Page 45 of Playing the Sicilian's Game of Revenge

“Of course,” she replied, surveying the apartment. The dining room table was set, and something in the kitchen smelled delicious. She might have deemed it romantic, except there was a laptop open at each spot on the table. A business dinner. She tried to keep her smile in place. She could not control him, only her reaction to him.

“This is an interesting setup.”

“I’ve followed some lines on Julia Marino. There’s something I’d like you to try to get to the bottom of for me.” He gestured at one of the seats. Opposite the other. The whole length of the table between them.

She studied him as he took the other seat. His expression was carefully neutral. She couldn’t help but wonder if he saw this as some kind of punishment. She’d panicked about trying to look deeper into Dante and Julia’s son’s attack, and he hadn’t pushed her...until she’d pushed him.

But in the end, she just didn’t think he was that vindictive. Funny when they were dealing in revenge, but his actions regarding her always seemed to boil down to fear...not actually wanting to hurt her.

Hopefully she wasn’t fooling herself.

“I can try,” she said, keeping her easy smile in place as she slid into the seat across from him.

“I had someone do some preliminary research, and they found an abandoned and wiped legal document of some kind, generated by Julia Marino through a lawyer who is not on Dante’s payroll. I was hoping you could potentially tug on this lead and see what you might be able to come up with.”

She should not be hurt he had someone else do preliminary work. Like she was incapable. She’d been on the same stupid lead, but she hadn’t told him because of all that pesky fear. “Was Francesca Oliveri the lawyer in question?”

His expression gave nothing away, but he paused and studied her for a moment. “You’ve been digging.”

“I told you I would try,” she said, keeping her eyes on the computer. She poked around at what kind of software it had, what capabilities. “And so I have been trying.”

“You didn’t say.”

“No, I didn’t want to until I had something concrete.” She looked up at him. “I’ll need a pen and a pad of paper to keep some notes. And some food. You said dinner, and I didn’t eat.”

“So I did.” He walked into the open kitchen, lifted the lid off a pot. Saverina was distracted from the computer for a moment. “You cooked?”

“A chore I do not mind taking on now and again.” He plated some pasta and vegetables, and her stomach rumbled. She looked at him in wonder for a moment as he set a plate and a glass of wine next to her elbow.

It was amazing to her, how much they had in common. They’d grown up hard—he’d no doubt learned to cook to help his mother. She had never had to because the existence of her siblings had allowed her horrible beginnings to be shaped in a new, different, safer way, while he had simply been abandoned at his mother’s death. He’d only ever had the woman who’d raised him, and then no one. Except a man who refused to acknowledge him.

She wanted to reach out and hug him, but she understood that expression on his face. He’d drawn a line he would not allow her to cross tonight. He would be cold and cruel if he had to be.

She might have considered crossing it anyway, but she felt bruised. She ached for what could be if he only let it. She blew out a breath and returned her attention to the computer.

With a pressure-filled task at hand, she just needed to focus on that. Get the revenge over with, then deal with all this.

She began to work, eating the delicious pasta as she went without much thought. Digging into the lawyer was just difficult enough to keep her attention on it, rather than on Teo or the pressure to accomplish this. She had already done a lot of the legwork. The next step was a little trickier. She had gone through the lawyer’s personal digital footprint, but getting past the law firm’s security systems had been a challenge she’d have to work herself up for.

She was irritated enough with the way Teo had set this up, she felt just up for the challenge now. Of course he’d be this prepared.

She hacked into the law office’s systems. Worked on dealing with encrypted files most people would never be able to get into. It took time, both getting through the systems and then wading through to find what information she needed. Teo never pushed. Never showed any impatience. He refilled her wine and served dessert.

She barely touched either.

Eventually she found a few documents related to the abandoned case. There was a document the lawyer no doubt thought she’d deleted, but Saverina managed to salvage, that included a scanned written statement from Julia.

It was a complex legal document, but Saverina tried to pull out the pertinent facts. “The day after their son’s attack was reported to police, Julia started divorce proceedings. They accuse Dante of being violent with her son, Dantino.”

Teo was immediately at her side, scanning the document on her screen himself. “Why did she abandon the case? Why not destroy him then and there? Why go to a lawyer and not the police?”

“I’m guessing because Dante had already gone to the police and blamed Lorenzo the night of the attack. She knew they wouldn’t believe her over him.”

Saverina dug deeper, trying to find more. Reason for the proceedings to be terminated. Somewhere in writing. Then she found it. An encrypted file, hidden in old deleted ones. It was the lawyer’s notes.

Client abandoned case. Assailant bought her out. Ensured safety for silence.

Saverina’s heart ached for a whole new reason. That poor Julia Marino had tried to leave her husband, protect her son, but had instead made what essentially was a deal with the devil. To ensure protection for her son. What a terrible situation to be put in.

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