I Walked Past the Mafia Boss in That Black Dress Again

The bullet came from a parking garage two buildings away.

By the time Ciro's men reached the seventh floor, the shooter was gone.

They found a rifle, two spent casings, a pair of gloves, and nothing with fingerprints.

Professional.

That word followed us back to Ciro's house like a second car.

I sat in the rear seat between Ciro and Saurin because apparently being shot at had removed my right to choose where I sat.

Rafael followed in another vehicle.

Nobody spoke for the first six blocks.

Then I looked at Ciro.

"You can move your hand."

His hand was still around my wrist.

He looked down as if he had forgotten.

Slowly, he let go.

A red mark circled my skin where his fingers had been.

His eyes stayed on it for one second too long.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

"No."

"Glass?"

"No."

"Your head?"

"Ciro."

"Answer me."

I stared at him.

"My head is fine. My patience is dying."

Saurin looked out the window.

I knew him well enough to recognize the exact angle of his face when he was trying not to react.

Ciro did not bother pretending amusement.

"You were almost killed."

"And you were almost killed covering me."

"That is different."

"Only in your head."

His jaw flexed.

Good.

I wanted him uncomfortable.

I wanted him forced into the same room with every truth he had hidden from me.

When we reached the house, Brin was waiting in the foyer in jeans, bare feet, and the expression of a woman who had been told just enough to become dangerous.

She crossed the marble floor and hugged me so hard my ribs hurt.

Then she released me and slapped Ciro across the chest.

Not his face.

Brin was brave, not suicidal.

"What happened?"

"A shooter—" I began.

"I know there was a shooter. Saurin texted me four words: stay inside, active threat. Do you know what that does to a person's blood pressure?"

Saurin removed his coat.

"You are welcome."

She pointed at him.

"Not now."

Rafael entered behind us.

Brin stared.

"And who is expensive funeral coat?"

"Rafael Lanza," I said.

Her face drained of color.

Rafael noticed.

"We have met?"

"No."

Too fast.

I looked at her.

Brin looked at me.

Something passed between us.

Not now.

Fine.

Apparently everyone in my life had enrolled in the same school of secrets.

Ciro ordered the west wing sealed, doubled guards at every entrance, and had electronic sweeps performed on the house.

For forty-five minutes, I watched men with weapons turn my home into a fortress.

Then I followed Ciro into his study and closed the door.

"Now."

He removed his jacket.

"Lea—"

"If you tell me to rest, I am going to throw that lamp at you."

His eyes moved to the bronze lamp on the side table.

"That lamp belonged to my grandmother."

"Then start talking."

For a moment, nothing moved except the fire.

Then Ciro went to the cabinet behind his desk.

He pressed his thumb to a hidden scanner beneath the third shelf.

A panel clicked open.

Of course he had a secret compartment in his study.

I was offended I had not found it years ago.

He removed a narrow wooden box.

Inside were letters.

Dozens of them.

My stomach tightened before I knew why.

He placed the box on the desk.

Every envelope had my name on it.

Lea.

Not Miss Moretti.

Not Leandra.

Lea.

The earliest was dated four years ago.

The week I left for Lisbon.

I picked it up.

The seal had never been broken because it had never been sent.

"What is this?"

Ciro leaned both hands against the desk.

"A mistake."

"There are at least fifty mistakes in this box."

"Seventy-three."

I looked at him.

"You counted?"

"I wrote them."

The room seemed to narrow.

"Why didn't you send them?"

His expression was unreadable.

"Because if I had, you would have come home."

"You don't know that."

"I do."

"You have a very flattering opinion of yourself."

"No." His voice dropped. "I had a very accurate opinion of you."

That hurt in a way anger did not.

Because he was right.

At twenty-five, if Ciro Vale had sent me one honest sentence—come home, I need you—I would have been at the airport before I finished reading it.

I turned the first envelope over in my fingers.

"What happened before Lisbon?"

He looked toward the fire.

"Three months before you left, a car followed you from the office."

I remembered.

A black SUV I had noticed twice, then dismissed because half of Chicago seemed to drive black SUVs.

"Saurin caught the driver two days later," Ciro continued. "He worked for a company tied to Vittorio Vale."

I frowned.

"Your uncle."

"Yes."

Vittorio Vale was Ciro's father's older brother. He had lived mostly in Geneva for years and appeared in Chicago only for funerals, weddings, and business dinners where everyone smiled too carefully.

I had met him three times.

He had always kissed my hand.

I suddenly wanted to wash it eleven years late.

"Why would your uncle follow me?"

"Because the Compact had a condition."

Ciro opened another drawer and removed a folded legal document.

"If one family broke the peace, control of certain ports and trusts passed to the surviving signatories. Your father placed the Moretti voting shares in a protected trust."

"I know about the trust. I inherited it at twenty-one."

"Not all of it."

I stared at him.

"What do you mean?"

"There is a controlling block you cannot access until the terms of the Compact are satisfied."

"And what are the terms?"

He hesitated.

My temper flared.

"Ciro."

"The Moretti heir must be alive at thirty."

I went cold.

I was twenty-nine.

My birthday was in six weeks.

"If I die before thirty?"

"The shares revert to a joint Vale-Lanza holding."

The room went silent.

I understood the arithmetic immediately.

Kill me, profit.

Protect me, block someone else's fortune.

"How much?"

"Approximately nine hundred million dollars in assets, depending on valuation."

I laughed because the alternative was screaming.

"Nine hundred million dollars."

"It was worth less when your father created it."

"That is not comforting."

"It was not meant to be."

I looked down at the letters again.

"So your uncle wanted me dead for money."

"I did not know it was Vittorio. I knew only that someone connected to his network had put surveillance on you."

"And Lisbon?"

"Your father's instructions named Portugal as protected ground. The Lanzas controlled the security network there then. I believed you would be safer inside a legitimate Vale company than hidden somewhere you could not build a life."

"You could have told me."

"I could not risk you reacting like you are reacting now."

"By asking questions?"

"By refusing to be afraid."

I stared at him.

He stared back.

There it was again.

Not contempt.

Not indifference.

Fear.

Ciro Vale had built his life around controlling rooms, men, money, violence, timing.

I was the thing he could not control.

And apparently that terrified him more than bullets.

I held up the first letter.

"May I?"

His mouth tightened.

"They are yours."

I opened it.

The paper inside was covered in his handwriting.

Lea,

You have been gone three days. I have already discovered fourteen things in this office that you used to fix without telling me. Saurin says this is good for my character. I am considering firing him.

I almost smiled.

Then I read the next line.

I told myself sending you away was necessary. That does not make the house quieter in any useful way.

My throat closed.

I looked up.

Ciro was watching me.

"Why did you never send even one?"

"Because the people watching you needed to believe you did not matter to me."

"Did I?"

His expression changed.

I took one step closer.

"Ciro. Did I matter to you?"