Page 144 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince

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It’s the look I’ve only ever seen on men who’ve swallowed their last rites before the bullet comes.

I don’t speak.

I turn, and he follows, flanked without resistance.

We descend into the old storage cellar beneath the west wing.

The walls are limestone—cool, imperfect, brutal.

It was once used for aging barrels of olive oil and wine, long before we needed it for darker purposes.

The room is square, unadorned, with a single steel chair bolted into the concrete.

No blades.

No visible blood.

The kind of room built not to frighten, but to end all illusions of mercy.

He sits without being forced. His hands, though bound, rest calmly in his lap.

I dismiss the guards with a glance.

The door shuts behind us, and in the quiet that follows, I watch him watching me.

"I don’t want your name," I say eventually. "You wouldn’t give it. But I will have the one who sent you."

He does not answer.

"Il Sangue Nero? Or did someone closer pass you the bottle?"

Still nothing.

Not a flinch.

Not a lie forming behind the eyes.

He isn’t afraid because he isn’t allowed to be.

"You knew where Valentina would sit. Which glass was hers. You had access. That means someone mapped this for you. Someone gave you our rhythms, our layout, our weaknesses. This was meant to look accidental—but only if you’d failed. You didn’t. And that tells me this wasn’t a message."

I step closer.

"This was an execution."

He meets my eyes, unmoved.

I lower my voice.

"You knew there were children in this house."

His mouth twitches.

Not with emotion—just the faintest movement that might have been breath.

But no denial.

No horror.

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