Chapter 1
Alessia Pov
By the time the photographer asked me to move three inches to the left, I had already authorized the transfer that could eventually get Nadia—my best friend, attorney, and cofounder of Lighthouse, the secret fund we used to help women and children escape dangerous men connected to my family’s world—and me killed.
“Perfect, Miss Moretti. Just a little to your left—yes. Hold that.”
I shifted beside Mayor Bellini, Saint Aurelia’s mayor and one of the many politicians who had spent enough time around my family to know exactly which questions not to ask, and folded my hands neatly at my waist while another round of flashes went off in my face. Twelve million dollars of Moretti money had bought the new pediatric wing white marble floors, private treatment rooms, a rehabilitation center, and our family name in brushed gold above the nurses’ station, it had also bought my father another room full of politicians willing to shake his hand, which I suspected was his favorite part of the entire project.
The mayor’s hand moved from my shoulder to the middle of my back, and across the lobby Marcello, one of my father’s security men who had been watching my back for years, adjusted his cuff, barely a movement, nothing anyone else would have noticed, and Mayor Bellini certainly did not, but I knew Marcello well enough to understand he had registered exactly where the mayor’s hand was and had apparently decided he did not like it. The gun beneath his jacket remained hidden, so did Enzo’s, another one of Papà’s men assigned to my security, near the elevators, three feet outside every photograph of Saint Alessia Moretti stood men carrying loaded weapons.
“Beautiful. That’s the one.”
I smiled wider because that was what everyone had come to see: Saint Alessia, I hated that fucking nickname. It had started in some newspaper column four years ago and somehow stuck, now it appeared beneath photographs of me holding giant checks, opening shelters, sitting beside politicians, and smiling at sick children while journalists wrote glowing articles about the compassionate daughter of Saint Aurelia’s most successful businessman.
Saint Aurelia was our city, an old East Coast port divided by money, politics, family names, and invisible borders everyone important knew better than to cross carelessly.
Nobody photographed Marcello’s gun, nobody mentioned that my father’s construction companies had an amazing habit of winning city contracts, and nobody knew that Saint Alessia had stolen several million dollars from Vittorio Moretti, my father and the head of the Moretti family, one of the two old criminal organizations that had controlled Saint Aurelia for generations.
A reporter stepped toward me with a microphone.
“Miss Moretti, your foundation has been involved with this project since the beginning. What does seeing it finally open mean to you?”
The Moretti Foundation was the legitimate charitable arm of our family empire and, officially, my entire life. Hospitals, shelters, scholarships, community programs, anything clean enough to place our name on without making people uncomfortable landed on my desk.
“It means families won’t have to leave Saint Aurelia anymore just to get their children specialized care. The doctors were already doing incredible work. We were fortunate enough to give them the space and resources to do more of it.”
“You’ve increased the foundation’s medical giving by nearly forty percent since becoming executive director. That’s a substantial change.”
I almost laughed because forty percent sounded wonderful when nobody asked where some of it came from.
“We had the ability to do more, so we did.”
The reporter smiled. “People call you Saint Alessia for a reason.”
“Please don’t encourage them.”
She laughed and took it for modesty, I let her because people usually heard whatever made them most comfortable.
Across the lobby, Nadia stood beside a cocktail table holding a champagne flute she had not touched, and she was staring at me in a way I knew far too well, which meant something had gone wrong. Her phone was still in her hand, and I had gotten her message nine minutes earlier.
Costa asked for Palermo records. Do not move anything else. Find me.
Costa meant Leonard Costa, one of the internal auditors employed by Moretti Financial, the legitimate company that sat over dozens of family businesses and handled enough of our money to make knowing where every dollar went extremely important.
Palermo was one of several dull Moretti-controlled subsidiaries buried beneath the foundation’s legitimate accounts, the financial equivalent of beige wallpaper, which was exactly why Nadia and I had quietly turned it into one of the main channels for moving money into Lighthouse without attaching my name directly to the transfers.
Costa looking at Palermo was bad.
Costa asking specifically for Palermo records was worse.
