Page 134 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince
I chose it for its height, for its smooth edges, for the way it matched the soft cream walls.
I had repainted last spring so my daughters would not feel like they were growing up in a fortress.
The object is small.
Black.
No branding.
A bug.
The sound that leaves me is not words.
It is not grief.
It is not fear.
It is rage.
A raw, wild thing that rises through my throat and tears itself loose, filling the room like the shatter of glass against tile.
My hands find the edge of the desk and I shove it in anger.
"They went for them," I say.
Valentina does not deny it.
Luca moves closer, but slowly, as if I might break everything in the room if he moves too quickly.
"Who else knows?" I ask.
"No one," Luca says. "Yet."
For a long while, there’s nothing that I can say.
"Get me Rafa," I say finally, turning to Luca.
He’s by the window, jaw set, eyes like stone. "No."
It’s not a question.
Not a negotiation.
It’s the kind of no that ends conversations, in most cases.
Not this time, though.
My eyes blaze as I step forward.
"This is my family. My blood. You don’t get to decide who I speak to."
"He’s not safe," Luca replies stubbornly. "You think we haven’t been tracking him? You think we don’t know what he’s doing?"
"Do you?" I ask.
"He’s been ghosting checkpoints, rerouting his location pings through old Rossi relays, lying about where he’s staying. Two of his old contacts from Milan have dropped out of sight in the last month. One of them had ties to Arditi. The other handled coastal manifests." He exhales. "He’s not where he says he is, and he’s not doing what he claims."
I already knew that.
