Page 1 of The Assassin’s Captive (The Roma Syndicate #5)

LORENZO

" S he's going to die, Lorenzo…" Emilio Costa slides the manila folder across his mahogany desk with casual indifference, as if he's ordering coffee or sharing a photo of an old friend. "But not until she tells us everything she knows."

I take the folder without opening it, feeling the thickness of accumulated intelligence. Twenty years of taking orders from the Don has taught me that substantial files usually mean complex kills. This one promises complications.

"Serena Barone," Emilio continues, settling back into his leather chair.

"She's twenty-eight years old—a criminal prosecutor who specializes in financial crimes and organized corruption.

She's been building cases against our art galleries, our legitimate fronts, working in quiet. She could unravel everything we have."

I open the folder and find myself staring at photographs of a woman with sharp cheekbones and dark eyes that seem to challenge the camera.

Her black hair is pulled back in a severe twist, and she wears a charcoal suit that reeks of authority and control.

She's beautiful, but in a way that would cut a man who tried to touch her without permission.

"She's connecting dots that were never meant to be connected," Emilio says, turning to pour himself whiskey from the crystal decanter on his side table.

"Her legal strategies target our financial network with surgical accuracy.

Someone is feeding her information, and I want to know who before you snuff out the flame. Do you understand?"

I turn the page, studying more photographs of Serena leaving her apartment near the Roman Forum, entering the courthouse, meeting with colleagues in sterile conference rooms. Someone has been watching her for weeks, documenting her patterns with the thoroughness of a predator studying prey.

"Her work is sealed," Emilio continues, returning to his desk with the amber liquid catching the lamplight. "Court orders, confidential sources, the whole apparatus of legal protection. But protection has limits. Everyone talks eventually."

The photographs show a woman who moves through her world with confidence, who doesn't look over her shoulder or vary her routines.

She believes in the system that protects her, trusts in the walls that separate her civilized world from mine.

The naivety would be charming if it weren't so dangerous for women like her.

"What do you need to know?" I ask, though I already understand the shape of this assignment.

Emilio's fingers drum against his desk, a rhythm I've learned to recognize over the years.

When the Don is thinking, everyone waits.

"Everything… How much she has, who's feeding her information, what she plans to do with it.

I want to know every source, every witness, every piece of evidence she's collected.

I want to know who else knows what she knows because they all have to fall.

We can't leave one standing or the head will regrow. "

He takes a slow sip of his whiskey, savoring the burn. "Then she dies. The kill order is official, but get information first. Elimination is second."

I close the folder and meet his gaze. "And the timeline?"

"She'll be at the Rome Opera House tomorrow night.

La Traviata . She has season tickets. Orchestra section, row seven.

" It's chilling how well he knows this scenario, and he hasn't had boots on the ground in years.

"She goes alone, arrives early, stays for the entire performance. " His smile holds no warmth.

I nod as my eyes continue to pick up more details from her file.

Serena Barone is a creature of habit, which makes her predictable.

Predictable makes her vulnerable. She attends the opera monthly, always the same seat, always alone.

She drinks white wine during intermission and reads the program notes with focus, like someone who genuinely cares about the art.

"She's careful," I say, because Emilio expects assessment, not blind obedience. "Not careful enough." I scoff and watch him walk to the box on the mantel across the room and pull a cigar from it, then snip the end into the hearth, light it, and walk back toward me.

He returns to his chair, settling into the leather, and says, "She's smart, I'll give her that. But intelligence without paranoia is a fatal flaw in our world."

"How should I make my approach?" I ask, snapping the folder shut and dropping it on his table.

"Charm her. You clean up well when you need to.

Be the kind of man she'd notice, the kind she'd trust." Emilio's smile turns predatory.

"She's lonely, whether she admits it or not.

Smart women always are. Give her attention, make her feel special.

Once you have her trust, getting her alone becomes simple. "

"So, quiet?"

"Yes. We don't want a scene. No one can link her abduction back to us. If they do, the whole thing will blow up. Which is why you go at this from the angle of a curious and attracted male." His eyes narrow on me as the plan forms in my mind.

I'll be at the opera house tomorrow night, dressed for the part, armed with enough cultural knowledge to seem genuine.

I'll engineer a meeting that feels accidental, present myself as someone worth her time.

Serena Barone will see what she wants to see—a well-educated man who appreciates art, who finds her interesting, who might be worth the risk of lowering her guard.

"She won't break easily," I observe, because the woman in these photographs doesn't look like someone who crumbles under pressure.

"They all break eventually." Emilio's voice carries the authority of experience. "Pain, fear, isolation—find the right combination and even the strongest will snap. But you're not going to start with pain. You're going to start with seduction."

It's a new approach. I've killed men with my hands, ended lives with bullets and blades and quiet poisons. But this assignment requires different tools—conversation, attention, the careful construction of trust that can be exploited. It's a longer game than I usually play, but no less deadly.

"Time frame for extraction?" I ask.

"A week. Maybe two if she's particularly stubborn.

But no longer." Emilio shifts in his seat, turning his gaze to the window where Rome's lights flicker in the distance.

"The families are watching. They know events are unfolding, even if they don't know what.

We can't afford to look weak by allowing a prosecutor to operate freely. "

He takes a long drag from his cigar, watching me as he speaks. "Serena Barone has chosen her side. She's declared war on everything we've built, everything we've protected. That makes her an enemy, and enemies don't get second chances."