Unfortunately, I had already moved something else, a hundred and twelve thousand dollars to be exact, two plane tickets, a short-term apartment, and an attorney’s retainer, enough money for Francesca Santini, one of Lighthouse’s newest cases and the wife of a man connected to my father’s organization, to take her two daughters and disappear from Saint Aurelia before her husband realized she was leaving.
Nadia had spent the last few weeks quietly arranging the legal side while I supplied the money, and tonight was the first safe opening Francesca had been given to get herself and her girls out before Rocco found out.
A small hand slipped into mine before I could reach Nadia.
“Alessia, am I supposed to cut it now?”
I looked down at Mia, the eight-year-old patient I had met earlier that morning and one of the children who would actually use the new wing everyone else was currently congratulating themselves for building. She stood beside me holding the ceremonial scissors with both hands, she was missing most of her hair and had spent ten minutes earlier telling Mayor Bellini that his tie was ugly, which had made me like her immediately.
“Whenever you want. You’re in charge.”
She looked at the crowd, and her grip tightened around the scissors.
“But everybody’s looking at me.”
I bent slightly so only she could hear me.
“Half of them aren’t. The politicians are trying to figure out which camera makes them look important, the reporters are wondering what they’re getting fed afterward, and my friend over there is deciding whether murdering me would cost her law license.”
Mia looked toward Nadia, Nadia smiled and raised one finger, and Mia giggled before cutting through the blue ribbon. The entire lobby erupted in applause, and Mia’s face lit up so quickly that I forgot about Palermo for a few seconds, only a few, because the second Mia was pulled away toward her mother, Nadia appeared beside me.
“You have two minutes. And wipe that look off your face because I know you’re about to make a joke.”
“I wasn’t going to make a joke.”
“You absolutely were.”
“I was considering one.”
She grabbed my elbow and steered me toward the windows with a smile so convincing that anyone watching probably thought we were discussing the success of the hospital opening.
“Tell me you did not move another hundred and twelve thousand dollars after I specifically told you to stop moving money.”
“I approved it before your message.”
“Seven minutes before my message, Alessia.”
“Exactly. Which means, legally speaking—”
“I am literally your lawyer. Do not finish that sentence.”
Nadia stared at me until I took a sip of water and looked away.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Leonard Costa requested access to the Palermo subsidiaries this morning.”
The glass stopped against my bottom lip and I lowered it slowly, because that was fucking fantastic.
“Why the hell is Costa looking at Palermo?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“How worried are you?”
“If this were any other internal auditor? Annoyed. Costa found three million dollars missing from a Moretti construction account in less than a week last year, so personally, I’m praying he wakes up tomorrow with a sudden passion for pottery.”
That made two of us.
Costa did not scare me the way most men around my father did, he was not six-foot-four with a gun under his jacket and blood beneath his fingernails, he wore thin glasses and carried spreadsheets, and at the moment I would have taken the gun.
“Does he know what we’re doing?”
“If Costa knew what we were doing, do you honestly think I’d be standing here drinking bad champagne and discussing it with you?”
Nadia held her phone between us, transaction numbers filling the screen.
“Palermo has moved too much money this quarter. If he follows the reimbursements into the housing subsidiaries, eventually he’s going to ask why the hell a children’s foundation keeps paying emergency relocation expenses.”
“He won’t find names.”
“He doesn’t need names. Alessia, listen to me. He needs a pattern. Once he finds the pattern, he follows it, and once he follows it far enough, he reports upstairs.”
Upstairs meant Moretti Financial, Moretti Financial meant Gabriel, my older brother and the Moretti heir, who had spent the last several years being prepared to inherit our father’s legitimate companies along with everything less legitimate attached to them, and Gabriel meant Papà.
Suddenly the water in my hand tasted like nothing.
“Can you make the records disappear?”
“Legally?”
I looked at her.
She stared back.
“No. And I am your attorney, so whatever criminal little follow-up question just entered your head, swallow it.”
I looked through the windows instead, Saint Aurelia stretched toward the harbor below us, all brick rooftops, church domes, glass towers, and old money pretending it had not been built on anything ugly.
