Page 17 of Valentino

Valentino

"I'm in Milan," Luca says.

"Good." I sit up, swing my legs off the bed, and the hotel room comes into focus around me. "Where are you?"

"South side. Got a place near the rail yards. I can move tonight if you need it."

"Tomorrow. We meet, I'll walk you through what I have. It isn't much."

There's a pause that means he's already cataloguing the gaps, already thinking three moves ahead.

"There's an event Saturday," I tell him. "Casa Aurelia. The fashion crowd, the money behind it. Some of the names you'll want will be there. In person."

"You’re going in?"

"I have an invitation." I pause long enough for him to understand what that means. "You work the outside. Plates, faces, who comes and who leaves. I’ll work the inside."

"Alone?"

I don’t answer right away, and Luca, being Luca, doesn’t fill the silence. That’s the thing about him. He waits, and the waiting is its own question.

"No. I’ll have someone else," I say finally. "It’s handled. We’ll talk tomorrow."

"Okay."

Then the line goes dead, because Luca doesn’t say goodbye either.

I lower the phone and stand there a moment, watching the street.

Then I pull up Bruno’s number and call.

"Amanda White is in Milan," I say. "Running point on the Casa Aurelia launch. And Elio Mancini is here with her."

"I know," Bruno says, mildly, like I’ve told him it’s raining.

My fingers tighten around the phone..

"You know."

"Vittoria sent Elio. We're aware of the situation."

"And you didn't think to tell me." It comes out flat, the way my voice goes when I'm working hard to keep it level. "I'm here, Bruno. I'm in the middle of the exact thing she's standing on top of, and nobody mentioned that my cousin's best friend is decorating the same rooms I'm trying to look inside."

"We thought the same thing you're thinking now." He doesn't sound rattled. He never does. "That it wasn't a coincidence. So we put eyes on her. Elio reports nothing's happened. No contact, no trouble. So there's no reason to make it a priority right now."

I turn from the window. The room feels smaller.

"No reason to make it a priority," I repeat. "You sent Elio."

"He's reliable."

"He's good at driving Vittoria to parties." My jaw aches from how hard I'm holding it. "He's good at standing outside a door and looking solid. That's escort work, Bruno. That's a man you trust to walk a teenager into a school dance and bring her home. It is not the man you put on a woman who is swimming this close to sharks and doesn't even know the water's full of them."

"I had men in this city already." I'm pacing now, slow, the carpet soft under my bare feet. "Quiet ones," I say. "Men trained to watch without being seen. If you wanted her protected, fine. Send Elio. But don’t put him ten feet behind her in the same city where you’ve asked me to look into missing girls and then fail to mention she’s here."

Bruno says nothing.

I keep walking, each step harder than the last.