Page 57

Night turns the sea into jet black ink, reflecting the moon as if it's duplicated itself so the sea won't feel lonely. I admire the view, but only for a few seconds, because something far more beautiful takes my attention.

She stands on the balcony adjacent to our room, wrapped up in a sheet stolen from the bed. Her bare back curves as she arches against the railing while her hair lifts every so often in the gentle breeze that drifts in across the water. That breeze cuts through the window and fills my lungs with the reminder that we're only a few hours from dicking in Naples.

Reality beckons.

"The jet is stationed and ready," comes Raven's voice from the laptop balanced on my knees.

I tear my gaze away from Sabina out on the balcony and shift on the bed. Both Raven and Bradley's concerned faces stare back at me.

"You good?" Bradley asks, and his voice is so deep that the laptop vibrates ever so slightly.

"Yeah. Fine. Okay, so once we dock, Valentina's got a team waiting to escort us to the jet. Then it's home to New York," I say.

"Exactly." Raven turns away from the screen. "I'll have people in place ready to take Illyana to the hospital. Ideally, I'd like to bring her here, but I'm really concerned that all this travel back and forth will be detrimental to her, so I'd like to get her into the hospital as quickly as I can." The clack of typing keys runs under Raven's words. "If she grows stable enough, we can move her in with us."

"Sounds good." I lock eyes with Bradley. "Have you tracked down Leo?"

"Not exactly. The Viscontis have gone to ground, presumably because your grandfather tipped them off about your arrival in Italy. They knew it would only be a matter of time before you worked out the truth. I bet they're kicking themselves for shooting you now."

My hand absently moves over my thigh and the pink scar hidden under my clothes. "I bet. Do you think they know that we know the truth?"

Bradley's face tightens and a grim expression descends. "I'm not sure. I think it's best to act as if they do know and they're prepared to defend themselves."

"I'd like to hear them try," I mutter. "Leo Visconti buys a fifteen-year-old, rapes her, and then steals her baby. What possible reason could he have had for doing something so heinous?" I glance back at Sabina but with the doors closed, the words don't reach her.

"Actually…" Raven turns back to face the screen. "This isn't justification, but I have a theory. A working theory."

"One with weight?" I lean forward.

"Maybe. Sabina's story checks out from what I could track down from eleven years ago. I found her hospital records from ten years ago, including statements from the cops that she was crazy. They tried to have her sectioned, but someone stopped that from happening."

"Leo?" I lean up slightly. "Or Mario?"

"Unsure. One or maybe both. They definitely didn't want much of a paper trail on her outside of what they could afford. I also tracked down her parents, and she was right. They did not look for her when she vanished and made no attempts to reach out to her. They've since split up. Her mother is in California and her father is in Indiana." Raven meets my eyes. "Just in case she expresses interest in tracking them down."

"Doubt it," I reply.

"What about Leo?" Bradley leans back, and a glass appears in his hand filled with copper liquid. He lifts it to his face and drinks.

"I've managed to track and decipher multiple personal communications that Leo's been having over the past fifteen years with a man in New York. Boris Popov."

"I know of him." The thought of him turns my stomach. "Russian. He became the Pakhan after his father 'retired', and by retired, I mean they dragged his body from the river with fishing line around his throat. Got ruled a suicide."

Bradley scoffs into his glass. "Suicide. Right."

"The whole family is disgusting," Raven agrees. "I've unpacked a lot of their businesses. It's all black market trade—blood diamonds, people, drugs, and more. They went head-to-head with a few Russian families a while back, but they resolved everything without Suit interference. Their filthy hands are like an open secret."

"Bastards," I mutter.

"What's interesting, though," Raven says, and she leans closer to the screen. Audible snaps of her mouse rise through the screen as she clicks a few buttons, flooding my view with various documents and messages. "I found evidence that they've been friends and in communication for years, but no official alliance exists between their families. There's even been a few times when they've actually hindered one another's businesses, but not to the point that there was ever retaliation."

"Unusual," Bradley admits as he studies some of the messages. "But not unheard of. An alliance doesn't need to exist for there to be friendship."

"True, but in the last six months, communication between the two has increased. In fact, Leo started reaching out to Boris almost daily around the same time that Illyana's condition worsened to the point of the severity we're dealing with now."

The frown weighing down my brow deepens as I read. "That's weird. Coincidence?"

"Maybe. I haven't cracked the code about what they're talking about in these emails, and some of them are six months old so it'll be tough to crack. Might be something, might be nothing."