From twelve floors up, South Harbor, the Moretti-controlled half of the waterfront and the center of much of my father’s power, looked harmless.
It was not.
Rocco Santini, Francesca’s abusive husband and a Moretti-connected club operator who made money from several businesses inside my father’s territory, owned two buildings down there, not directly of course because men like Rocco never seemed to own the things they actually owned, paperwork had the irritating habit of remembering names.
“Francesca and the girls are still leaving tonight?”
“Yes. And before you decide that means everything magically worked out, Rocco Santini operates inside your father’s territory. If he figures out somebody helped his wife disappear, Alessia, this stops being an accounting problem very fucking quickly.”
“They can’t stay with him. Has he touched the girls?”
“No.”
“And Francesca?”
Nadia said nothing, her jaw tightened, and there was my answer.
“Then they’re leaving.”
“They are leaving. I already told you that. What I’m trying to get through your very stubborn skull is that Rocco Santini works inside your father’s territory. If he realizes somebody helped his wife disappear, we have a much bigger problem. And tomorrow morning Costa opens Palermo.”
“We’ll deal with Santini.”
“And Costa?”
“We’ll deal with him too.”
“With what plan?”
“I’ll let you know when I have one.”
Nadia stared at me like she wanted to shake me, and I almost wished she would because at least then she would stop asking questions I did not have answers to.
“Tonight Francesca and those girls get on that plane. Tomorrow can ruin my life tomorrow.”
Nadia let out a long breath through her nose before picking up her champagne, which was as close as I was getting to agreement.
Three years ago, Lighthouse had started with one woman and one bruised face, I had followed a payment from one of my father’s clubs into an account he never checked personally, then another, then another, and eventually the question stopped being whether I could move his money, it became how much I could move before somebody smarter than me started paying attention.
Apparently, I had my answer.
Nadia took a sip of champagne and immediately lowered the glass.
“Whatever you do, do not turn around.”
I turned around.
“Madonna (My God), Alessia.”
Costa stood near the elevators in a gray suit, thin glasses sitting low on his nose. He was not speaking to anyone, and in a room full of people practically throwing themselves in front of cameras, that somehow made him easier to notice.
His eyes moved across the lobby, passed over me, then came back, and my stomach tightened just a little when his stare stayed on me a second too long.
Nadia leaned closer.
“Smile like you don’t have several felonies hidden behind that face.”
Right.
I smiled, because Saint Alessia never had anything to hide.
★ ★ ★
My father kissed my forehead before telling me I was going to marry a stranger.
Dinner was in the smaller dining room with three places set near the bay windows, my mother was at a museum board dinner, which meant there were no flowers in the center of the table and no one trying to force vegetables onto Gabriel’s plate like he might develop scurvy before dessert.
Papà stood when I entered and pulled out my chair.
“Ah, there she is. Vieni, tesoro (Come here, darling). You did well today. Bellini called me himself.”
“Only well?”
“He said the opening was perfect.”
“Then I feel like perfect should have been your opening compliment.”
Papà smiled and kissed my forehead before sitting.
“Everyone else can settle for perfect. You’re my daughter. I expect more.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes, and I pointed at him.
“See? This. This is why you’re emotionally damaged.”
“I’m emotionally damaged because I’ve had you as a sister for twenty-five years.”
“You had five peaceful years before I was born. Whatever went wrong with you happened before me.”
“Keep telling yourself that, sorellina (little sister).”
“Don’t call me that when you’re being annoying.”
“Then I’d never get to call you it.”
“Basta (Enough), both of you,” Papà muttered.
I sat down, and the ridiculous part was that we were twenty-five and thirty and it still only took one word from him to make us sound twelve again.
Dinner stayed normal through most of the first course, Papà asked about the hospital, Gabriel stole a potato from my plate, so I stabbed his hand with my fork and listened to him curse under his breath.
“Cristo (Christ), Alessia. What the fuck?”
“Keep your hands off my plate.”
“It was one fucking potato.”
“Then bleeding over it is even more embarrassing.”
