I picked up Dante's phone from the seat, the screen still faintly warm from his touch, and headed upstairs to his office in the social club. The building was quiet at this hour, the kind of silence that made every footstep echo off marble floors that had been paid for with laundered money. The elevator ride felt longer than usual, each passing second stretching thin with something heavy pressing against my chest.
Before I even reached the door, voices slipped through the crack. Soft, intimate, unmistakable.
Liliana.
"Mr. Falcone, thank you so much. I don't know what I would've done without you today." Her voice trembled slightly, laced with tears, fragile in a way that invited comfort.
I froze just outside. My thumb found the silver rosary bracelet at my wrist and held it there.
Through the narrow gap, I saw Dante step closer to her, his movements unhurried, natural. He pulled her into his arms as if it were the most instinctive thing in the world, as if he had done it a thousand times before.
"I'm here. Don't be afraid," he murmured, his voice low and gentle.
The softness in his tone struck harder than anything else.