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Luca escorted me to a stool at the island, taking a moment to press his nose to my hair and smell me before he wandered away to start the espresso machine.

“Did you just sniff me?” I asked, amusement warring with intense discomfort.

He shot me a glance over his shoulder, and I couldn’t help but notice the play of big muscles in his tapered back. “Sometimes I wake up with the smell of honeysuckle in my nose.”

He turned back to the coffee, and I guessed that was confirmation enough.

Cazzo, could the brother I actually felt a connection with be even more of a psychopath than the original?

I pulled out my phone to distract myself and immediately noticed a new message about the inquiry from Orpheus the other day.

Orpheus: Things have escalated. Can you meet later today?

It wasn’t unusual to have clients with urgent requests, and I’d received the go-ahead from my security to set the meet, but something about this character and his moniker set my teeth on edge.

Or maybe it was just my own circumstances, sitting in a house that felt like a prison with a man I wasn’t certain was my captor or not.

I startled when a perfectly foam-topped cappuccino appeared in front of me. Looking up, I caught Luca’s frown, his gaze flickering down to my phone.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, as if he would murder whatever might cause me an issue.

Against my better judgment, my heart warmed.

“It will be,” I assured him with a small smile, so he eventually turned back to breakfast.

I typed out an affirmative response to Orpheus and also asked Finn and Hank to meet me at my offices after the meeting. If anyone could help me figure out what happened to Dario, it was those two.

Because I no longer trusted Luca to do the job.

I sat behind my palatial desk in my too-hot Oracle mask with my red wig perfectly settled against my scalp when the door opened and Alessia ushered a man named Orpheus into the room.

He, too, was wearing a mask.

This wasn’t exactly unusual.

A lot of clients wanted to keep themselves hidden even while they trusted me with their problems and secrets. Some refused to meet in person, and others wore balaclavas, Halloween masks, or hoods with handkerchiefs to hide their faces.

Still, I didn’t like the look of the gentleman, long and lean with dark-gold hair and a manner of walking like he was battling against the wind, leaning forward aggressively. The movements spoke of a man who was used to coming up against obstacles . . . and blowing past them.

“Please, take a seat,” I said in my adopted Russian accent.

To this day, I wasn’t sure why I wore a Sicilian mask but chose a Russian accent.

Maybe it was the subconscious cue of Dario’s mysterious tattoo written in Cyrillic or the fact that spending time with Katya had taught me how to mimic the accent beautifully and even speak the language decently enough.

Orpheus stared at me for a long beat before he did as I bade, settling himself on the edge of the chair and unbuttoning his jacket with a narrow-boned hand.

“How can I help you?” I said into the silence. “You mentioned having an internal problem vetting within your organization. My people couldn’t find much about you other than a mention of Orpheus working with the Tuscan Camorra boss, Raffaele Romano, on a recent deal for counterfeit olive oil.”

A little bark of something like laughter emerged from his lips.

“Yes,” he said in a stilted American accent, one it was clear he was superimposing over his real voice. “I did that, and more. You forgive me for being discreet. You see, my life is in danger.”

“Is it?” I asked, rolling a Montblanc pen through my fingers. “Tell me about that.”

The mask was cartoonish, a gray-and-black rendition of the Grim Reaper.

Not the most original.