Page 53 of Intrigue

Alessandro

I shouldn’t have called her.

I know it the second my own voice echoes back at me, taunting through the voicemail replay. Every word sounds wrong—too much or not enough. I should have left it alone, let her stay wrapped up in her fake little fairytale with Cassian. But I couldn’t.

Now, pacing the rooftop, I replay every syllable, every breath between my words. Her name still sticks in my throat like glass. I can’t tell if I was warning her or pulling her back into me. Maybe both.

The cigarette between my fingers burns to the filter before I even register the taste of smoke. I toss it over the ledge, watching the ember spiral down, swallowed by the streets below.

I’m to do the right thing and let her go. But I can’t.

A knock at the metal door behind me breaks through the static in my head. Bianchi steps through, his face unreadable, which only means one thing.

Bad news.

He doesn’t waste time. “It’s the gallery.”

I already know. My body tenses before he even finishes.

“Morettis?” The Morettis haven’t let Edoardo’s death go. Despite everything I’d done to bury it—smashed the phone, staged the scene, sent Selene running, but they’re like dogs with a bone. And if they figure out she’s the one who stuck the knife in him, or the other worse truth… she’s dead. No question.

He nods. “Two of their men were sniffing around. Didn’t take anything, but they left something behind.”

Bianchi hands me a folded scrap of paper. My fingers tighten before I even open it.

The Marconi girl bleeds Moretti red.

The words are jagged, scrawled fast, but they may as well be a gun pressed to Selene’s temple. My pulse pounds against my ribs, the weight of five years of buried truths clawing their way to the surface.

They know something.

Maybe not the full truth, not yet, but it’s enough to get her killed. And if they dig any deeper—if they confirm what I’ve spent years making sure stayed dead—Selene’s body will be in a ditch before she even knows why.

“They’re onto her,” I say, voice low, turning to Bianchi. “How’d they get this close?”

He shrugs, stubbing out his cigarette on the desk. “Beats me. Could be they’ve been watching longer than we thought. Edoardo’s death never sat right with them.”

I slam my fist into the wall, plaster cracking under my knuckles. “They don’t get to touch her. Not now, not ever.”

Bianchi nods “What’s the play?”

I grip the note, crushing it in my fist. There’s no waiting. No more games.

“We set a trap.”

***

The gallery is still and cold when I arrive, the scent of old paint and polished wood clinging to the air. The main lights are off, but the emergency ones cast eerie streaks of orange along the floor, cutting across empty display cases and paintings that don’t belong to Cassian anymore.

They belong to me.

I walk the length of the room, silent, letting my footsteps announce my presence. If the Morettis left men behind, they’ll hear me before they see me.

I almost hope they did.

Bianchi flanks me, his steps just as measured. He stops at the back office door, nudging it open with the barrel of his gun. The space inside is untouched, save for a single chair slightly out of place and a vent cover hanging loose.

“They were looking for something.”