I ChooseYou

Lenny's Pov He was out of bed before the second hit on the door. I sat up. He already had the gun from the nightstand. He looked at me once and held up one hand flat. I stayed. He crossed to the bedroom door and opened it and went into the corridor of the apartment in three steps. I heard him at the front door. The specific sound of him checking the peephole. Then his voice. Very low. Very flat. "Step back from the door." Silence from the other side. "Step back again. Now." I heard shuffling. Then a voice I didn't recognize, male, muffled through the door. "I have a message. From Dante Moretti for his brother." "Put it under the door." "It's not that kind of message." "Then you're leaving without delivering it. Make your choice in the next ten seconds." Silence. Then footsteps moving away from the door. I heard Vincenzo on his phone immediately. Two words to Luca, the corridor. Then quiet. He came back to the bedroom doorway and looked at me. "Stay he

The Hours Between

Lenny's Pov The morning came in grey. I was awake before the alarm, before him, before Shadow had even shifted at the foot of the bed. I lay still for a few minutes with his arm around me while his breathing stayed slow and even. He had actually slept for four solid hours at least. I listened to the ordinary sounds of the building. The elevator somewhere below. A door in the corridor. I got up carefully and made coffee. I fed Shadow, who wagged at me with his usual complete commitment to mornings. I stood at the kitchen window and looked at the street below while the coffee brewed. The session was at nine. It was currently six forty. Vincenzo came out of the bedroom at seven. He was already dressed in a dark jacket with the evidence file under his arm. He looked like a man who had made a decision a long time ago and today was simply the day it was being delivered. He looked at me. "You made coffee." "It's ready." He put the file on the table and sat down. I put a c

The Wait

Lenny's Pov Luca was quiet for a moment with his hands resting on either side of his cup. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully."He has walked into worse rooms than this one, with less preparation. With no Giovanni declaration behind him and no confirmed captains."I nodded slowly because I knew all of that was true. "I know that.""He has walked out of all of them.""I know that too. Knowing it and sitting here are two different things."Luca met my eyes, and something in his expression softened slightly. "Yes. They are."Shadow put his head on my knee, and I put my hand on his without looking down. His fur was warm, and his breathing was steady. The simple weight of him grounded me."Tell me something about the session. Something specific. How it actually works."Luca turned his cup on the table, and the ceramic scraped softly against the wood. He seemed to appreciate the di

Deliberatly

Vincenzo's Pov The commission chair opened the session at nine oh four.He was a man named Borrelli, sixty three years old and twenty years in the chair position. He had the particular manner of someone who had seen enough of these sessions to find the drama around them tedious rather than interesting.He read Giovanni's declaration into the record first. It took four minutes and the room was completely silent the entire time. The only sound was his voice and the turning of pages.I watched Dante across the table while Borrelli read. His expression did not change. He had known the declaration was coming and he had prepared for it. The pleasant expression stayed exactly where he always kept it. Same half smile. Same relaxed shoulders. Same eyes that didn't match any of it.When Borrelli finished he set the declaration down with his hands resting on either side of it."The capo's formal endorsement is now part of the s

He Came Back

Lenny's Pov The people at the door were maintenance. The maintenance men were real.They had building credentials and a work order for a smoke detector issue on the floor dated three days ago, and their tools in a bag were actual tools. Luca checked everything twice before he let them through.I stood at the kitchen entrance and watched him check both men. They were middle-aged and uncomfortable with the scrutiny, and they did not have the energy of people who had come to do anything other than fix a smoke detector. They were done in eight minutes, and Luca walked them to the elevator before coming back and closing the door.I looked at him."Real.""I know. I could tell after the first two minutes.""But it rattled you.""Yes.""That's reasonable. Given the last twelve hours."I went back to the table and sat down with my phone face up on the surface where I ha

After The Room

Lenny's Pov He sat on the couch, and Shadow pressed against his knee immediately. Luca stood at the kitchen entrance, looking at me."Water," I told him.Luca went to get it.I sat on the coffee table in front of Vincenzo the way I always did when I was about to look at damage. He let me. He was looking at the wall behind me with the particular expression of someone running a final check on everything that had happened in the last several hours."Tell me."He looked at me, and his voice was steady despite everything. "The session ran four hours. Dante had forty minutes of floor time. Borrelli gave him everything he asked for.""And the evidence file.""Forty-five minutes of presentation. Every document. Every transfer. Every communication record." He paused, and I watched his throat move. "Ferraro asked twelve questions. Every one was answered directly by the file.""And Bianchi."