Chương 2 - THE LIE THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO SAVE ME
I didn't learn about the bug from Nico.
I learned it from Arthur.
At 9:40 that morning, he walked into the diner where I was drinking bad coffee.
I stood so quickly my chair scraped the floor.
“How did you find me?”
“Your prepaid phone pinged a tower near here when you opened my message.”
I stared at him.
“So Nico can find me.”
“Yes.”
My stomach dropped.
“Then why isn't he here?”
Arthur sat.
“Because I told him I didn't find you.”
That made no sense.
Arthur had been Nico's lieutenant for fourteen years.
The man who stood beside him through shootings, arrests, funerals, and wars.
“You lied to him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because right now, you being angry at Nico is safer than you being beside him.”
I almost walked out.
Then Arthur said one word.
“Salvatore.”
I stopped.
Salvatore Rizzi.
Older than Nico.
Richer than anyone admitted.
The man Nico had spent the last year negotiating with because a war between their organizations would tear through half the city.
“What about him?”
“He planted listening equipment in Nico's study.”
I sat slowly.
Arthur explained that Nico discovered the device three days earlier.
Hidden behind a carved panel.
Sophisticated.
Professional.
Instead of removing it, Nico decided to feed Salvatore information.
False routes.
False business plans.
False weaknesses.
Then Salvatore asked one of his people a question Nico wasn't supposed to hear.
Does Bellandi have anyone he actually cares about?
Me.
Arthur looked exhausted.
“Nico knew if Salvatore understood what you meant to him, you'd become leverage.”
I laughed bitterly.
“So he announced I meant nothing.”
“To the bug.”
“He didn't know I was outside.”
“No.”
My throat tightened.
“He still said I stayed for money.”
Arthur looked away.
“That part was unnecessary.”
“Thank you.”
“He panicked.”
“Nico Bellandi doesn't panic.”
“He did.”
I stared through the diner window.
I should have felt relieved.
Instead, I felt angrier.
Nico had decided protecting me meant humiliating me without explanation.
Three years and he still couldn't trust me enough to say there was danger.
Arthur pushed an envelope across the table.
“What is this?”
“Something Nico doesn't know I have.”
Inside was a photograph.
Me leaving a bookstore six days earlier.
Taken from across the street.
Another showed me at a coffee shop.
Another entering the penthouse.
Someone had been following me.
On the back of the final photo was a date.
Tomorrow.
And an address in Brooklyn.
“What happens tomorrow?”
Arthur's face hardened.
“We don't know.”
“Who took these?”
“We think Salvatore's people.”
I looked at the photographs again.
Then noticed something.
A reflection in the bookstore window.
A woman standing behind the photographer.
Blonde hair.
Red coat.
I knew her.
“Nico's sister.”
Arthur frowned.
“Valentina?”
“Yes.”
Nico had told me Valentina moved to Milan two years ago after a fight with their father.
I hadn't seen her since.
Arthur took the photograph.
His face changed.
“Valentina isn't in Milan.”
“Where is she?”
“We thought she was dead.”
I stared at him.
Arthur lowered his voice.
May you like
“She disappeared eleven months ago.”
Nico had lied to me about that too.
