Page 219 of Mine Again
I can’t argue with that.
Uberto trained me, sharpened my instincts when I was still rough. He taught me how to see angles no one else noticed, how to bend thedigital world until it gave me what I wanted.
But that was a long time ago.
I’ve preferred working alone ever since. Marlo might filter my jobs, but I do them alone. No one to slow me down or question my methods. No one to betray me.
I trust my own code, my own judgment. I don’t have to second-guess whether someone else will get careless or crack under pressure.
Partnerships can be useful, but they come with chains. And I don’t wear them anymore.
Though the fact that Uberto is here changes the equation. He knows how I think, knows my strengths. He was the closest thing I had to an ally once, but alliances are dangerous things. They give people leverage.
I’ll use his skills; I’d be stupid not to. But in the end, I’ll be the one who brings Isa home.
Chapter Eighty-Three
Luca
Aguard leads me through a quiet wing of the estate that doesn’t feel like a house at all.
The air hums. The walls glow with reflected light. When the door opens, I step into a room that could belong to an FBI cyber command center.
Rows of workstations. A wall of screens stitched into a panoramic grid. Server racks breathing in the corners.
I stop in the doorway to take it all in.
Whatever Maximo paid for this, it wasn’t pocket change. He’s not dabbling. He’s arming up for a different kind of war, and I underestimated how far he’d go to set himself apart from his father and the men still tied to the old ways.
Footsteps sound behind me, followed by a familiar voice I haven’t heard in years.
“Luca.”
I turn. Uberto crosses the floor with that same measured stride, lean and compact, dark hair shorter than I remember, early thirties now but with the kind of face that maintains its edge. There’s a faint scar on his jaw that’s new and a tiredness around his eyes that isn’t.
We stop an arm’s length apart.
“You look alive,” he says.
“So do you.”
A corner of his mouth lifts. “I suspected you were the Venom all along. Not many out there write with that kind of precision. When you joined me at fourteen, I thought I was taking on a stray with sharp eyes. Four years proved I had it backward. You were the one teaching me how far code could bend. Now you are the best.”
“I had a good teacher,” I say. “The rest I learned alone.”
“Alone can sharpen.” He tips his head, studying me. “Alone also cuts.”
“It kept me breathing.”
He accepts that without argument, his gaze warming.
“We hired the Venom for a couple of jobs, but there’s something I never thanked you for.”
I know what he’s talking about, but I wait to let him speak.
“Two years after you left, a dead-drop server of mine was burned. Molinaro’s team planted a leak, and I thought they had me. You ghosted my system from a continent away and rewired the path in under a day. The trace landed in Molinaro’s lap. My people walked. I did not forget.”
“I did what was needed.”