“You’re a psychopath.”
“Yet you keep reaching across my plate. Who’s the stupid one?”
Papà continued eating because he had stopped interfering with this particular argument years ago, but then he set his fork down and Gabriel stopped chewing at almost the exact same time, which was enough to make me look between them.
“All right. What happened?”
“Pier Forty-One,” Papà said.
Pier Forty-One sat inside North Harbor, the half of Saint Aurelia’s waterfront controlled by the Vescari family, our oldest rivals and, for the last twelve years, our increasingly fragile allies.
My back straightened.
“How bad?”
“Bad. Six dead, two still missing. Black Harbor hit one of Lorenzo’s shipments before sunrise. We recovered three vehicles by noon, but the shipment itself is gone.”
Black Harbor was the newer criminal network forcing its way into Saint Aurelia, a group without one old family name attached to it, which made them harder to understand and even harder to control. They used shell companies, hired crews, stolen routes, weapons, narcotics, trafficking, and whatever else made money, and lately they had been doing everything possible to convince the Morettis and Vescaris that the other family was responsible for the damage.
Lorenzo Vescari, the head of the Vescari family and my father’s counterpart on the northern side of the city, had maintained an uneasy peace with Papà for twelve years.
“So Lorenzo thinks we took it.”
“No.”
“Not yet.”
Papà did not answer, he did not have to.
Black Harbor had spent months screwing with both families and leaving just enough behind to make us suspicious of each other, Vescari ammunition at a burned Moretti warehouse, a dead Vescari driver near one of our clubs, one incident could be explained, ten started looking intentional.
I still remembered the last Moretti-Vescari war, not dates, not whatever important men had supposedly been fighting over, I remembered sleeping downstairs because my bedroom faced the road, Gabriel coming home after three days with stitches above his eyebrow, my mother standing at the kitchen sink before breakfast, scrubbing blood from Papà’s cuff while telling me it was wine, and I had known it was not wine even then.
I did not want that again.
“What does Lorenzo want?”
“Something permanent. A guarantee neither family can walk away from when this gets worse.”
Gabriel looked down at his plate, and my eyes narrowed because that little shit knew something.
I set down my fork.
“Why are you looking at your dinner like it’s about to save you? What did you two agree to?”
Nobody answered, and I looked at Papà.
“Papà.”
He reached across the table and covered my hand with his, which immediately told me I was going to hate whatever came next.
“Alessia, tesoro (darling), before you get angry, listen to me. Everything I have ever done has been to protect this family. You know that.”
“That might be the worst possible way you could’ve started this conversation. What did you agree to?”
“Lorenzo and I believe a marriage is the strongest guarantee we can give each other. If Matteo becomes my son-in-law and you become part of Lorenzo’s family, Black Harbor can no longer attack one house and gamble that the other will stay out of it.”
Matteo Vescari, Lorenzo’s twenty-nine-year-old son and heir to the Vescari family, was a man I knew mostly from Saint Aurelia’s endless cycle of dinners, galas, weddings, and funerals. He was charming, attractive, well-connected, and familiar enough that nobody would call him a stranger, though I knew almost nothing about the person underneath the smile.
For a second I just stared at Papà because I honestly thought I had misunderstood.
“Wait. Whose marriage are we talking about?”
Gabriel shifted again, suddenly far too interested in his wine, while Papà squeezed my hand.
“Yours, figlia mia (my daughter). You and Matteo.”
My fingers went numb under his, then my stomach dropped so hard it almost hurt, and I pulled my hand away.
“You’re serious.”
“I would never joke about your marriage.”
“When?”
“We intend to announce the engagement next month. The wedding date has not been finalized.”
“You intend to announce it. So you negotiated my marriage, got Matteo’s agreement, discussed when you’d announce it, and nobody thought the woman actually getting married might deserve to be included in that conversation?”
“Alessia, don’t make this uglier than it is.”
I laughed once because I could not help it.
“Papà, you arranged my marriage without asking me. Tell me the pretty version.”
“This alliance could prevent another war.”
“Did Matteo agree to this?”
“Yes.”
