Chapter 52 -
The silence of the hallway after the Don’s departure felt like a physical weight, pressing against Nia’s chest as she stood outside the heavy oak doors of Leo’s private study. She could hear the faint, rhythmic ticking of a clock from within, a sound that seemed to count down the seconds of her own life. The three-month deadline was no longer an abstract concept. It was a noose, and it was tightening.
She raised her hand, her knuckles hovering over the dark wood. She hesitated for a moment, thinking about the look on Leo’s face during dinner—the way he had defended her, and the way he had looked completely exhausted. Finally, she knocked.
“Enter,” Leo’s voice rang out, sounding tired and sharp.
Nia pushed the door open. The room was dimly lit, the only significant light source being a green-shaded lamp on the massive desk. Leo was slumped in his chair, his tie loosened and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He was staring at a map of the city, his fingers drumming a restless beat on the surface. He did not look up immediately.
“I told you Matteo I did not want to be disturbed,” he snapped.
“It is not Matteo,” Nia said softly.
Leo froze. He looked up, his grey eyes narrowing as they found her standing in the doorway. The harsh light of the lamp cast deep shadows across his face, making the angles of his jaw look like flint.
“Nia,” he said, his voice softening just a fraction. “You should be in your room.”
“I know,” she replied, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. The click of the lock felt different this time; it felt like privacy rather than imprisonment. “But I remembered something. Something I think you need to know.”
Leo sat up straight, all traces of exhaustion vanishing as his professional instincts took over. He gestured to the chair across from him. “Sit. Tell me.”
Nia remained standing, her hands twisting the fabric of her skirt. “It is about Jordan. The man Alex was with. I was thinking about the night I found them together. The way the light hit his hands when he reached out to stop me from leaving.”
Leo leaned forward, his gaze locked onto hers with an intensity that made her skin tingle. “Go on.”
“He had a tattoo,” Nia said, her voice growing more confident as the image sharpened in her mind. “On his inner wrist. It was small, but very distinct. I did not think much of it at the time because I was too busy feeling like my world was ending. But I can see it now. It was not just a design. It looked like a symbol.”
Leo was out of his chair before she had even finished the sentence. He moved with a sudden, violent energy that startled her. He reached for the sleek black phone on his desk and punched in a series of numbers with aggressive precision.
“Santiago,” Leo said into the receiver, his voice like cold iron. “Get the sketch artist here. Now. I do not care if he is asleep. I do not care if he is in the middle of a job. Have him at the mansion in twenty minutes or do not bother coming at all.”
He slammed the phone back onto its cradle and looked at Nia. For the first time in weeks, there was a spark of something other than grim determination in his eyes. It was hope, fragile and dangerous.
“You are sure about this?” he asked.
“I am sure,” Nia said. “It was a compass. But the needle was pointing toward a broken star.”
Leo let out a breath he seemed to have been holding since dinner. “If that is a syndicate mark, you just gave us the key to the entire warehouse network. Why did you not mention this before?”
Nia looked at the floor, a small, sad smile touching her lips. “Because before, I wanted to forget everything about that night. Now… I just want to survive it.”
Leo walked around the desk until he was standing directly in front of her. He did not touch her, but the air between them vibrated with the memory of the balcony.
“You are doing well, Nia,” he whispered. “Keep this up, and the Don will have no reason to talk about motivation again.”
The sketch artist arrived less than thirty minutes later. He was a small, nervous man with ink-stained fingers and a bag full of charcoal sticks and heavy-duty paper. He was escorted into the study by Santiago, who lingered by the door like a gargoyle, his dark eyes watching Nia with a mixture of suspicion and boredom.
Leo did not leave. He moved to the shadows near the bookshelf, lighting a cigarette and watching the process with a silent, predatory focus.
“Start with the face,” Leo commanded.
Nia sat across from the artist, trying to reach back into the most painful moment of her life to find the details they needed. “He had an angular face,” she began, her voice steady. “A very sharp jawline. He looked like he had never smiled a day in his life. His nose was straight, but it had a small bump at the bridge, like it had been broken and healed poorly.”
The artist’s pencil flew across the paper, the scratching sound the only noise in the room besides the occasional hiss of Leo’s cigarette.
“The eyes?” the artist prompted.
“Narrow,” Nia said. “Pale. I think they were blue, but they looked like glass. There was no warmth in them at all. Even when he was looking at Alex, he looked like he was calculating the cost of a soul.”
She spent over an hour working with the man. They went through three different versions of the jawline and four versions of the brow. Every time the artist made a mark, Nia felt like she was peeling back a layer of a wound she had tried to seal shut.
“Now, the tattoo,” Leo said, stepping out of the shadows. He stood behind the artist, looking over his shoulder at the developing image.
“It was on the left wrist,” Nia explained, gesturing to her own arm. “Small. A compass rose, but the North point was replaced by a star that was split down the middle. It was done in deep black ink, very fine lines.”