Page 233 of Caterina
I will care later.
Right now, Roberto can legal his way through hell, and Antonio can handle whatever digital and logistical nightmare comes next. Nico can rage, Vito can pace, Papà can terrify every person within a ten-mile radius.
I am focused on two things.
Adrian waking up.
And whoever did this paying for it.
My hand tightens around Adrian’s. His fingers do not move.
I stare at them, as if sheer force of will can make them curl around mine.
“You come back, damn you,” I whisper.
Nick and I got there in time to see the man on top of him. To see Adrian nearly gone beneath him. To see the blood in the grass and Adrian’s hand twitching toward his gun, too far away to reach.
I remember the sound I made.
I remember lifting Vito’s gun, aiming.
I remember the man looking up, and the smirk on his face, the pleasure in his eyes while he choked the life out of Adrian. He was enjoying it.
So I shot him, and I have no remorse.
Not then and not now.
Nick was moving beside me, covering the approach, shouting something I barely heard. The man fell away from Adrian, and I ran. I remember the wet grass under my feet. I remember dropping to my knees beside Adrian and putting both hands on his face.
Adrian. Adrian, look at me.
For one moment, he did. He looked right at me, then his eyes closed, and he went slack.
Then everything moved fast.
Nico came back from the east service road, saying the jammer was down. Phones lit up. Nick got through to his people. Vito got through to Papà. Teresa made the emergency call from the bunker the moment the lines came up, so sirens broke through the night only moments later.
Home care was not an option this time.
No couch or family doctor with antiseptic and stitches.
Hospital. Now.
And for once, Adrian was not conscious to argue.
That thought almost makes me laugh.
I wipe my face with the back of my hand and force my attention back to the laptop.
Shell company. Property holding group. Private investment fund. Third-party hospitality vendor. Insurance inquiry. Regulatory contact.
I follow one thread until it splits into three. I follow another until it dead-ends into a company dissolved twelve years ago, then revive the name through an old address, an accountant, a trustee, a signature buried in a PDF scan so blurry it makes my eyes ache.
Someone thought being buried was enough.
They were wrong.
I have spent my life looking at numbers. Who benefits, who pays, who hides behind clean language and respectable letterhead.
