Page 130 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince

I move toward the table.

I sit.

I pour my own coffee.

He waits until I’ve taken a sip before speaking again.

"There’s more you need to know."

I set the cup down and nod.

He tells me everything.

The cloth found in the warehouse.

The trail that led to Silvano.

The photo from Salerno.

The scarred man beside him, one of Arditi’s old signal runners.

The hidden backchannel tied to Operation Umber.

The reactivation of trade routes that should have stayed shut.

The fragment of our childhood password embedded in a clearance string no one should have known unless they had grown up in the rooms I once called home.

And Rafa.

He tells me that there is no solid proof.

That Luca is still tracing communications, still reviewing encrypted logs.

That Valentina has the original documents locked in her office, away from prying eyes.

But then he says the thing that makes the room grow quiet.

"If it were anyone else," he says, watching my face, "I would have already put a bullet in him. But he is your brother. So I am waiting. Until I am sure."

The realization that this, in Mafia terms, is love, settles somewhere behind my ribs.

I cannot speak for a moment.

I only nod, and this time it takes more effort.

The girls come in a few minutes later, half-dressed and loud in the way only children can be when they have no sense of the rooms they’re entering.

Arietta climbs into my lap, chattering about the activities that will be going on at school today.

Alessia reaches for a fig and stretches out on the carpet like a queen without subjects.

"What plans do you have for the day?" Dante asks as he pushes off from the chair.

I gesture at the kids.

"I'll take them to school, then see if I'm needed here."

He nods appreciatively and touches my cheek before kissing the girls goodbye.