Chapter Two : Hidden in plain sight
981 Words
The Moretti estate was an insomniac. Not truly. It was a living, breathing beast—guards stalking in quiet unison, cameras taking in every inch, and shadows that hid more than a few dark wonders.
The halls of the place felt like his own. He might as well have been a ghost in his own home, haunting the corridors and rooms.
He did not go to his room. He went to the basement—the converted old wine cellar that served as a private office and was a sanctuary Carmine did not know about.
The walls beneath the house did not talk. That was why he liked them.
He banged the folder on the table and reopened it.
Pictures. Dates. Notes.
Izzy had been under close watch since the instant she touched down.
And not just out of simple, benign curiosity. This was a worked-over surveillance tail of the kind one might use for a federal investigation.
One of two reasons for that. Either her father had a look-see order out on her security detail, or her father didn’t trust her. Period.
Or perhaps he already possessed the knowledge.
Luca felt his insides knot.
He seized his cryptographic tablet, accessed the protected document concerning family operations, and called up all recent activity.
The Rossi name came up twice—even flagged—for involvement in a high-priority case under current investigation.
Only a week ago—picked up in a wiretap—was a phone call made to a Rossi in some sort of panic or frenzy. The woman’s voice in the recorded conversation, although barely audible, had a sharp edge.
Luca tilted back in the chair, a weight of disbelief bearing down on him.
His mind whirled with the prospect he didn’t want to accept. Heavy with so many thoughts, he felt like he needed to take a breather.
Yet, he had lived long enough to grasp the fact that desire and reality were seldom the same.
Izzy stood in front of the mirror in her rented apartment across the city. She was staring at herself and wondering how much of the reflection in front of her was really her—and how much was the alias she wore like armor.
Sister. Liar. Agent.
Of late, she had a dislike of looking into mirrors. They posed inquiries of her that she was unprepared to respond to.
A text came in on the nightstand. It was from a number she didn’t recognize. “He’s looking into you,” it said.
Her heart skipped.
There was really no need for her to guess who the envelope had come from. It was her handler, of course, and he was making absolutely certain that she knew, without any doubt, how precarious her situation was.
She replied: “Allow him. It brings him nearer to you.”
Yet her fingers trembled even as she clicked send.
The scheme had always been straightforward. Infiltrate. Collect intelligence.
Dismantle them from within.
There was no intention behind the eye contact that felt like a confession.
Or the way her name sounded coming from Luca’s mouth.
But now, as she sat across from him in the office, that lump in her throat reminded her of how it had felt to see him looking at her like that.
Like he could actually see her. Not this version, this mask. But the real her.
And there in lies the danger with Luca Moretti.
He could do that to her. He could make her feel like he was seeing her when, really, he was doing the opposite.
For the reason that he caused her to desire to be visible.
That night, they convened once more.
The top of a private hotel in the heart of town. A surprise meeting, or so it appeared.
Luca was there, already leaning against the railing, with the city sprawling below him.
His jacket was open, the top buttons of his shirt undone, as if he had given up pretending to be calm.
Izzy paused before moving in closer.
Take note of my path; do you follow?
“Should I be flattered or should I be suspicious?” she replied with a coolness that suggested not so much a straightforward answer as a complex layering of not-completely-innocent motives.
“It is dependent on if you are concealing something.”
Once more, their eyes held steady. The breeze blew her hair into her face, but she was resolved not to let it distract her.
“You are not the only one who can ask questions, you know,” she said. “I could turn it around and ask you the same thing.
Why are you really here?”
Luca inhaled the smoke from his cigarette and then flipped the cigarette over the side.
“It’s because I don’t trust you,” he stated very plainly.
“But I can’t stop thinking about you, and that’s the real issue here.”
Izzy’s lips parted, caught between astonishment and something much more perilous—wanting.
She said softly, “Then maybe we are both in trouble.”
They were silent and stretched a long time in between them. It was thick with all the unspoken things between them.
Then he stepped forward.
Adjacent.
Too close.
“Whisper to me one thing,” he said. “Is any of this real?”
She did not respond.
In the 10 months since she had put on the badge and stepped into this mission, Frances had never once caught a moment like this on the street.
It had confused and intrigued her for a long time, the sheer not-happening-ness of it, vestiging behind scenes and shuffling down surreptitious side streets.
But then Frances had gone and done the thing, violating all the latent rules that had governed her conduct until now, venturing instead onto tho
se very not-happening city streets.
She lacked knowledge.
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