calm. "Yes?"
"Take Cristiano to Belvedere. Check on the account lead. Quietly. No fire unless provoked."
I nod. "Understood."
Lunch break is soon after.
Alessandra rises first.
Cristiano follows close behind, hand at her lower back like she might vanish if he blinks.
There's something in the way he watches her—with a devotion so naked it borders on reckless.
I've seen men lose entire empires for less.