"What about her background?" I ask, though I've already begun my own research. "Family, connections, vulnerabilities?"

"Adopted. Raised by academics—no siblings, no romantic entanglements that we're aware of. She's built her life around her work, which makes her isolated. Isolation makes her desperate for connection, even if she doesn't realize it."

The profile builds itself in my mind. Serena Barone is a woman who has defined herself through achievement, who has traded personal relationships for professional success.

She's hungry for connection she can't name, vulnerable to the right kind of attention from the right kind of man.

Tomorrow night, at the opera house, she'll meet someone who seems to understand her, who appreciates her intelligence and doesn't feel threatened by her strength.

She'll never suspect that her perfect match is her executioner.

I flip through more photographs, studying the details that will help me become whoever she needs me to be.

Serena entering a small cafe near the courthouse, ordering the same espresso every morning at eight fifteen.

Serena at her neighborhood gym, running on the treadmill trying to outrun her thoughts.

Serena at the market, selecting too much produce for someone who lives alone and cooks for one.

I close the folder, feeling the responsibility of what's been asked of me. Seducing Serena Barone isn't about extracting information—it's about identifying and eliminating a network of enemies who've been working in shadows, building their case with patience.

"The opera house tomorrow night," I say, already planning the approach. "She'll be relaxed, off guard. Art makes people vulnerable, opens them up to connection."

Emilio nods, the decision made, the course set. "Make her feel special, Lorenzo. Make her feel she's found someone who sees her for who she really is. And then, when she trusts you completely, take everything she knows and send her to meet her maker."

I stand, folder in hand, the responsibility of Serena Barone's fate settling into my chest. Another assignment, another target, another problem to be solved with carefully applied violence.

The work is familiar, even if the methods are different.

By the end of the week, she'll have told me everything she knows about the Costa syndicate's vulnerabilities, and then she'll disappear into the kind of grave that never gets found.

"Consider it done," I say, moving toward the door.

"Lorenzo." Emilio's voice stops me at the threshold.

"She's a woman who has spent her life believing in justice, in the power of law to protect the innocent.

That belief makes her dangerous, but it also makes her vulnerable.

Use her idealism against her. Make her think she's found someone who shares her principles. "

I turn back, meeting his eyes one final time. "She'll never see it coming."

"No," he agrees, raising his glass in a toast to the dead. "She won't."

The walk through the estate's corridors feels different tonight, charged with the electricity of impending violence.

The portraits of dead men seem to watch with approval, their eyes following my progress through halls that have witnessed countless decisions about life and death.

The Costa family has survived for generations by making hard choices, by eliminating threats before they could metastasize into existential dangers.

Serena Barone has become such a threat, and tomorrow night, her elimination begins.

I reach my car, a black sedan that blends into Rome's traffic with unremarkable anonymity.

The folder rests on the passenger seat as I drive through the hills toward the city, its contents burning with the promise of violence to come.

By the time I reach my apartment, I've already begun the transformation from Lorenzo the assassin to Lorenzo the gentleman, the kind of man who would catch a prosecutor's eye at the opera house.

The preparation will take hours. New clothes, new identity, new personality carefully constructed to appeal to a woman who has spent her life surrounded by corruption and violence but has never been touched by either.

She'll see what she wants to see—a cultured man who appreciates art, who finds her intelligence attractive, who might be worth the risk of lowering her guard.

She'll never suspect that her perfect match is her executioner.

I park in the underground garage of my building, taking the stairs to the third floor where my apartment waits in darkness.

The space is Spartanly furnished, functional rather than comfortable.

Books line the walls—not because I love literature, but because cultured men are supposed to own books.

Art covers the walls—not because I appreciate beauty, but because sensitive souls are supposed to surround themselves with creativity.

Everything in my life is a construction, a careful facade designed to serve whatever purpose the job requires.

Tomorrow night, I'll become someone Serena Barone could fall in love with, someone who could earn her trust and exploit her loneliness.

I'll be charming, intelligent, slightly mysterious.

I'll ask the right questions, make the right observations, present myself as the answer to needs she doesn't even know she has.

The process of transformation is methodical, automatic.

I select a charcoal suit and tie that suggests sophistication without pretension.

I choose cologne that whispers rather than shouts, shoes that are expensive but not flashy.

Every detail is calculated to create the impression of a man worth knowing, worth trusting, worth loving.

By the time I'm finished, Lorenzo the assassin has disappeared, replaced by someone who could move through Serena's world without raising suspicion.

I study myself in the mirror, seeing not the man who has killed dozens of enemies but the man who will seduce one brilliant prosecutor into revealing everything she knows before she dies.

The opera house tomorrow night will be full of people who believe in civilization, who trust in the power of art and culture to elevate the human spirit.

They'll sit in their expensive seats, lose themselves in the music and drama, never suspecting that death walks among them in a tailored suit and expensive shoes.

Serena Barone will be one of them, vulnerable and unsuspecting, ready to be charmed by a stranger who seems to understand her passion for justice. She'll see kindness where there is calculation, sincerity where there is manipulation, love where there is only the cold promise of elimination.

The irony is exquisite. She's spent her career hunting monsters, never realizing that the greatest monster of all would come to her disguised as salvation. Tomorrow night, at the opera house, the predator and prey will meet. And only one of us will walk away alive.