POV: Emilia Conti
I didn't sleep.
That wasn't unusual anymore, but this time it wasn't fear keeping me awake. It was orientation. The kind that comes after shock, when your mind finally stops spinning and starts arranging pieces into something usable.
They had moved against me through silence, through implication, through distance.
So I would move through precision.
The temporary safe unit Strauss arranged was quiet in the way only federal spaces were—clean, impersonal, built to discourage attachment. Alessio lay on the narrow bed across the room, shoulder bandaged, breathing steady but shallow. Every few minutes, I checked the monitors anyway.
Habit.
"You're not resting," he said quietly.
"I am," I replied. "Just not horizontally."
He watched me from beneath half-lowered lashes. "You're planning."
"Yes."
"That usually means someone else is about to have a bad day."
"Only if they earned it," I said.
He shifted slightly, wincing. "Luciano doesn't get careless."
