Chapter 5 The Second Gun
She was already moving before Marco finished talking.
Out of the security room, fast down the corridor, heading straight for the east wing where Luca's room was.
Marco caught her arm.
His hand wrapped tight around her forearm and stopped her cold. Warm. Strong. The first time he had touched her like that — not professional, not duty. She felt it shoot through her body like electricity before she could push it away.
She turned around fast.
He was close. Too close for this narrow corridor.
"You can't confront him," Marco said.
"I'm not going to confront him." She looked straight into his eyes. "I'm going to watch him. There's a difference."
His hand stayed on her arm for half a second longer than it needed to. That small moment stretched between them — his grip, her racing pulse, the tight space. Then he let go and stepped back. His face went back to that closed-door look.
"Stay behind me," he said.
They moved.
They found Luca in the east sitting room.
He was pacing by the window, talking fast and low into his phone. The second Marco pushed the door open Luca spun around and the words died in his throat.
His face did something he couldn't hide.
For two seconds it was pure panic — raw, ugly, the look of a man whose secret just walked in wearing a suit. Then he tried to pull it back, tried to make his face normal again.
Too late. Gia had already seen it.
"Luca," Marco said. His name. Flat and heavy.
Luca's eyes jumped between them. "I was just—"
Marco held up the burner phone. The alert was still on the screen — timestamp, device ID, the exact search terms. He didn't explain. He just held it where Luca could see it and watched his face do the rest of the work.
Luca gripped his own phone until his knuckles went white.
He looked at Gia.
She looked back at him and kept her face completely still even though her chest felt like it was being crushed. This was her brother. Her own blood. He had sat at breakfast with that rough cracked I'm sorry about Ivy while knowing exactly why she was dead.
She opened her mouth.
The door opened behind her.
Don Enzo Lombardi walked in like he owned the air in the room.
Which he did.
Silver hair. Perfect suit. That calm face that wasn't calm at all — the stillness of a man who knew nothing could touch him. His eyes moved across the three of them in one quick sweep. Marco. Gia. Luca. He gave nothing away.
He didn't even look at the phone in Marco's hand.
But something in his eyes said he already knew it was there.
"I wasn't aware we were having a family meeting," he said. His voice was pleasant. That was the scary part.
Nobody spoke.
He looked at Marco for three long seconds. Not angry. Something colder. Like he was measuring exactly how much Marco knew. Then he looked away like it didn't matter.
"Security briefing," he said. "One hour. All the team." He glanced at Gia — that same old assessing look she had gotten her whole life. "Stay inside tonight, Gianna."
Then he left.
The door clicked shut.
The room went dead quiet.
Gia felt it in her spine — her father as she had never quite felt him before. Not the cold distant man. The man who sat at the centre of every lie and every secret in this house and had been watching them all the time.
The second his footsteps disappeared down the corridor Luca's face fell apart.
Not completely. But enough. His hand was shaking where he held the phone. He looked at Gia and his expression was desperate and ugly and stripped naked.
"I was protecting you," he said.
Four words.
The rage that had been sitting tight in Gia's chest exploded.
She was across the room before she even decided to move. "Protecting me?" Her voice came out low and mean. "Ivy is dead, Luca. She's in the fucking ground. And you want to stand here and tell me that was protection?"
"Gia—" Marco's hand landed on her shoulder.
"Don't." She shrugged him off. Stood there two feet from her brother. Her hands were shaking at her sides and she let them shake because she needed somewhere to put what was moving through her. Eyes burning with tears she refused to let fall.
Luca looked wrecked. "I found out what was coming for you," he said. "Something worse than a bullet. I thought — I thought if it ended fast it would be mercy. I didn't know about Ivy. I didn't know she would—"
"Get out," Gia said.
"Gia, please listen—"
"Get the hell out of this room right now."
Marco stepped between them. Not to protect Luca. She knew that from the way he positioned himself — facing her, one hand slightly raised, giving her space but stopping her from doing something that couldn't be fixed. His eyes were steady on hers. Calm. Asking her to borrow some of that calm.
She breathed. Once. Twice.
Luca left.
The room went quiet again. Marco's hand dropped. He looked at her for a second then looked away. She was grateful for that small mercy.
"The briefing is in forty minutes," he said.
"Go," she said. "I'll be in the security room."
She watched the monitors alone.
The security room had never felt this large before.
She pulled her knees up on the chair and watched the feeds cycle.
Gate. Grounds. East corridor. Garden.
She almost missed it.
A dark shape moving fast along the outside wall. She sat up straight. Leaned closer. The shape moved with purpose — like someone who knew exactly where the cameras were and how to stay in the shadows between them.
Which meant they knew the security schedule.
Which meant this wasn't a stranger.
Her hand went straight for her phone.
The security room door opened behind her.
She spun around so fast the chair rolled.
Luca was standing in the doorway. Still shaking. Still wrecked. But his eyes went straight to the monitor behind her. To the dark shape on the feed. He looked at it for one second — recognition, cold and immediate — and then he looked at her.
"They're not here for you," he said.