Chapter 7

The flight to Naples took three hours. Maria sat in the seat beside Enzo, wrapped in her own silence, the chain-of-custody log in her lap like a stone. She had not spoken since they boarded. Enzo did not push.

It was late afternoon when the car pulled through the gates of a quiet retirement community, the kind of place with green lawns and white stucco and the smell of hibiscus. The driver was the same silent man who had brought them to Baltimore. The car stopped at the curb outside a modest villa with a gravel driveway and a date palm leaning over the fence.

"Wait here," Enzo told the driver. Then he looked at Maria. "And you stay in the car."

"Mr. Marchetti—"

"I'll handle this alone."

He wheeled himself up the ramp to the front door. The ramp was new, installed recently, as if someone had expected a visitor who couldn't climb stairs. Enzo rang the bell. The door opened.

Vincent Coletta was older than the memory Enzo had kept of him—bald now, his face weathered, his eyes guarded. He wore a cardigan, the same color as Enzo's, and the sight of it made Enzo's chest tighten.

"Marchetti," Coletta said, and his voice was rough, unafraid. "You took your time."

"Step aside," Enzo said.