Page 54 of Masked Don

I hear Enzo’s phone gently vibrate on the table. It’s face-down, and he doesn’t pick it up. Instead, he tilts it with one finger, glances to read the screen, and frowns. Then he leans back.

“The Bracco delivery,” he says. “Say that date again, the one you’re so sure of.”

“End of the month.” Luca spreads his hands. “The thirtieth. Like I said, I know your routines, Enzo.”

“Mm.” Enzo lets a silence hang in the air, lets Luca sit in it without knowing why. “Someone’s been telling you stories, Luca, and those stories stopped being current about seven days ago. You should ask yourself who got nervous enough to stop talking to you.”

Luca’s smile flickers for just a second.

But I see it, and so does Enzo.

Inside of me, something lights up that I haven’t felt for a long time.

Victory.

I did that. I didn’t just survive the room, didn’t just sit down and hold on to the table for dear life. No, I picked up a thread he didn’t know he’d dropped and did the exact right thing with it. And now, Luca’s sitting there with his confidence cracked in two.

And he has no idea I was the one who did it to him.

He recovers fast. But it rattled him. And a rattled Luca reaches for the thing that’s always worked before.

“You know what I think this is?” he asks. That green-eyed gaze swings to me, and I recognize the look: appraisal. Judgment.

“Choose your words carefully, Luca,” Enzo says.

Luca continues as if Enzo hadn’t spoken. “I think this is sweet.”

“Sweet?” Enzo asks.

“Yeah, sweet. You bought yourself a little assistant, Enzo. And not just any assistant, but one I used to fuck. Funny how both of you wanted to prove a point to me and did it in the same way. You sold yourself to him, and he was happy to buy you, like a used car I got tired of driving.”

The old me would’ve flinched, felt the heat climb my neck, broken into a cold sweat. But I’m not the old me anymore.

I don’t move. I let the ugliness sit in the air, his and not mine. I keep my face calm and my pen still.

Enzo cuts him off before I have to say a word. Whatever pleasantness had remained in his voice is now gone completely. “That’s a member of my staff and household you’re talking about. Think very carefully about your next sentence, Luca.”

He doesn’t raise his voice, which is more powerful than if he’d screamed the words. “You come at my territory; I let you talk. But if you come at her again, that’s the end of it. We stop talking. If it’s war you want, you can have it. But understand what you’re asking for. You’re an upstart little brat going against one of the oldest and most powerful families in the city. If I have to crush you, I’ll make goddamn sure it’s for good.”

The room is deadly silent.

I decide I’m done being talked about like I’m not in the room. I set my pen down. I look up, full on, the first time all meeting, and I give Luca a small, pleasant smile.

“You keep bringing up what we used to be,” I say, “like you’re so goddamn proud of it. Funny, I remember it differently. I remember you stood up in front of all your pals and tried to make me and my body into a punchline.”

Luca shifts in his seat, his jaw working.

“But that’s not what happened, is it? A man in a mask came to my side and put you right in your place, and you didn’t have a single word to say about it. I bet that’s what everyone remembers the most: you glowering, pissed off, just like you are now.”

I lift an eyebrow as I continue. “It’s been five years. I’ve built a whole life since that little thing we had, and here you are, still talking about that night like it was the proudest moment of your life, when all that memory should do is make you want to cringe out of your skin. You’re pathetic.”

Luca’s face does something he can’t control. It’s a flush, a tightening. The mask slips for half a second, and everyone there gets to see the furious little boy underneath.

There you are.

Enzo stands and buttons his jacket. “We’re done here, Miss Callahan.”

I gather the folio, unhurried, and walk out of Luca Santini’s conference room on my own two feet. I don’t look back. There’s nothing back there worth the turn of my head.