Page 63 of Taking Savannah
"And what do we do while we wait?"
"We run the family and figure out the Billone issue. We stabilize the compound. We handle the Castillo situation." He looks at me. "You specifically are going to stop getting shot. That's your primary operational objective for the foreseeable future."
"I didn't get shot on purpose."
"You got shot because you walked into a parking garage without sufficient reconnaissance. The fact that the intelligence you brought back was valuable does not change the fact that your methodology was reckless, and if you ever do something like that again I will have Claudio break both your legs so you can't leave the building."
"That seems excessive."
"Aurelio told me to keep you safe. I intend to honor that request even if it means protecting you from yourself. Next time, do a proper sweep." He opens a folder on his desk, a different folder, operational documents, and the conversation is over.
I leave his office and walk down the corridor with my arm in a sling because Russo told me to use one for at least two weeks and Savannah told me if she caught me without it she'd staple it to my shoulder, and between Russo's medical opinion and Savannah's threat, the threat is more convincing.
The compound is different now. Not quieter, not louder, but recalibrated. Leone has spent the last week restructuring everything, security rotations, supply chains, communication protocols, the organizational architecture that Aurelio built over forty years getting updated by a man who respects the foundation but isn't afraid to change the wiring. Claudio runs the security assessments and excels at it. Charlotte feeds data to Alexandra and bakes cookies and acts as the compound's unofficial morale officer, which she'd hate if anyone called her that, so nobody does but everyone knows.
Her cookies keep everyone in check.
Dahlia and Bam are still here. Dahlia spends her days in Alexandra's office cross-referencing Westpoint intelligence with the decoded Kreiss files. The two of them have developed a working relationship that consists of long silences punctuated by Alexandra sayingoh fuckand Dahlia sayingI told you so. Bam stands outside the office door for hours at a time, and when I asked him once if he was bored he looked at me with an expression that suggested boredom wasn't a concept his brain had room for.
I've been watching Carmelo more carefully since the parking garage, since the stairwell and the belt stripped from a dead man's waist. The man who used to orbit the compound as Aurelio's shadow is orbiting differently now. He still takes his meals alone. Still sits in corners during briefings. Still doesn't speak unless the conversation requires his specific brand of input, which is rare because Carmelo's brand of input usually involves a blade and a body.
But he's paying attention to different things. I caught him yesterday standing outside the bar while Savannah was closing up, not watching the door, watching the corridor. Guarding her when I can’t. Not because Leone told him to, not because anyone asked, but because Aurelio told him to protect everyone in this compound, including the ones who aren't yours yet. And Carmelo takes his assignments literally.
He also found a new knife. I don't know where, and I don't know when. But I noticed it in his belt, different from the old one, the handle is darker, the blade slightly longer, and he holds it with the same grip and the same rhythm, but the way he looks at it is different. The old knife was an anchor. This one is a tool. The difference matters, I think Carmelo knows it matters, and I think that's why he chose it.
I find him in the kitchen eating a sandwich at the counter. Alone, as always. The knife is on the counter beside his plate, not because he needs it for the sandwich but because Carmelo doesn't put distance between himself and a blade. Ever.
"Leone sent the letter," I say, sitting down across from him. "To the Harrisons."
Carmelo looks at me, chewing and swallowing before saying, "Good."
"He's also starting to think about the Castillo situation long-term. Marco pulled the alliance, Billone being positioned as a mediator, means there's talk about a more permanent arrangement between the families."
"What kind of arrangement?"
"The kind that involves bloodlines. The Castillos have an heir. A daughter. Antonia." I pick up an apple from the fruit bowl because sitting across from Carmelo without something in my hands makes me restless. "If the people above both families are engineering a resolution, it's going to involve connecting the bloodlines. Matteo has Bonaccorso blood. Antonia has Castillo blood. A union between them would give them a foothold in both families."
Carmelo stops chewing. His eyes narrow half a degree, which on Carmelo is the equivalent of someone else slamming their fist on the table and shouting. "A treaty marriage."
"Maybe. Leone hasn't confirmed it, but the pieces fit. The people rebuilding Westpoint need the families stable, not at war, not allied, but under control. A marriage between Aurelio's son and Marco's daughter would give them exactly that."
"The girl… Antonia. How old?"
"Mid-twenties, that's all we know. Leone's got Alexandra digging."
Carmelo picks up his knife and turns it over in his hand, the way he does when he's thinking, the blade catching the kitchen light before changing the subject. "Ferrara's meeting. He said something about a daughter."
I go still. "He did. Graziella. She disappeared when she was eight."
"I remember."
"You weren't in the car for that conversation."
"Leone briefed me." Carmelo's eyes are on the knife, not on me, but the intensity in them is fully engaged. "A Castillo underboss with a missing daughter and trafficking pipeline that moved women and children through our waterways for two years. Those two facts sit next to each other."
The air in the kitchen changes. What Carmelo just said isn't a question and isn't an accusation. It's a connection that I should have made myself, and the fact that I didn't and he did tells me something about the way Carmelo's brain works that I've been underestimating for years.
Ferrara's daughter disappeared when she was eight. Kreiss's pipeline trafficked women and children through the Meridian Star. Ferrara is Castillo. Kreiss had operatives embedded in both families. If Graziella was taken by the same network that ran the pipeline, she could be anywhere in the system, or nowhere at all.
