On the screen, the broadcast had shifted to a photograph. A formal portrait of the Valducci Dynasty, the kind taken in the grand salon of the Valducci Fortress Compound, with its dark wood paneling and oil paintings of ancestors who had ruled the underworld for generations.
Don Vittorio Valducci sat at the center, his expression carved from stone, his silver hair swept back, his hand resting on the arm of an ornate chair that looked less like furniture and more like a throne. Beside him sat Donna Elena, regal and composed, her dark eyes carrying the quiet authority of a woman who had stood at the side of the most powerful man in the criminal world for a quarter century. Their two sons flanked them. Giacomo on the left, broad-shouldered and severe. Felix on the right, leaner, sharper, with eyes that missed nothing.
And in Don Vittorio's lap, a small child. A girl, no more than four or five, with golden-blonde hair that caught the light of the chandelier above. A single streak of black ran through her curls. She was smiling, her small hands clutching her father's lapel, her face turned toward the camera with the unselfconscious joy of a child who had never known fear, never known want, never known a single day without the absolute protection of the most dangerous family in the country.
Xavier stared at the photograph.
The golden-blonde hair with the streak of black.
The name.
Mia.
His wife had golden-blonde hair with a streak of black. His wife's name was Mia.
The coincidence pressed against his mind like a knife point, not yet cutting, but resting there, waiting.
He stood in the middle of the café, surrounded by the ordinary sounds of morning, and felt the ground shift beneath his feet.
