Page 149 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince

Luca’s mouth lifts, but it’s not a smile. "No such thing as luck in this house."

I crouch beside the chair and set my hand over his.

He lets me.

That alone tells me how bad it was.

His eyes drift toward the window again.

"Tell him to finish it," he says quietly. "Whatever he needs to do, whoever he needs to break. Just end it."

I nod, though I don’t know if he sees it, and then I step out.

Lockdown protocol has silenced even the floorboards.

No music from the kitchen, no faint piano drifting from the east wing where the twins sometimes practice scales with sticky fingers and wrong notes.

Even the staff walk differently now.

Shoulders stiff.

Heads low.

No one wants to be the one who makes the next mistake.

The girls are in the playroom in the south wing.

I check on them every half hour, even though the guards outside their door are the best we have left.

I have memorized the pattern of their footsteps. I have counted their weapons twice.

Arietta asks when Papa is coming back.

I tell her soon.

I lie like it costs nothing, and she believes me because she wants to.

Alessia does not ask.

She watches the windows instead, drawing long, looping letters into the fogged glass with her finger.

The tension has turned to static beneath my skin.

I cannot sit.

I cannot eat.

I pace the corridor once, then again, then finally pull on a shawl and step outside.

The sky is dull, thick with clouds, and hanging low.

The olive trees sway in rhythm with a breeze that smells faintly of damp stone and cut grass.

The garden is empty.

A good sign.

No unscheduled movement.