Novels by David Lois

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE CARMELA'S POVThe note was still in my jacket pocket when I sat down across from Gabriele the next morning.I was aware of it the entire time — a small, folded weight that shouldn't have meant anything and meant everything. I'd read it maybe thirty times since last night and each time Elena's handwriting did the same thing to me, pulled the floor out just slightly, enough to make everything else feel temporary and uncertain.I kept my face exactly where it needed to be.Gabriele was already deep into the accounts when I arrived, three folders open across the desk, his coffee going cold the way it always did when he was properly focused. He looked up when I sat down and pushed one of the folders toward me without preamble."These are shell companies," he said. "I need you to look at the registration dates against the shipment timeline and see if the pattern holds."I opened the folder and started reading.For the next hour we worked in the focused, efficient silenc

CARMELA'S POVI'd spent four days trying to put Alexei Volkov out of my head, and I was almost succeeding.Almost.She had your laugh.I'd turned those words over so many times they'd started to lose their shape, the way a word does when you repeat it too many times and suddenly it stops sounding like anything. I told myself he was testing me. Seeing how I'd respond to being unsettled. It was what men like him did in rooms like that — they found the soft spot and pressed it, just to see what happened. It didn't mean anything. It certainly didn't mean what the most irrational part of me kept insisting it meant.****There was another event later on during the week.It was smaller than the dinner. It was a gathering at one of the Famiglia's associates' homes, the kind of evening that existed so people could be seen together without it looking like a meeting. Gabriele brought me without discussion, which had become the pattern, and I dressed and came downstairs, took his arm and did w

CARMELA'S POVThe meeting had been Gabriele's idea, which surprised me, because everything I'd learned about him in the weeks since our alliance formed suggested he preferred to keep the Russians at a comfortable distance.He told me the night before, standing in the doorway of the study while I was going through papers, in the tone he used when he'd already made a decision and was informing rather than asking."The Russian Vor will be there tomorrow evening. Alexei Volkov. He's attending on behalf of the Pakhan." He paused. "I need you to be present.""As your wife," I said."As my wife," he confirmed, and the way he said it had shifted slightly from the earlier weeks. It sounded less like a role he was reminding me to perform and more like a fact he was stating. I nodded and looked back at my papers and listened to him leave.****The dinner was small and carefully curated, the kind of evening that looked social and was entirely business. I spotted Alexei Volkov the moment we walked

CHAPTER FIFTYCARMELA'S POVI found the files three days later even though I hadn't been looking for them specifically.I'd been going through the study adjacent to our bedroom, the one Gabriele had told me I could use as my own workspace, casually checking every drawer and cabinet the way I'd been doing since I arrived in this house. It was an old habit. You learn every room you're trapped in. You find every exit before you need one.The false bottom in the third drawer was well constructed — flush with the wood, no visible seam unless you knew the particular pressure point that released it. I found it by accident, pressing too hard when the drawer stuck, and felt the panel shift beneath my hand. I stood there for a moment before I lifted it.The files underneath were not Gabriele's. The handwriting on the tabs was different and the paper had the particular quality of documents that had been handled carefully and stored with intention. Someone had put these here deliberately, whic

CHAPTER FORTY-NINECARMELA'S POVThe morning after the dinner, I found Gabriele already in his office.He didn't look like a man who had slept, which told me he'd been at this since before dawn. The desk was spread with papers, his coffee had gone cold beside him, and he had the particular focused stillness of someone who had stopped noticing the world around them hours ago. He looked up when I came in and gestured at the chair across from him without preamble, which I appreciated. I didn't want pleasantries this morning. I wanted to work."Marco spoke to you alone last night," he said, before I'd even fully settled. "At the door, after dinner. What exactly did he say?"I'd been turning the conversation over since it happened, deciding how much to give and in what order. "He mentioned Elena," I said. "Framed it as a cautionary tale. He said she was smart but pointed her intelligence somewhere it didn't belong." I watched Gabriele's jaw tighten almost imperceptibly. "He wanted me to k

LCARMELA'S POVI dressed carefully for dinner.Not elaborately — that would have looked like effort, and effort would have looked like nerves, and I wasn't going to give anyone at that table the satisfaction of my nerves. I chose something simple and dark, fixed my hair, and stood in front of the mirror long enough to make sure the face looking back at me gave nothing away. Then I went downstairs.The dining room was already occupied when I arrived. Enzo Conti, Gabriele's uncle, was a broad man in his sixties with the particular gravity of someone who had spent decades being the most important person in every room he entered. He was standing near the head of the table talking to Gabriele in low, rapid Italian when I walked in, and he paused when he saw me, spreading his hands in a gesture of welcome that managed to be both warm and slightly performative."Carmela." He came forward and kissed both my cheeks. "Che bello vederti in piedi. Ci hai fatto preoccupare tutti." How wonderful to