Page 139 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince

But I don’t.

Because Rafa doesn’t lie unless it serves a greater truth.

And this—this isn’t a bluff.

It’s a promise.

A prophecy.

A warning delivered too late.

The courtyard presses in around me.

The olive trees, once a comfort, feel like sentinels now.

Watching.

Waiting.

My mouth tastes of iron, like I bit down on something I shouldn’t have.

My fingers twitch, wanting to tell someone, to throw the weight of it into Dante’s hands, into Luca’s, into anyone who could make it matter.

But I can’t. Not yet.

Because what Rafa said is true in the most dangerous way.

Dante won't be back until later tonight.

I try his number three times, and each time, it goes to voicemail.

I check the time.

Just past seven.

The sky outside has already shifted into dusk, that deep violet hour where the olive trees blur into shadows and the courtyard lights begin to glow like sentinels.

It's time for dinner, and I may as well tell Luca and Valentina at the table.

There's no backing out now.

I move through the corridor toward the dining hall, already rehearsing the words.

I expect quiet—just the three of us, maybe four, if Marco returned early.

But the room is full.

Six people are seated near the center of the long table. Luca is at the head.

Valentina is at his right.

The others are unfamiliar, but not anonymous.

One of them wears the lapel pin of the provincial board.

Another I recognize from a Rossi political donor list I reviewed years ago, back when I still believed that money could clean our name.

I enter anyway.