Page 45 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince
I launch into it without delay.
The figures are ready, although I was supposed to deliver them tomorrow.
The port schedule is adjusted.
The procurement list has been scrubbed of inconsistencies and rerouted through the Trieste office, just as she ordered.
I list the shipments, the false leads we’ve planted for the customs agents, and the new broker whose records will match exactly what we need them to.
She nods occasionally, her pen moving across a pad that I suspect is more for show than necessity.
We both know she remembers everything.
Just as I reach the end of the report, the door to the study creaks.
My blood goes cold before I even turn my head.
I already know the sound.
The patter of small feet on hardwood.
The soft sigh of a child ready for her nap.
Then the tug of tiny fingers at my sleeve, the barely-there weight of a body climbing into my lap, and my youngest daughter leans her cheek against my shoulder, thumb in her mouth, curls wild and face sleepy.
I freeze.
Every instinct I have is to lift her gently and walk out of frame, make an excuse, cut the feed if I have to.
But I am too slow.
Valentina’s eyes stop moving.
Her hand stills.
I don’t hear the scratch of her pen anymore.
Only the silence between us, more suffocating than any threat she’s ever spoken aloud.
"Gianna," she says, and there is something different in her voice now.
I don’t answer immediately.
I want to, but there is no lie that will fit in my mouth, no neat excuse that can wrap around the truth and make it palatable.
I shift Arietta gently, kissing the top of her head and motioning for her to go to her room.
She obeys sleepily, and the door closes behind her with a soft click that might as well be the sound of a lock snapping shut behind me.
"She’s mine," I say, my voice low and steady. "There are two of them. Twin girls. They’re mine."
Valentina’s expression doesn’t change at first, but her voice sharpens. "Who knows?"
"No one. Only the nurse assigned here. The pediatrician. No one else. They’ve never been seen at headquarters. Never traveled with me. I’ve kept them out of everything."
"And the father?"
I hold her gaze now. "V?—"
