Page 102 of Beautiful Villain
Ihad learned a long time ago to trust the quiet feeling in my gut.
Not the loud kind of panic that made you jump at shadows, but the heavy, patient weight that settled in your chest when something was wrong and did not care whether you had proof.
Mikayla calling me yesterday and telling me she felt watched had triggered that feeling instantly.And it wasn’t just that she felt like she was being watched.She felt like someone had been inside her home, in her personal space.She was not the type to invent danger.She was steady, grounded, the kind of woman who talked herself down before she ever raised her voice.For her to reach out meant the fear had already crawled too deep to ignore.
By the time I reached her street the next evening, the sky was darkening into that soft twilight where everything looks peaceful from the outside.Porch lights glowed.Windows warmed with lamplight.Families were settling into dinners and television and the illusion that nothing bad ever crossed their thresholds.
It was the kind of neighborhood where violence felt out of place.
Which was exactly why I took her fear seriously.
I had planned to meet my wife for dinner.She was already on her way.But Mikayla had been lodged in the back of my skull all day, refusing to stay quiet.The way she had sounded on the phone had not left me.If Gianni could stop drowning in his own misery long enough to face what she meant to him, none of this would be happening.But until he did, I was not leaving her unprotected.
So I made it my responsibility.
I parked across the street and studied her house.The curtains were half drawn.Lights were on in the back rooms, but there was no visible signs of movement.It looked calm.
And then I saw the car.
Black.Polished.Out of place.Parked two houses down like it was trying not to draw attention while doing the exact opposite.This street did not host cars like that.Not without getting noticed.
Worse, it was familiar.
I did not need to check the plates.
I stepped out of my own car and crossed the road, my boots quiet on the pavement.The sedan’s windows were lightly fogged, a faint haze from someone who had been sitting inside too long.The engine was off, but the warmth still clung to the glass like a secret.
Someone had been watching her.
I opened the passenger door and slid inside.
The smell of leather and cold coffee filled the car, but it was the man in the driver’s seat that made my chest tighten.Gianni Cavalho looked nothing like the man who had dismantled Archie Popovich and taken Provence out from under him like a magician pulling a knife from thin air.That version of Gianni had been sharp.Focused.Deadly.
This one looked… wrecked.
Dark stubble shadowed his jaw like he had forgotten what a razor was.His face was thinner, hollowed out in a way that had nothing to do with missed meals and everything to do with a mind that would not give him peace.The suit he wore, once tailored within an inch of its life, was rumpled and lived in, as if he had slept in it, woken in it, and kept going because stopping meant thinking.
The king of Tuscany’s most valuable pipeline was sitting in a parked car on a quiet street, watching the windows of a woman who had walked away from him.
He did not even glance at me.His eyes stayed locked on Mikayla’s house like it might open if he stared hard enough.
“How did you know it was me?”he asked quietly.
I shut the door.“Because you’re sitting in your own bloody car, Gianni.”
He turned his head slowly, eyes cutting to me.
“She thinks someone’s watching her,” I told him.“She’s scared.”
His mouth tightened, just a fraction.“Is she?”
The silence between us went thick.Ugly.
“This has to stop,” I said.“You’re frightening her.And you’re destroying yourself for no reason.”
Gianni’s gaze went dark.“Do not interfere in my business.”
“I will interfere when you’re being a damned idiot,” I shot back.“You wanted her to choose you.That was the whole noble speech you gave yourself.But sitting across the street like a ghost in a luxury sedan is not giving her space, boss.”
