Chapter 5
Ines remained centered, balanced on the balls of her feet, her expression unreadable.
"Look at me," Santino commanded, though the authority in his voice was suddenly frayed by something raw and breathless.
Ines met his gaze.
The fluorescent bulb overhead swung in the damp draft, illuminating the pale, steady planes of her face.
Santino inhaled sharply, his chest hitching as if he had caught a blow to the ribs. The color drained from his olive skin, leaving his features taut. His dark eyes—eyes that had stared down rival families without wavering—widened in disbelief.
"Ines," he rasped.
The name slipped from his lips with an ache so profound that his security team visibly hesitated. None of them had ever heard Don Santino speak to anyone with that depth of vulnerability.
"You were gone," he whispered, his voice trembling before he forced it back into steel. "Seven years ago in the harbor. I searched the shoreline for months. I tore Queens apart looking for you."
"You looked in the wrong places, Santino," Ines said evenly, her voice cool and devoid of the deference she gave to parish priests. "A person only leaves a trail when she wants to be followed."
Santino closed the distance between them with rapid strides.
His men shifted, but Santino raised an abrupt hand behind him without looking back. "Get out," he ordered, his voice raw.
"Don Santino, the perimeter—" the captain began.
"Clear the room," Santino said, the edge of fury returning to his tone. "Secure the perimeter outside. No one enters until I give the word."
The soldiers did not question him. They seized the two subdued men and the terrified collector, escorting them up the stairs and sealing the heavy door behind them.
The basement fell completely quiet.
***
Only the low hum of the electrical box broke the stillness.
Santino stopped two paces from her. The familiar scent of him filled the narrow air—bergamot, dark tobacco, and the crisp, clean presence of authority. It was the same scent that had lingered in her memories for seven years, an echo of a life she had deliberately buried.
He reached out toward her cheek, his hand hesitating half an inch from her skin, trembling slightly as if he feared she were a ghost made of mist.
Ines did not flinch, but her gray eyes were unyielding. "Step back, Santino."
Santino paused.
Every instinct in him screamed to close the gap, to touch her, to verify that she was flesh and blood. But her warning was clear, delivered with the absolute precision of a cleaner who meant every syllable.
Slowly, with visible effort, Santino lowered his hand. His fingers curled into a tight fist at his side, respecting the line she had drawn, though his chest heaved with suppressed emotion.
"It’s really you," he murmured, his gaze tracing every line of her face. "You’re alive."
"I am," Ines replied calmly. "And I was managing my business before your convoy breached the door."
Santino’s eyes dropped to the floor, taking in the empty chairs and the subdued stillness of the room.
"Two men outside disarmed without a sound," he noted, his tone slipping into sharp analysis. "Corvo’s runner cornered and broken. Delivered with zero collateral and no alarms raised." He looked back up into her eyes. "You haven't lost your edge, Ines."
"I did what was necessary," she said. "Now call off your men and unlock the street shutter."
"Why are you here?" Santino demanded, stepping slightly closer, though keeping his hands firmly at his sides. "You vanished into thin air seven years ago. You let the entire five boroughs believe you were dead. I grieved you, Ines. For three years, I lived in mourning."
A muscle jumped along his tightened jaw. "And now you surface in a basement gambling dive on my outer border, taking apart Corvo’s collectors. What brought you back into the open?"
Ines kept her pulse steady.
*Lia.*
Santino was a man of frightening intellect and observation. If he caught the faintest hint of Lia’s existence—the dark curls, the familiar stubborn tilt of her chin, the eyes that so mirrored his own—he would instantly know the truth. And a Giordano Don would never allow his daughter to live in a modest basement flat beneath a dry cleaner’s shop.
He would bring Lia into his fortress, surrounded by armed guards and armored glass, pulling her directly into the crosshairs of every syndicate rivalry in the city.
"A personal matter," Ines said, keeping her tone flat. "An unpaid debt from a neighborhood issue."
Santino frowned, his dark eyes searching hers. "You don't care about neighborhood debts. You never did. Matteo Carbone’s daughter doesn't descend into a cellar for pocket change."
"I have built a quiet life here," Ines replied, meeting his gaze squarely. "Your men overstepped. They targeted people under my roof. I came to remind them that this corner has boundaries. That is all."
Santino studied her face, searching for the slightest hesitation, but her expression remained an impenetrable wall.
"You’re keeping something from me," he said softly. "You always were composed when you had a secret."
He gestured toward the stairwell. "We are not finishing this conversation in a damp basement with Corvo’s scouts lingering in the district. My car is outside."
Ines stood her ground. "I am not going to your tower, Santino."
Santino stopped, turning back to face her. The Don’s unbending composure was firmly in place, but beneath it lay a genuine, desperate concern.
"Corvo is hunting this border, Ines," he said, keeping his voice level and restrained. "He is looking for any leverage against my family. If his lieutenants realize Matteo Carbone’s daughter is operating in these streets alone, they will descend on this neighborhood with heavy weapons. I will not have you caught in a crossfire in an open alley. Come with me to Midtown. We talk in private, behind secure lines, and then you make your choice."
Ines weighed the situation with tactical detachment. If she fought her way out into the street now, the commotion would draw Corvo’s reconnaissance teams straight to Saint Jude’s parish. But if she took the car, she could buy time, ensure the neighborhood remained quiet, and slip away once she reached Manhattan.
"Fine," Ines said coldly. "We talk. But on my terms."
Santino nodded once, stepping aside to give her a wide, unobstructed path toward the stairs. "On your terms."
***
The penthouse office sat on the sixty-fourth floor of the Giordano Tower, looking out over the black ribbon of the East River and the sea of city lights below.
It was an austere sanctuary of dark oak, glass, and leather. A decanter of single-malt scotch rested on a marble sideboard alongside an untouched crystal glass. Outside, rain beat a relentless rhythm against the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Ines stood near the glass, her arms crossed over the chest of her charcoal coat.
She did not touch the tea that had been offered. She did not sit. Every nerve in her body was tracking the passage of time.
Five-forty.
Lia was at Mrs. Costanza’s flat. The almond rolls would be done. Lia would be sitting by the old radio, waiting for her mother’s familiar knock. If Ines did not return by nightfall, the neighbor’s anxiety would mount, and the delicate cover of "Nurse Ines" could begin to unravel.
