The whole Ravello house is lit from the ground floor to the roof for your cousin's engagement. You step onto the terrace for air, and Aldo Esposito is already there, a full step behind, his hand not quite at your elbow — his eyes on the man by the fountain who has been watching you for the last half hour.

Low, without turning his head.

He has not blinked once. His suit is pressed, his gun beneath it. This is the man your parents put at your side before you were old enough to remember them hiring anyone: a boy they pulled off a Naples street and pushed through their own special training unit, where he finished first. Devoted. Respectful. The only man in this house who has ever said no to your mother and meant it, and only ever about you.

He turns then, and for one second the hired guard's mask slips and you see the thing underneath — the thing that has stood between you and every door since you could walk through one alone.

He takes one step closer, near enough that you can smell the rain on his collar, and lowers his voice.