Page 154 of Ruthless Sin
Walking through the front gate of Casa Lucia.
Sofia behind her with the notebook.
The angle is from a second-floor window in the building opposite the clinic. Recent.
Red marker on her chest. A circle. Crosshairs through it.
I stop breathing.
On the back of the photograph, the same Russian handwriting as the cross note.
Sleduyushchiy budet plot’yu.
The next one will be flesh.
Rage. Cold. Three years of it, and it won’t stay down anymore.
Marco has read the note over my shoulder. He’s seen the photograph.
His jaw locks. The muscle at the corner of his eye twitches once and stays. Not the quarter-inch move. The full Capo.
“Niccolò.”
“Take it to the back room. Lay it next to the cross. Get Dante, Renzo, Izzy. I’ll be there in ten.”
He picks up the envelope.
“Niccolò.”
“I said I’ll be there in ten.”
He looks at me one more second. He goes.
The door closes.
I sit at the desk.
Every part of me wants the car. The unmarked sedan. The pistol in the top drawer. The river road north out of the city. The plantation Yelena marked in the portfolio. Alexei in the dining room.
I stay.
I unlock the bottom right drawer with the key I’ve been carrying for three years.
The leather portfolio is inside. Three years of dust on the leather.
I clean the dust with the cuff of my sleeve.
I pick it up.
I walk down to the back room.
Dante at the head of the table. Cassia next to him. Renzo across from them. Marco at comms. Izzy at her laptop.
The cross from yesterday is on the table. The first note is beside it. The new photograph is laid out beside the note. The crosshairs in red marker are face-up.
I lay the portfolio on the table.
I open it.