Of course he fucking did.
I remembered him at the Cresswell charity dinner two months ago, standing with his hand around some blonde woman’s waist before coming over to speak to me smelling like expensive cologne and someone else’s perfume, telling me that Saint Alessia made the rest of them look terrible and maybe after wedding season I would finally have time for something besides saving the city.
I had thought he was flirting.
Apparently he had already known something I did not.
“What does Matteo get?”
“Access to several neutral shipping agreements, voting support on the port commission, and the strength of a public alliance with this family. In exchange, the Vescaris guarantee our northern routes and stand with us against Black Harbor.”
“And me? What exactly do I get out of this deal?”
Papà looked at me like the answer should have been obvious.
“You get a husband from one of the strongest families in Saint Aurelia. A name that can protect you even when mine no longer can.”
Wow, lucky me.
“How generous.”
“Alessia.”
“No, really. Matteo gets shipping routes, political support, access to the Morettis, and an alliance that strengthens his entire family. I get Matteo. Fantastic negotiation, Papà.”
Gabriel rubbed his forehead while Papà’s expression hardened.
“You asked me what you receive. I answered you.”
“No. I asked what I get. You told me why this is good for every man sitting at the table.”
“You keep your foundation. You remain executive director. Your staff stays with you, your personal accounts remain yours, and Lorenzo has given me his word that no one will interfere with your charitable work.”
I stopped, and my fingers curled against my palm beneath the table because they had discussed my job, my staff, my money, they had sat somewhere without me and gone through my life piece by piece, deciding which parts I would be allowed to keep after I became Matteo Vescari’s wife.
My throat tightened, I swallowed it down, and then I said the only thing that came naturally.
“No. I’m not marrying him.”
Gabriel looked at me and Papà’s face went completely still.
“Alessia, this is bigger than what you want.”
“There it is.”
“Tesoro (darling), listen to me before you decide something out of anger.”
“I am listening. That’s exactly why I’m angry.”
His thumb rubbed against his ring, a small movement that meant he was angry.
“I have never asked you to carry what I ask of Gabriel. Never. I kept you away from this business because I wanted something different for you. I wanted you to have your foundation, your work, a life that belonged to you.”
I actually laughed, and he stared at me like I had lost my mind.
“You protected me from the business?”
“Yes. I did.”
“By selling me into it in a prettier dress?”
Gabriel pushed his plate away.
“Ali, come on—”
“No. Let your sister speak,” Papà said.
My mouth closed because somehow that was worse.
I looked at my father and suddenly wanted to get up, my legs were perfectly functional, the door was right there, I could say no and leave, and then what.
Papà would be angry, fine, I had survived angry Vittorio Moretti before, but he would want to know why, why was I willing to risk an alliance over a man I barely knew, was someone influencing me, was there something else going on, he would start looking, my schedule first, then the foundation, then Nadia, and Costa was already asking questions about Palermo.
Francesca and her girls were probably on their way to the airport right now because of money I had stolen from the man sitting across from me.
Shit.
A cage did not need visible bars if every exit cost somebody else.
I rubbed my thumb against the edge of my napkin and Papà’s eyes dropped to the movement, because of course they did.
I looked back at him.
If this was business, then I could make it business.
“What happens to my foundation after the wedding?”
His expression changed slightly.
“Nothing. You continue running it.”
“Completely? No Vescari approval on expenses, no Matteo deciding which projects are respectable enough for his wife, no one from his family sitting on my board?”
“Alessia—”
“No. You want me to treat this like a business arrangement, Papà? Fine. Then stop talking to me like the little girl whose chair you pulled out and treat me like I actually have a seat at this table.”
Gabriel’s eyes moved between us while Papà studied me, and slowly the anger in his expression receded behind calculation.
“No Vescari will control your foundation. You have my word.”
“Put it in writing. Complete financial authority stays with me. My staff answers to me. Nadia stays. No Vescari gets a board seat, and nobody—not Matteo, not Lorenzo, nobody—decides what projects I fund except me.”
“Alessia, when have I ever broken my word to you?”
