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“Almost forty minutes.”

“With Nik that long?”

“Yeah.”

I glanced toward the office. “You heard anything?”

“Not enough to make out what they’re saying. Nik shut the door, told me not to interrupt them, then told me to send you in the second you got here.”

Well, shit.

“He say what this is about?”

“No. But whatever’s going on in there, it’s big.” Her expression tightened. “Nik called Luca and told him to come. He’s been acting strange all day.”

“Nik always acts strange.”

“It’s a different kind of strange today. And he made it clear no one is to bother them except you.”

I slid a hand into my pocket. “Maybe Luca finally discovered how much whiskey we’ve been stealing from his private stock.”

“You don’t steal from Luca.”

“Exactly. That’s why it would be newsworthy.”

Aria didn’t smile.

That bothered me more than anything else because she always got my jokes.

“You’d better get in there.”

“Great. And I’d been worried today might be boring.”

I headed down the hall and didn’t bother knocking on the closed door. Aria had already made it clear I was the one exception to Nik’s no-interruptions demand. If he wanted me in there the second I arrived, then here I was.

I flung the door open.

“—had it rerun twice. Same result both times,” Nik was saying.

Nik stopped talking.

Luca stood on the same side of the desk as Nik, with one fist planted against the polished wood, looking over Nik’s shoulder.

I forgot whatever smart-ass comment I’d planned next.

I’d seen Luca Genovese angry.

Everyone in The Syndicate had.

The old bastard could make an entire room reconsider its life choices without raising his voice. I’d seen him order men beaten and killed, threaten people over dinner, and watch torture with the bored expression of someone waiting for his coffee.

I’d never seen Luca this pale.

Not scared—rattled.

Luca Genovese didn’t do rattled.

But something had knocked the color out of his face, and the way he stared at me made the hair rise along the back of my neck.