Page 67 of Mine Again (Mafia Bride #2)

Chapter Sixty-Six

Luca

I sa shifts beside me, her body turning toward mine.

Her brows lift, eyes narrowing with confusion.

“Me?” she asks, curious. “I helped you discover who the Jackal was?”

“Yes, Hale got cocky when he sent Moretti to seduce you. At that restaurant on your birthday, I didn’t like how conveniently he showed up, and I needed to know who the hell he was and why he was orbiting you.

“I ran facial recognition. Nothing came up. That’s always a red flag.”

“Why? He might have been someone careful not to leave a digital footprint,” she says, frowning.

“Not in this day and age. Even a careful person has a driver’s license photo, a tagged picture, surveillance footage from a traffic camera…

something. When there’s nothing, it usually means someone has gone out of their way to wipe it.

And only people with money, power, or something to hide do that. That made me even more curious.”

I pause for a beat.

“When I couldn’t find anything on the man who couldn’t take his eyes off you, I looked into the other people he was with that night. They weren’t protected. Through them, I found out who he was.”

I let out a frustrated sigh.

“When I dug into Sebastian Moretti’s family, I found the connection to Carter Hale. They were distant cousins, something neither of them advertised. Their mothers had a falling-out, and the families don’t talk anymore.”

Isa sits down, her eyes connecting with mine.

“And that was enough to make you suspicious?”

“Suspicious, yes. But it wasn’t confirmation. That came later.”

She doesn’t speak, just waits for me to continue.

“Once I saw Hale’s name, I couldn’t let it go. I’d heard of him, of course. Silicon Valley’s darling billionaire. Flashy interviews. Smug smile. So I watched one of his old talks. Tech conference bullshit… digital ethics and innovation.”

I look at the ceiling, recalling the video. “When he spoke… something was nagging me.”

“What?” Isa asks gently.

“The cadence. His phrasing. The way he built his arguments. It reminded me of a worm I’d seen on a job a year ago, fast, brutal, surgically precise. It was a vicious, brilliant code. The kind you never forget because only one man could have written it.”

I glance over at her. “The Jackal.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“You recognized his… code, from how he spoke ?”

“I recognized his mind,” I say, my voice like flint. “Same pattern. Same arrogance. Same belief he’s smarter than everyone else.”

I stare at her now.

“Sending Moretti after you was Hale’s mistake. That’s what pulled the thread.

“I dug deeper into your suitor’s finances. He had a secret offshore account. Five million dollars were deposited on your birthday. Coincidence? I didn’t think so.

“The transaction passed through seven shell companies. Clean. Nearly invisible.”

My jaw flexes.

“But the last one was a dormant Delaware LLC. Buried so deep, it took days to decrypt.”

I sit back down in my office chair, swiveling to face her.

“The original registration listed Carter James Hale.”

Isa doesn’t speak. Her eyes are wide, stunned, the way someone might look after seeing a magician pull the impossible from thin air.

And it had been almost impossible. I dug through every hidden pathway, every keystroke. It took a kind of mental sharpness most people will never understand.

“And just like that,” I finish, “the Jackal had a face.”

She leans back, absorbing this latest revelation. Her gaze drifts over the screens, the servers, the faint hum of the hardware around us as she begins to understand just how much I can do from this room.

“Wow,” she breathes, almost to herself. “You… are incredible.”

Her eyes are bright, fixed on me with something that feels like admiration and pride all tangled together.

“I knew you were good, but this… this is another level. You didn’t just figure it out, Luca. You outsmarted someone who prides himself on being untouchable.”

Her praise burns into me, sinking under my skin and igniting a heat I can’t name, equal parts hunger and the fierce need to keep earning it.

“Can I see a picture of Hale?” Isa asks. “So I’ll recognize him if we ever cross paths.”

I hope that never happens, but it’s smart for her to be prepared.

I press a key, the dark monitors flaring to life, lines of code giving way to a grid of windows as I pull up Hale’s photo. She stares at it, taking it in, until her gaze snags on a camera feed in the corner of the monitor.

