Chapter 2 - The Evidence on the Screen
The bedroom was silent save for the drumming of rain against the high floor-to-ceiling glass.
Luca took Elena’s hands in his. Her fingers were ice-cold, stiffened by adrenaline and the drying blood. He stood up slowly, keeping his body between her and the bedroom door as if protecting her from the judgment of the house itself.
"Come," he said softly.
He led her into the master bathroom. The room was a palace of black marble and heated slate, lit by soft recessed gold lights. Luca turned the silver handles on the double vanity, filling the porcelain basin with warm water.
He reached into the linen cabinet, pulled out a plush, dark gray velvet bathrobe, and laid it across the counter.
"Turn around," he told her.
Elena obeyed without a word. Her breath hitched as his long, calloused fingers found the hidden zipper at the nape of her neck. He pulled it down with slow, deliberate care, ensuring the metallic teeth never caught her skin. As the blood-soaked ivory silk loosened and fell from her shoulders, Luca caught the fabric, sliding it down her arms and letting it pool onto the marble floor.
He did not look at her body with anything resembling impropriety. His eyes remained locked on her face, searching for shock, for terror, for any sign that her mind was slipping away.
He picked up the plush bathrobe and wrapped it around her shoulders, crossing the lapels tightly over her chest and tying the thick belt around her waist.
"Hands," he murmured.
Elena held her hands out over the sink. Luca took a washcloth, soaked it in warm water, and began gently wiping the blood from her skin. He cleaned between her fingers, across her knuckles, and up her wrists, his touch impossibly tender for a man whose hands had spent twenty years dealing in violence.
"He threatened Caroline," Elena whispered, staring down at the pink-stained water swirling down the drain. "He knew where my nephew goes to second grade, Luca. He knew the color of his school backpack."
"He knew because someone gave him that information," Luca said, his voice dropping an octave into a register that made the marble seem to vibrate. "Derek Shaw was a butcher, but he wasn't an investigator. He couldn't find a file without help. Someone in this city handed him your family."
Luca dried her hands with a fresh towel, picked up the discarded ivory dress with two fingers, and shoved it into the bottom of the vanity hamper, shutting the door.
They returned to the bedroom.
The black phone lay on the silk duvet where Elena had left it. The screen had gone dark.
Luca picked it up. "Show me."
Elena sat on the edge of the bed, pulling the thick robe around her ankles. She took the phone from his palm, angled the screen toward her face, and unlocked it using the biometric scan she had taken from Shaw’s cooling body.
"I opened his messaging apps before I ran," she said, her fingers moving across the glass with mechanical precision. "Look at the time stamps."
Luca leaned over her shoulder. The faint scent of her vanilla perfume, mixed with the sharp metallic tang of iron, filled his lungs.
On the screen was an encrypted Signal chat with an unnamed number labeled only as V-3.
V-3 (8:42 PM): The accountant is at the Hawthorne Gala. Coatroom, ground floor. The guards on that corridor have been reassigned to the main valet entrance. Shaw (8:45 PM): Is she alone? V-3 (8:46 PM): She will be. I sent the coat attendant on a fifteen-minute break. You have until nine o'clock. Get the Valenti master passkeys and the financial encryption codes. If she hesitates, use her sister in Stamford.
Luca stared at the code name on the screen. V-3.
A cold, lethal stillness settled over his chest.
V-3 was not an alias used by Adrian Mercer’s men. It was an internal routing code used exclusively within the Valenti Syndicate’s encrypted private network. It stood for Valenti Command Level Three.
There were only four people in New York who possessed Level Three encryption access to his household communications: his consigliere, Marco; his chief of operations, Paulie; his right-hand enforcer, Mateo; and his older uncle, Capo Dominic Valenti.
Someone inside Luca’s own house had handed Elena to a killer on a silver platter.
"Luca..." Elena’s voice was barely a whisper. She raised her eyes to his. "That code..."
"I know what it means," Luca said quietly.
Before he could speak further, his primary phone buzzed against his hip. He pulled it out and looked at the caller ID.
Mateo.
Luca pressed the phone to his ear. "Speak."
"Boss," Mateo’s heavy, gravelly voice rasped through the speaker. "We have a problem. Adrian Mercer just called an emergency summit of the Five Borough Commission for four in the morning. He claims we broke the peace treaty. He says Derek Shaw’s body was found in the coatroom at the Hawthorne Foundation, and he’s demanding we deliver the person responsible to his warehouse in Queens before sunrise."
Luca looked down at Elena. Her dark eyes were wide, watching his every expression.
"Tell Mercer the Valenti family doesn't answer to summonses from traitors," Luca said coldly. "And Mateo?"
"Yeah, Boss?"
"Take six men in dark SUVs to Stamford, Connecticut right now. Extraction protocol Alpha. Move Elena’s sister, Caroline, and her son to the Gramercy Park safehouse immediately. Anyone trailing them gets put in the ground."
"Understood," Mateo said. "What about the house?"
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Luca looked at the door leading out into the corridor of his penthouse—a home where he had trusted the men who guarded his sleep.
"Gather the council in the subterranean boardroom in thirty minutes," Luca commanded. "The war isn't outside our walls, Mateo. It’s already inside."