“I’m not asking for your word. I’m asking for paper.”
A long pause passed before he nodded.
“Va bene (All right). You’ll have it.”
“Complete financial control.”
“Yes.”
“Nadia stays.”
“Yes, tesoro (darling).”
I picked up my wine, my mouth dry enough that the first sip barely helped.
“Then I’ll do it.”
Both men stared at me.
Papà recovered first.
“You’re saying yes?”
I wanted to throw the wineglass at the wall, instead I set it down carefully.
“I’m saying I’ll marry Matteo.”
Papà’s shoulders relaxed, barely, still enough for me to see it.
He reached for my hand again and this time I let him.
“Brava, figlia mia (Good girl, my daughter). You’re doing the right thing for this family.”
Sure.
I smiled even though it felt stiff on my face.
“Of course, Papà.”
His thumb moved over my knuckles.
“I knew I could count on my girl.”
My stomach twisted, and I looked down at our hands before he could see it on my face.
★ ★ ★
Gabriel caught me before I reached the stairs.
“Ali. Wait.”
I kept walking, and he followed.
“Alessia, come on. Stop for one second.”
“I’m tired, Gabe.”
“You’re pissed at me.”
I looked over at him.
“Wow. Nothing gets past my brilliant older brother.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t do that thing where you turn everything into a joke because you’re angry with me.”
“I’m not pretending I’m not angry.”
The corridor was lined with old Moretti portraits, generations of dead men staring down at us from gilded frames, which made for a fantastic audience.
Gabriel shoved his hands into his pockets.
“I didn’t know, Ali. Not until this afternoon.”
“I know.”
“I would’ve told you.”
“When?”
“Tonight. Before dinner if I could’ve gotten you alone.”
“How heroic of you.”
“Madonna (My God), Alessia, would you stop trying to make me the enemy for five fucking minutes?”
I stopped walking.
“Did you honestly think I wouldn’t care?”
“No. Of course I knew you’d care. I just—I didn’t know what the hell you were going to do.”
“You didn’t know how I’d react to Papà announcing he traded me into a marriage?”
“I know Matteo. I grew up around him. Yeah, he can be a fucking asshole, but he’s not cruel. He’s not the kind of man who’s going to hurt you.”
I stared at him because that was apparently his defense.
“Beautiful. Put it on the invitations. Matteo Vescari: occasionally an asshole, probably won’t hurt the bride.”
His jaw tightened.
“You know that isn’t what I meant.”
“No, Gabe. I know exactly what you meant. There are worse men, so your little sister got lucky.”
“I never said you should be grateful.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He rubbed his jaw, and there it was again, Gabriel always did that when he was trying to figure out which answer would piss me off least.
“Listen to me, sorellina (little sister). If you really don’t want this, tell Papà now. I mean it. Before they announce anything. Once Lorenzo makes this public, backing out becomes an insult, and then this turns into something none of us can control. If you’re going to say no, say it now. I’ll stand there with you.”
For half a second, relief loosened something in my chest, then I heard the rest, contain the fallout, and of course that was where his mind went first.
I nodded.
“Goodnight, Gabriel.”
“Ali, don’t.”
I turned toward him.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t shut me out because I fucked up what I was trying to say.”
My throat tightened and I hated that.
“I didn’t need you to say the perfect thing, Gabe. I needed my brother to care what this costs me before he started calculating what my saying no would cost everybody else.”
His face changed, finally.
“Alessia... cazzo (fuck). I do care.”
I shook my head.
“Goodnight.”
I left him standing beneath the portraits.
★ ★ ★
The east corridor was darker than the rest of the house because Papà hated bright lights near his study after dinner, rain slid down the tall windows, blurring the garden lamps outside into streaks of gold, and I was halfway down the corridor when I saw him.
It was not Matteo, my newly assigned fiancé and the Vescari heir my father had just promised me to, thank God, and the fact that I was relieved about that annoyed me more than it should have.
Damian Vescari, Matteo’s older cousin and the Vescari family’s underboss and fixer, stood outside Papà’s study adjusting his tie. Lorenzo relied on Damian when a problem required something more dangerous than diplomacy, which meant his name usually surfaced around betrayals, threats, missing men, or situations nobody wanted attached to their own hands.
