Page 174 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince

My hand is cold where it grips the fabric at my side.

I hadn’t realized I was clenching it into a fist.

Dante places his hand lightly over mine.

Not to stop me.

Just to let me know he’s there.

"He’ll keep shouting," I whisper. "Even after the wheels stop." With a nod, Dante helps me into the passenger seat of the lead car.

The engine ignites.

The car turns down the gravel path, flanked by two others in tight formation.

We don’t speak on the way back to Nuova Speranza.

The roads are quiet, the world strangely still, like it is holding its breath for what comes next.

But I know.

We are not stepping into a new empire; we are going home.

Arditi and Rafa are held at the Salvatore estate for days.

Not quite the estate, but an establishment underneath it, where the coolness of the walls radiates the smells of limestone and old cork.

From what I know, based on what Dante tells me, Arditi doesn’t speak.

He hasn’t since the capture.

Not during the transport, not during the transfer to the holding room, not even when they brought in the first interrogator.

As if some part of him still believes this is a delay and not an ending.

Dante does not allow torture.

Not because he is merciful, but because he does not need it.

He knows men like Arditi crack not under pain, but irrelevance.

And so, we give him exactly that.

No questions.

No shouting.

No promises of leniency.

Just silence.

Just time.

Just the slow unraveling of a man who thought he would die for something that turned out to be nothing.

It takes eleven days before he speaks.

Valentina is the one who finally walks in, sits across from him, and waits until the stillness turns inside out.