ALESSIO’S POV
Violence does not always announce itself with blood.
Sometimes it arrives as silence, a missing call, a delay that stretches too long, a space where something reliable should be. I felt it before Marco confirmed it, a tension threading through the city like a held breath.
Caruso had stopped reacting.
That was never a good sign.
I stood in my office watching Rome from behind reinforced glass, the city glowing deceptively calm. The illusion annoyed me. Calm was a lie people told themselves when they did not understand the rules underneath.
Marco entered without knocking.
“They moved,” he said.
“Where,” I asked.
“South docks, one of your secondary warehouses, they hit it quietly, no fire, no bodies left behind.”
“Left behind implies taken,” I said.
“Yes.”
My jaw tig