He had loosened his tie enough to pull the knot apart and was wrapping the dark fabric once around his hand before tightening it again.
My eyes went straight to his fingers, long, scarred across two knuckles, steady, and then I saw the blood on his cuff, which was much more interesting.
He looked up, and I had seen Damian at funerals, galas, council dinners, and once across a courthouse lobby while three federal agents did a terrible job pretending they were not watching him.
He was always quiet.
People mistook quiet men for harmless men.
Nobody made that mistake twice with Damian.
His gray eyes settled on me, not my dress, not my legs, my face, and for some reason that made me more aware of him.
I adjusted the bracelet on my wrist.
His eyes dropped immediately.
I stopped touching it.
“Alessia Moretti.”
“Damian Vescari.”
I could have taken the other staircase, I did not, and as I walked closer I smelled his cologne first, something dark and clean, then the metallic scent underneath it.
Blood.
Definitely fresh.
I was almost past him when he spoke.
“So. You said yes.”
I stopped because of course he had heard.
“Apparently my dining room has excellent acoustics.”
“I wasn’t listening.”
“Of course not.”
“Then your father said Matteo’s name.”
I looked at him.
“And suddenly your manners abandoned you?”
“I didn’t say I had good manners.”
I looked at him, and at least he did not bother lying.
“Did Lorenzo send you over to inspect the merchandise before the transaction becomes final?”
His eyebrow moved slightly.
“Merchandise?”
“My father and your uncle just exchanged shipping routes and political support for my marriage. What would you call it?”
“A bad solution to a worse problem.”
That was not what I expected, and I folded my arms while his eyes dropped to them for a second, there it was again, he noticed everything.
“Does your cousin know you consider his engagement a bad solution?”
“Matteo knows plenty.”
“And understands almost none of it.”
The corner of his mouth moved, barely.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
That was almost funny, which was irritating in its own way.
Damian reached inside his jacket and my eyes followed his hand automatically before he pulled out a folded piece of paper, not a gun, disappointing.
“What’s that?”
“Something you should see.”
He held it toward me and I did not take it.
“That tells me absolutely nothing.”
“It’s a port access log.”
“And why exactly are you handing me Vescari port records?”
“Because you’re going to marry Matteo.”
“Yes. I’ve received several announcements on the subject tonight.”
“And if you’re going to marry him, you should know what you’re walking into.”
That got my attention.
I took the page and our fingers almost touched, almost, and I looked down before I could think about why I had noticed.
Entry times, vehicle numbers, security authorizations, one line was marked.
M. VESCARI — NORTH SERVICE GATE — 11:42 P.M.EXIT — 12:16 A.M.
Yesterday.
Pier Forty-One had been hit a few hours later.
“Matteo was at the port.”
“His authorization was.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
“Where does he claim he was?”
“Bellagio. Until two.”
Bellagio was one of the private clubs where men from both families conducted business when they wanted expensive whiskey, discreet rooms, and employees who understood that forgetting faces was part of the job.
I looked at the paper again.
“Someone could’ve used his credentials.”
“They could have.”
“But you don’t believe that.”
Damian adjusted the edge of his cuff, the blood darker there.
“I believe Matteo lied about where he was. I want to know why.”
“That’s all you have?”
“For now.”
I studied him, and he did not look excited about the possibility that his cousin had betrayed his family, he did not look angry either, he barely looked like anything at all, which was irritating enough to make my eyes go back to the blood.
“Is that from the port?”
“Some of it.”
“Some of it?”
“Yes.”
I waited and got nothing else, naturally.
“Let me guess. Someone didn’t appreciate you asking questions.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
He pulled his cuff lower over the stain.
“Eventually, he became more cooperative.”
I stared at him for a second because apparently that was all the explanation I was getting.
“Clean that before you go into Papà’s study.”
“Your father has seen blood before.”
“I’m not worried about Papà. I’m worried about the carpet.”
