Page 100 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince

Arietta is practicing her numbers on the linen napkins again, smearing jam across her food, while Alessia invents a kingdom in the syrup on her plate.

I nod at the right moments.

Smile.

Pretend.

And all the while, my mind is counting seconds, listening for footsteps, for the next thing that will crack the illusion of peace.

My mind is on all these things when Valentina summons me to Luca’s office in the western wing.

There’s only one reason the don and his wife would call me into a room together without warning.

Something has shifted.

And they don’t want it leaking into the walls before they know what to do with it.

The hall outside Luca’s study is cold.

Not in temperature, but in tone.

The butler opens the door with his usual composure, not a hair out of place, but something unsettles me.

There’s a stillness in the way he avoids eye contact.

It isn’t him—it’s the moment.

Valentina is already seated when I enter, her blouse cream-colored and immaculate, not a strand of hair out of place.

She looks like marble and silk and memory, but there’s something else in her today—an edge beneath the calm.

Her eyes flick to mine, then to the chair opposite her.

Luca stands near the window, arms folded, his watch catching the pale midday light like a warning.

Neither of them offers me a greeting.

I sit.

The butler closes the door behind me with careful quiet, and for a long moment, no one speaks.

Luca stands behind the desk, his arms crossed, eyes unreadable.

Valentina sits across from me, a folder at her side and tension in her shoulders she’s trying to mask behind grace.

Then she reaches into the folder and slides a document across the table toward me.

It’s printed on heavy stock—the kind used for internal ledgers, the kind not meant to leave this room.

I recognize the formatting before I even read the contents.

Salvatore-Rossi joint routing.

Old trade paths.

The kind we mothballed after the alliance was strained.

The kind that predates my exile.