Page 71 of The ARC Unit: Breach

I kept walking toward the house. “There was landscaping left.”

“Eyes forward.”

I smiled at a passing couple so they would not wonder why the brunette talking to herself looked homicidal.

“You are exhausting.”

“Radio discipline.”

Radio discipline was his preferred way of telling me to shut the fuck up while making it sound like a NATO procedure.

The rear terrace opened around the side of the house, and for a moment, even I forgot to be irritated. The pool stretched through the center of the property in a long blue rectangle bordered by stone, low seating, large cream umbrellas and broad shallow steps disappearing into the water. Beyond it, the grounds dropped into a lower garden where the cabanas sat behind manicured hedges and narrow walking paths. Servers moved through the crowd with champagne while guests drifted between the water, bar area, shaded tables and open glass doors leading into the main house.

Everyone looked rich enough to have an opinion about linen. Nobody looked like an open human trafficking investigation, which was exactly why places like this worked.

I took a champagne flute from a server and continued on.

Raven murmured, “North camera has you. Hawk also confirms visual.”

“Good.”

Wolf said, “Stop fucking talking unless there’s something useful to say.”

I tightened my fingers around the stem. Extremely mean apparently remained mission compatible.

I stood near the edge of a shaded bar while two women complained about hotel redevelopment in Lake Como, then let a man from Frankfurt pull me into a conversation after mistaking me for someone who worked in private debt. Five minutes later, I had managed to correct him without actually correcting him and learned that the host had recently invested in a logistics platform. By then, I had also confirmed that rich people were apparently capable of discussing interest rates while shirtless, drinking champagne before noon and acting as though any of this was normal.

I was reaching for sparkling water when a man beside me said, “You have the face of someone disappointed by the champagne.”

I turned.

Luca Bellandi looked less polished than he did in the photographs, which somehow made him more attractive. His dark hair had fallen slightly over his forehead in the heat, his white linen shirt was open at the throat and his sunglasses hung from one hand. He had the kind of easy confidence that came from spending most of his adult life in rooms where people were already interested when he started speaking.

I glanced at my glass. “I’m disappointed by the conversation. The champagne is innocent.”

His mouth curved.

“That’s worse.”

“For the conversation? Absolutely.”

He laughed and leaned one shoulder against the bar. “Luca.”

“Mia.”

“I know.”

I studied him more closely.

He nodded toward my wristband. “Bellandi group. I assume that’s either me or a very committed coincidence.”

“I’m offended.”

The answer came exactly as Jackal had told me to use it. I let my fingers close lightly around Luca’s forearm for one second, smiling as though we already shared a joke.

His attention dropped to my hand.

Jackal, irritatingly, might have been onto something.