His mouth twitched again, definitely almost a smile this time, and for some stupid reason my own mouth wanted to do the same, so I looked down at the paper.
“You don’t like Matteo.”
“Whether I like him is irrelevant.”
“He’s your cousin and you’re standing in my house secretly giving his fiancée evidence that he’s lying to both our families. I think we passed irrelevant several minutes ago.”
“Being my cousin doesn’t make the log disappear.”
Fair.
I hated that.
“Do you think he was involved in the attack?”
“I think he lied. Anything beyond that would be guessing.”
At least he did not pretend to know more than he did.
The study door opened behind him, one of Papà’s men stepped into the corridor, glanced between us, and walked away, and Damian waited until he was gone before looking at me again.
“You don’t want to marry him.”
My grip tightened on the paper.
“You figured that out from eavesdropping outside my dining room?”
“I figured it out when you said no.”
“And then I said yes.”
“Only after you made your father guarantee the foundation.”
My fingers curled harder around the page and his eyes dropped.
Shit.
I loosened them.
“That foundation matters more to you than the marriage.”
“You know absolutely nothing about my foundation.”
“No.”
I waited for him to argue and he did not.
“But I know you protected it before you protected yourself.”
That shut me up, because everyone else had heard me agree, Papà heard obedience, Gabriel heard the problem disappearing, Damian had noticed what I asked for first, and I did not like that at all.
I held the paper toward him.
“Take this back.”
“Keep it.”
“I shouldn’t have confidential Vescari port records.”
“You’re marrying a Vescari.”
“On paper.”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“Paper has ruined more lives than bullets.”
That was cheerful.
He stepped closer, not much, half a step maybe, still enough for me to smell his cologne more clearly and the blood too.
His hand moved toward the paper, and my eyes dropped to it before I could stop myself, the veins across the back of his hand shifting as his fingers closed around the edge, then his fingertips brushed mine, barely, and my hand jerked, not enough for anyone else to notice but enough for Damian to notice because of course he did.
Heat crawled up my wrist and I curled my fingers into my palm like that would somehow get rid of it, and when I looked at his face, which was a bad idea, he was already watching me.
There was a faint scar through one eyebrow, I had never noticed it before, I also had not noticed how dark his lashes were, which was an incredibly useless thing to be thinking about while holding evidence that my future husband might be lying to both our families, so I told myself to get a grip and focused on the only thing I could still control, my mouth.
“Do you stare at everybody like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you already know they’re going to disappoint you.”
“Usually I’m right.”
“And me?”
He paused, his eyes moving over my face once, slowly.
“You’re harder to catch.”
My pulse kicked, annoying, and I pulled my hand away completely.
“That sounded dangerously close to a compliment.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Of course not.”
“No. Compliments are usually less accurate.”
The paper disappeared inside his jacket and he turned toward Papà’s study.
“Read the contract before you sign it.”
“I was planning on it.”
“Read Matteo too.”
I frowned.
“You already gave me the log.”
“One lie doesn’t prove anything.”
“Then why show it to me?”
“Because once someone decides the first lie is worth telling, the second usually comes easier.”
I studied him more carefully because there was something else, I could feel it now, he was giving me enough to look but not enough to understand why he wanted me looking in the first place.
“You’re not telling me something.”
His hand stopped on the brass handle, finally, a hesitation, tiny but there, and that was enough to make something almost like satisfaction move through me because Damian Vescari was not completely impossible to read.
“Neither are you.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not the one handing secret port records to somebody else’s fiancée.”
“No. You’re stealing control of your own life back one contract clause at a time.”
My stomach tightened because that one hit too close, and I hated that even more.
Damian opened the study door.
“Buonanotte (Goodnight), Alessia.”
“Buonanotte (Goodnight), Damian.”
The door shut behind him, and I stood there for a few seconds staring at the dark wood while my fingers still felt warm where he had touched them, which was stupid, so I rubbed them against my dress and started toward the stairs.
Papà had given me a fiancé tonight, Damian Vescari had given me a reason not to trust him, and somehow the second one was the problem I could not stop thinking about.
