Page 13 of Valentino

"One minute."

I tilt the screen toward me. The notification slides away as I tap. She hasn't locked it. I open her contacts and type my own number.

I save it. V. Conti. Nothing more.

I set the phone back down between us, screen up, my number sitting there like a loaded gun.

"If you need anything." I keep my voice low. "Anything at all. Day, night. You call."

She blinks once.

"Valentino—"

“Buongiorno, Signora White.”

I push back from the table. The chair scrapes against the floor. I drop cash on the wood and leave before she can put a sentence together.

The door chimes behind me.

Across the street, the man is still there. He leans against the corner of a shuttered jeweler’s, hands in the pockets of his dark coat, his eyes on the café window where Amanda sits.

I cross the street slowly. Hands loose.

He sees me coming, and his weight shifts just enough to come off the wall.

“Mancini.”

“Conti.”

We stand a foot apart.

He is shorter than me by a head and careful enough to know exactly where he stands. I’ve worked with him three times. He’s good. Quiet. He does what Vittoria says.

I tip my chin toward the café. “Why are you watching her?”

My voice stays mild. The question is not.

Elio’s jaw moves once, a small tightening around the mouth. He looks at me, and I almost laugh.

I know that look. I’ve worn it. The look of a man who just watched a woman step into someone else’s attention and did not like how long she stayed there.

She is not his woman.

I know that the way I know most things in the Sartori world.

"Orders," he says. Even. Flat. "From Vittoria."

"Hm."

"Is there a problem, Conti?"

He gives me a careful, polite answer because I’m family to the people he works for, and because he’s smart enough not to turn this into a confrontation.

I hold his eyes a beat longer than necessary.

Long enough for him to understand I saw it.

"No problem." I adjust the cuff of my coat. "Keep your eyes on the street. Not the window."