Nikolai POV
I found Alessandro Moretti in the private gallery behind the ballroom fifteen minutes later.
It was quieter there, lined with old portraits, velvet benches, and gold-framed paintings that had probably been stolen, donated, purchased, or inherited through methods everyone agreed not to question.
The music from the ballroom softened through the walls until it became a distant pulse.
Alessandro stood near a painting of a storm at sea, a glass of bourbon untouched in his hand.
He did not turn when I entered.
“You move quietly for a man your size,” he said.
“I was taught not to announce myself unless I wanted someone prepared.”
That earned the faintest curve of his mouth. “Mikhail’s teaching?”
“Among others.”
Now he turned.
Alessandro Moretti was not a loud man.
That
