They were three blocks from the glassworks when Emilia’s phone rang again. Same unknown number as before. Same absence of etiquette.
She put it on speaker.
“Emilia,” a voice said. Not Cesare’s. Not Renzo’s. Rougher. Older. A man who’d swallowed smoke for a living.
“Who is this?” she asked.
“Someone who drowned for Dario and got hauled out ugly,” the voice replied. “You don’t know me. He did.”
Rafael’s eyes narrowed. “Proof.”
A wet cough. A scrape. Then a sound that didn’t belong to any living throat- a laugh that cracked, then found shape.
“You were there,” the man said, and Emilia’s skin went cold because he meant the alley and he meant her. “You watched him fall. I watched you watch him. I was in the car across the street with my lungs full of river. He kept me in the trunk when h
