The numbers don't lie, even when everyone else does.
I've been staring at Salvatore's ledgers for three hours, cross-referencing shipping manifests with inventory reports that Marco apparently considered beneath his attention. The pattern emerges slowly, like a photograph developing in a chemical bath—shipping errors that look accidental but aren't.
Container 4782 arrives two days late with half its contents. Container 5913 gets rerouted to the wrong warehouse. Container 6234 loses a quarter of its cargo to "documentation issues."
Each incident alone means nothing. Together, they spell systematic sabotage.
My fingers trace the columns of losses, calculating the hemorrhage. This isn't random theft or incompetence. Someone's opening doors from the inside, inviting the Torresi family to feast on Caruso territory while making it look like administrative chaos.
"Don Caruso." I stand in his study doorway, ledgers balanced against my hip. "We need to discuss these shipping discrepancies."
He doesn't look up from his contracts. "Handle it with the warehouse manager, Lucia. That's why I pay him."
"The warehouse manager might be the problem." I cross to his desk, the ledgers heavy with evidence. "Or he's being played by someone smarter. Either way, we're bleeding inventory."
"Lucia, I appreciate your diligence, but don't worry your pretty head about—"
The ledger slams onto his desk hard enough to make his coffee jump. "This isn't a war, Salvatore. It's a liquidation."
His eyes snap to mine, sharp as surgical steel, but I'm already spreading the papers across his mahogany surface, my finger stabbing at each circled loss.
"Look at the pattern. Every 'error' happens on shipments containing specific items—electronics, designer goods, things easy to move on the black market. The timing coincides with Torresi's expansion into our territories. They're not muscling in; they're being invited."
He leans forward, actually looking now instead of dismissing. His fingers follow the trail I've mapped, and I watch understanding dawn across his features.
"Christ." The word escapes soft, deadly. "How long?"
"Six months, escalating in the last three. We've lost close to two million in redirected inventory."
He sits back, studying me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. The dismissive superiority has evaporated, replaced by calculation I recognize from watching him strategize with his lieutenants.
"Clear my schedule for the rest of the day." He doesn't break eye contact as he speaks. "We need to go through every shipment. If someone's selling us out, I want names by nightfall."
The next four hours blur into forensic accounting and strategic planning. We work side by side, him calling contacts while I trace money trails, our bodies occupying the same space with casual proximity that would look damning if anyone walked in.
His sleeve brushes my arm when he reaches for documents. My hair falls across his hand when I lean over to point out another pattern. Each accidental touch builds charge in the air until the study feels electric with unspoken possibility.
By the time darkness falls, we've identified three potential suspects and a money trail that leads uncomfortably close to Marco's gambling associates. The fire has burned low, casting the room in amber shadows.
"You have what we call the Don's Eye." His voice carries different weight now, at the edge of evening when truths come easier. He's moved to the bar cart, pouring two glasses of whiskey. "The ability to see patterns where others see chaos. It's rare."
He hands me a glass, and our fingers brush with that electric inevitability that's become our curse. Instead of retreating to his desk, he sits beside me on the leather sofa, close enough that I can smell his cologne—cedar and smoke, nothing like Marco's aggressive chemical cloud.
"Marco doesn't have it." Calling that an understatement is like calling the Titanic a boating mishap. "Although I hope his trip to Miami goes as planned."
He pauses, swirling whiskey in his glass. "He'll be back in three days."
Three days. I file that away in the part of my brain that's apparently become a calendar of opportunities, marking time by Marco's absences like a prisoner counting days to parole.
I take a sip of whiskey that burns less than his proximity. "About the other night. I should apologize for bringing up Joana."
His mouth twitches—not quite a smile, but close. "Should apologize? But won't?"
"Oh, I'm definitely apologizing. I'm just saying I should, which is different from wanting to." Another sip, liquid courage warming my chest. "I'm sorry for using your dead wife as emotional ammunition. That was beneath even my current standards, which are admittedly subterranean."
That does it—he actually smiles, a real one that transforms his face from marble to something achingly human. "Your way with words is... unexpected."
"Unexpected like finding a body in your trunk, or unexpected like finding out your accountant writes poetry?"
"The latter." He leans back, studying me with curiosity rather than calculation. "Your family was quite different once. I remember."
Of course he remembers. He was there for the whole show—watching from the wings as the Santoros imploded, then stepping into the power vacuum we created. "You would. You inherited what we lost."
"I built what your father destroyed." The correction is gentle but firm.
The whiskey loosens my tongue more than it should. "My mother played piano once—not well, but with enthusiasm. My father told stories that made everyone lean in closer, back when his stories weren't all lies and IOUs."
"And now?"
"Now she plays nothing and he tells nothing worth hearing." The words spill out, whiskey-smooth and bitter. "You want to know what kills love, Salvatore? It's not the grand betrayals. It's the small retreats."
His eyes darken with interest. "How do you mean?"
"They stopped touching casually—no hand on the shoulder when passing, no fingers brushing when sharing coffee. They stopped laughing at each other's jokes, even the bad ones. Especially the bad ones."
I know I'm saying too much but can't stop, the whiskey and his attention creating dangerous honesty.
"They stopped fighting properly. Not the screaming kind—the kind where you care enough to hash it out. They just... accepted disappointment as their default setting."
"That's very specific," he says quietly.
"They stopped looking at each other when the other isn't watching. No more stolen glances across crowded rooms. No more memorizing how the light catches their profile." My voice catches because I'm describing exactly what I do with him, and we both know it. "They stopped creating inside jokes. Stopped planning futures that include each other. Stopped reaching for each other in their sleep."
The silence that follows is deafening. I'm acutely aware that I've been staring at him this entire time, memorizing exactly how the firelight catches his profile.
Then our eyes meet, and I see the recognition there—he knows I'm not really talking about my parents anymore. The signs of their dead love are the inverse of every desperate, impossible thing I feel sitting next to him.
"I should go." I stand abruptly, the room spinning slightly from whiskey and mortification. "Good night, Don Caruso."
I make it halfway to the door before I hear him stand. Three more steps before his hand closes around my wrist, pulling me back, spinning me to face him.
His hand slides up to cup my face, thumb tracing my bottom lip. I see the war in his eyes—duty versus desire, honor versus hunger.
Desire wins.