All Chapters of Hunted Heart:The Mafia's Plaything.: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

The prison gates didn't swing open so much as slide, mechanical and slow, like the building itself was reluctant to let anything go. Alex had been watching them for three hours, ever since the sun went down, ever since Cole called to say the paperwork was signed. His hands were numb from gripping the steering wheel. His legs were stiff from sitting in the same position. He hadn't moved. Couldn't move. Not until he saw him.The figure that emerged from the doorway was thinner than the one who'd gone in. The suit hung loose, the shoulders too wide, the fabric pooling at the wrists. Vincenzo's hair had grown longer, curling at the collar, and there were shadows under his eyes that hadn't been there before. But his walk was the same. That easy stride, like the world was something he'd already figured out.Alex's door was open before he knew he'd moved it. His feet were on the pavement, his legs carrying him forward, his eyes fixed on the man who was walking toward him. The parking lot was

The blueprints covered the kitchen table, edges curling, the paper soft from being folded and unfolded too many times. Alex had spread them out an hour ago, weighing down the corners with coffee cups and the takeout menus that had been propping up the table leg. Vincenzo stood across from him, his arms crossed, his eyes moving over the lines and measurements like he was looking for something that wasn't there."This is the building," Alex said, tapping a finger on the corner of the page. "Twenty-three stories. Glass front. Security on every floor. A vault in the basement that's supposed to be earthquake-proof, fire-proof, and, according to the specs, burglar-proof."Vincenzo looked up. "You want to break into a bank."Alex shook his head. "I want to break into a data storage facility that happens to look like a bank." He pulled out a second sheet, slid it across the table. "Matteo moved all his digital records here six months ago. Deeds, titles, contracts. Everything that makes his le

The call came at noon.Alex was at the kitchen table, the drive in front of him, the laptop dark. He'd been staring at it for hours, turning it over in his hands, reading the fine print on the label, looking for something he'd missed. There was nothing. Just the name of the company, the date of manufacture, the serial number that traced back to a factory in a country that didn't ask questions.Vincenzo was on the couch, the newspaper open in front of him, his eyes moving across the page without really seeing it. The apartment was quiet, the way it had been for days. Waiting. Watching. Holding their breath.Alex picked up the phone. "Cole."Cole's voice was tight. "I found someone. A guy who works with encryption. The kind of encryption that comes with dead man's switches. He says he can break it. Without the password. Without setting it off."Alex's hand tightened on the phone. "What does he need?""Biometrics. Fingerprint. Retinal scan. The kind of thing you can't fake without the pe

The apartment was quiet when they plugged the drive in again.Three weeks had passed since the kiss. Three weeks of waiting. Three weeks of watching the device sit on the kitchen table like a bomb that hadn't gone off. Vincenzo had barely spoken to him that first week. Not out of anger—Alex understood that now. It was something else. Something that looked like fear, tasted like shame, sounded like nothing at all.Now they sat across from each other, the laptop between them, the cables connected, the screen dark. The device was in Alex's hand. He'd been holding it for ten minutes, turning it over, feeling the weight of it, the proof that he'd done what he had to do.Vincenzo reached across the table, took the device from his hand. His fingers were warm, steady."Let me," he said.Alex watched him plug it in. Watched the screen flicker. Watched the folder appear, the files load, the window open.The password prompt was white. The cursor blinked. Alex's heart was a drum in his chest.Vin

The estate woke up slowly.That was the first thing Alex noticed after they moved back in. The way the light moved through the windows, the way the floors creaked in the morning, the way the garden looked different now that the Don's chair was gone and the fountain was running again. Vincenzo had hired a crew to clear the weeds, to fix the stone, to make the water flow the way it had when he was a child.The second thing Alex noticed was the guns.They were everywhere. Not in the way they'd been before, when the house was a fortress and every corner held a man waiting for something to happen. These were smaller. Hidden. A pistol in the kitchen drawer, next to the silverware. A revolver in the study, behind the law books that hadn't been touched in years. A rifle in the coat closet, wrapped in a blanket, waiting for a winter that might never come.Vincenzo called it being prepared. Alex called it what it was. Old habits. The kind that didn't die just because the war was over.---The r