Page 67 of The Secrets We Keep

Her hazel eyes searched his for a long moment before she finally nodded. “I promise.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Pushing through the glass doors of the lobby, Sienna paused on the sidewalk and considered her options. Normally she’d walk home for lunch, but these days her apartment felt empty without Luca in it.

She used to relish the quiet of her little cottage outside Berlin. It was backed against a dense patch of trees, small and cozy and private, nearly hidden from view of the big manor house. The people who owned the property and lived in the main house on the other side of the expansive yard didn’t bother her or ask questions as long as she paid rent on time.

She didn’t go out much, and she never had visitors. She preferred it that way. People were hard to trust. But then she’d returned to Sicily and seen Luca in that dimly lit hotel hallway, and suddenly she didn’t enjoy the quiet anymore.

Luca tapped things when he was thinking. His fingers on the table, his pen on top of a notebook, the toe of his shoe against the floor. He tapped things, and he stared into space. He’d filled her apartment with his noise and his scent and his extra toothbrush in the bathroom.

The more time they spent together, the more she expected to crave the solitude she’d grown so accustomed to. But eventually she’d come to realize she’d never stopped loving Luca’s noise; she’d just adjusted to the quiet. And now that it was filling her life again, she didn’t want to let it go.

There was a sense of relief in finally confessing her plan to kill Nero. She should have known Luca was thinking ten steps ahead while she was only looking at the next one, already busy working out how to kill Nero and keep her too. Her singular focus had been killing her uncle for so long that it was difficult to see anything else.

Now that the truth existed between them, she felt a little ridiculous for not bringing it up sooner, for not allowing herself to see the possibility of what was right in front of her. Luca. They could actually have a life together without her having to sacrifice herself to kill Nero. She’d started to let herself dream about it. Everything felt possible now.

But there was still so much left to get through. She knew the Bianchis had one last big strike they wanted to make before Christmas, but Luca had been light on the details. He was supposed to come over after they had their next sit-down to explain.

Then there were the actual nuts and bolts of exactly how to kill Nero without making anyone a martyr. Something Luca was adamant they’d be able to do. But she could hear the skepticism in his tone when they tried to flesh out some ideas. It wasn’t going to be easy, and it was clear the Bianchis didn’t have a plan for this part. She didn’t doubt their resources. She just hoped they were a match for her uncle’s paranoia.

Stepping off the curb to cross the street, she decided a restaurant would do for lunch today. Better the noise than the tomb-like silence of her apartment. There was nothing else she could do until she heard from Luca anyway.

The last target, save for Drago himself, had been off island for over a month. Sienna was beginning to suspect he’d already been taken care of by someone for an entirely different transgression with the way he’d abruptly fallen off the face of the earth.

And if she could kill Drago without setting off alarm bells with her uncle, she would. He was becoming more and more persistent about this project with Ciro. Ciro was constantly hounding her about what gains she might have made. It seemed Drago wasn’t pleased with what little she’d been able to do.

She’d been working on it in her free time just to keep her hands busy while Luca was back in Palermo, but the security they were trying to hack was too good. Something Drago seemed increasingly frustrated by if Ciro’s general twitchiness at the office was any sort of gauge. Even Jack had noticed, and Isa had been a ball of nerves about it all week.

Luca hadn’t been able to get much out of Matteo about the companies she was digging into. He’d seemed frustrated by his brother’s secrets when he called to update her the other night.

She didn’t relish the idea of telling Drago the company he wanted access to appeared to be unhackable any more than Luca liked being in the dark where his brother was concerned. Intending to give Ciro and Drago what she’d gathered so far and leaving the rest up to them, she’d pivoted to trying to find out exactly what they were doing with this information and who they were doing it for.

She was starting to doubt they were working on behalf of her uncle, even though they were logging it as a company project. She’d yet to find any sort of money trail from Gallo coffers for the work. And why the hell would you do something like this if you weren’t getting paid?

It had to be coming from somewhere else. And if she could figure out where, maybe it would give Luca a different angle to exploit to get Matteo to open up.

Pushing into the café and out of the cold, Sienna claimed a table by the window when the waitress waved her in to seat herself. It wasn’t as busy as she expected at this time of day, but the place was clean and cozy and had a nice wine selection.

She fingered the worn corner of the menu while she decided between a glass of Pinot Grigio or Carricante with the house-made pesto. And maybe a caprese salad.

A couple in the corner caught her eye, and her mouth lifted in a small smile. When this was finished, Luca was taking her out on a real date. No more hiding or sneaking around or pretending the other didn’t exist. Whatever she had to do, she wanted to be Sienna Gallo again, and she wanted to do it on Luca’s arm.

After sending the waitress away with her order, she reached into her purse and pulled out her phone to check for messages from Luca. He was meeting with his family as soon as Dom could get away from Agrigento, sometime in the next day or two. Once they did, he’d have more for her, and they’d be one step closer to finishing this.

When a shadow fell over her table, she looked up expecting the waitress to have her glass of wine, but instead she saw Ciro and Drago towering over her. Ciro looked uncomfortable; Drago looked borderline murderous.

“Mind if we join you?” Drago asked, sliding into the chair across from hers without waiting for an answer.

“Not at all,” she said, though he was already plucking a menu out of the holder at the edge of the table. “Do you eat here a lot?”

Drago slapped the menu on the table and folded his hands over it, the sleeves of his long-sleeved shirt riding up and revealing the bottom edges of a tattoo. She wondered if it was still just the dragon that curled from his elbow to his wrist or if he’d added to it over the years.

“I want an update,” he snapped, his voice low but his tone harsh. “Now.”

“Sure.” She forced a smile and dug around in her bag for the notes she’d jotted down for Ciro and the thumb drive with the half-baked program she’d whipped up to hopefully satisfy them. “I was going to give this to Ciro after lunch, but since you’re here…”

She slid the drive and the paper across the table toward Drago, who handed it to Ciro. “Their security is very tight. Impressive, really. I’m not sure they actually need much help from us.”

---