Page 75 of Captive Promise

I read that line twice before I set my coffee down without looking where it lands.

Some of it spills over the rim and pools on the desk but I don’t care, because I’m already three lines further in and my jaw is getting tighter with every one of them.

My heart’s picked up, and there’s a slow, steady thrum in my ears.

“He’s better funded than we thought,” I say flatly, sounding as if I’m far away. “Better organized.”

“Keep going.” Luca hasn’t moved from his position on the chair, his arms dangling between his legs.

He’s watching my face intently instead of the page, like he already knows exactly where I am in it.

I keep going.

Then I stop, because the next line has my own crew in it, and I read it a third time to make sure I’m reading it right.

“Somebody’s talking to him,” I look up at him in horror. “Somebody on the inside and we still don’t know who.”

“I know.” His jaw is tight, a muscle jumping at the corner of it. “I read it before I brought it up.”

“Motherfucker,” I hiss, anger coursing through me before I slam my hand flat on the desk hard enough to sting.

What’s left in the coffee cup jumps and rattles against the saucer.

“Who?” My pulse is going so hard now, I can feel it in my throat. “Who has that kind of access? Who’s been around long enough to know what this page knows?”

“I’ve been asking myself the same thing all morning,” Luca says, dragging both hands down his face before he answers, like he’s trying to physically push the exhaustion out of it. “I don’t like any of the answers that I come up with.”

I gesture impatiently with my hand. “Say it anyway.”

“Gio’s been short on cash since his divorce,” Luca says, ticking names off his fingers. “Sal’s kid needs surgery money nobody in this family’s offered to cover yet. Rossi’s been asking more questions than usual about the Russo situation specifically, which could be nothing or⁠—”

“Or it could be him asking so he knows how close we are to catching him.” I push back from the desk, stand up, and start pacing because sitting still with this information is something I’m not capable of doing. “Any of them could be it. All three of them have access. All three of them have a reason.”

Luca watches me pace, following me with his eyes. “You want me to start digging?”

I nod. “Quietly. I don’t want whoever it is to know we’re looking.” I stop at the window, both hands braced on the sill. “These are my guys, Luca. Men I’ve trusted with my life. And one of them is betraying me. Betraying the family.”

Luca doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to.

I know he’s thinking the same thing I am—that we’ve both known these men for years and we’re not going to like whoever it turns out to be.

“I don’t like where this is going,” he finally says.

“Neither do I. Go. Start asking around as quietly as you can.”

He nods and gets up, and I hear the door shut behind him.

I sit back down and shove the folder into the drawer, slamming it hard enough that something on the shelf behind me rattles.

I cannot afford to keep staring at that list of names this morning, not with everything else.

That’s when I notice there’s still paper on my desk.

Cocking my head to the side, I pick it up.

There was a second page to the briefing, one Luca hadn’t flagged, or hadn’t wanted to bring up in front of me yet. I examine it.

It’s a fragment of Russo’s people asking questions about my known associates. Who they are.