Her eyes linger, the proud smile from earlier fading. She sits a touch straighter, her jaw tightening.

“That’s my bedroom,” she says, leaning in, studying the image.

I glance at the screen and wait for her reaction .

“I took down the camera on my birthday.”

She did, and I was distraught watching it. Not sending her chocolates yet again to tell her I remembered was harder for me than tracking down the Jackal’s identity.

It was the first concrete sign in those five years that she was giving up on us, making me more determined than ever to get her out of Sicily and back into my arms.

But that’s in the past. A past we are both moving on from. So I don’t reply.

Her shoulders stiffen, and she leans back, the warmth in her eyes cooling fast.

“How is there another feed?” She turns to me, her voice sharper now.

“It’s a different angle,” she says, returning her focus to the monitor. “What the heck, Luca? When did you install that one?”

The pride and curiosity in her eyes are gone, replaced by irritation, and I can feel the air between us changing.

I study her, caught off guard that she seems unhappy. She’s always known I like to watch her, and I thought she found comfort in it.

“I installed it about nine months after the first one,” I explain. “A maid came close to discovering the first one when she took the curtains down to wash, and I wanted a backup.”

She gives me an incredulous look. “And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“No.”

She blinks. “No? That’s it?”

“If a maid had discovered it, your father would have been told. He might have gone looking for more cameras, and if he found them, I wanted you to be able to say you knew nothing about them.”

“How gallant of you.” She tips her head back, eyes lifting to the ceiling as if praying for patience. Then her gaze snaps back to me.

“Wait… did you say ‘them’? How many more are there?”

I lean back in my chair, not breaking eye contact. “Six.”

Her posture goes rigid, a faint tremor rippling through her shoulders as if an invisible draft had touched her.

Her mouth falls open. She stares at me like I have just confessed to planting bombs.

“Six? All of them in my bedroom?”

“No. Only one in your bedroom. The others are spread throughout the house where you tended to spend time or pass through… the dining room, library, and hallways.”

“My sisters’ bedrooms?” she asks, horrified.

“Of course not. I might have stalked you, but I’m not a pervert,” I reply, offended. “You liked spending time in Mari’s or Mia’s rooms, but I never followed you in there.”

She lets out a relieved sigh.

I notice she does not deny that I stalked her. She seems bothered only by the locations. A small part of me finds that telling, and the rest satisfying.

“But why would you do that?”

“So I could see you not just at night… and to make sure you were always safe.” My voice is steady, unashamed. “You were, and you are, mine to watch over, whether I was there or not.”

She glares at me, caught between liking what she heard and being appalled by it. A minute ticks by. Her lips press together in that tight line I have learned means she is trying not to yell.

She draws in a slow breath, then releases it with a shake of her head.

“You should have told me. Don’t you think I deserve a say in something like that?”

I shrug. “If I had asked, you might have said no.”

“That’s the point of asking, Luca,” she huffs, annoyed. “You made the choice for me, and that’s not the same as protecting me.”

“I disagree. Not when you saying ‘no’ would have put you in danger.”

She exhales, exasperated, and turns toward the screens, as if looking anywhere but at me will stop her from saying something she might regret.

“Unbelievable.” Her fists clench. “All of this was long before you and I were torn apart. How much danger did you imagine I would be in?”

“Isa, in our world danger lurks everywhere. I like to be prepared. And it turned out to be brilliant because, not long after I installed them, those cameras became my only way to watch over you.”

She huffs but has no comeback for that.

Another long, slow breath escapes her. Realizing there isn’t much more to say about it, she changes the subject.

“I need to get in touch with Mamma. She’ll be worried about me disappearing. She’s probably already alerted God knows who.”

“It’s already taken care of. You messaged her the day before yesterday.”

“I did, did I?” she asks, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

“Of course.” I shrug, not the least bit apologetic. “You have always been the dutiful daughter.” I mean it without a trace of irony.

“I really must keep a diary. With such full days, I’m clearly becoming forgetful,” she quips. “So, pray tell… what did I say?”