ɪᴛᴀʟɪᴀɴ ꜱɪʀᴇɴ

terzo capitolo

A few hours later, in Bloomsbury, Liliana stepped out into the late morning rush to begin Sabini's task. She had not gone immediately after the meeting. That would have been careless. There were calls to be made first, introductions arranged, a position secured through a name that opened the right doors. Libraries did not simply accept strangers who appeared at their counters asking for work. Even infiltration required patience.
And by now, London was fully awake.

Carriages rattled over uneven cobblestones, motorcars coughed smoke into the damp air, and newspaper boys shouted headlines that dissolved into the hum of traffic. Coal smoke hung low between the buildings, clinging to brick and windowpanes. Steam lifted from the drains in pale spirals, brushing against the hem of her black coat as she walked. The city smelled of soot, wet stone, and morning bread. Liliana moved through it without hurry.

In her gloved hands, she carried the folder Sabini had given her. She opened it again as she walked, eyes scanning details she had already memorised but preferred to confirm. Ada Shelby was twenty-three years old, the same age as Liliana. A widow with one son, a little boy named Karl, she lived on Primrose Hill at number five in a modest terrace house that was respectable enough for appearances and, most importantly, close enough to serve its purpose.

Liliana's gaze lingered briefly on the age. Twenty-three, and already a widow, already politically involved and already cut from her family - at least officially. She had not wasted any time rebuilding her life, that much was clear. Interesting. She turned the page, studying the neatly recorded notes beside each detail. Library hours. Evening meetings. Childcare arrangements. Routes taken. Times observed. Wherever Ada went, someone had been watching. The Italians had made certain of that.
People were always patterns, if one looked closely enough. And patterns could be entered.

Primrose Hill was quiet compared to Camden. The money here was cleaner, quieter, wrapped in polished brass knockers and trimmed hedges rather than dock smoke and shouting men. Ada Shelby had chosen distance from Birmingham, but not so much distance that her brother's money failed to follow her south.
Shelby paid the rent. He also paid for the child's care as well. So much for cutting ties, Liliana thought with a faint scoff. Then again, who was she to judge? The arrangement was not unfamiliar. Her own brother covered the house on Primrose Hill, number fifty-five. Independence, in their world, was often financed.

She closed the folder and tucked it neatly beneath her arm. She had waited for the proper hour late enough that Ada would already be at the library, early enough that the first meeting could feel accidental rather than arranged.
Sabini wanted access. She would begin with coincidence.
And from there, she would build trust, as she always did. There was nothing unfamiliar about this. It was not the first time she had been placed close to a target, and it would not be the last. Sabini preferred his pieces near the board. Close enough to hear doors close. Close enough to sense a shift in the air before anyone else noticed it. If something moved, if something fractured, Liliana would see it first.

Her thoughts drifted as she continued down the street. Men in this city were always the same greedy, arrogant, endlessly convinced of their own importance. Charles Sabini and Alfie Solomons had circled one another for years, claws half-drawn, fighting over territory dressed up as empire: clubs, bookmaking routes, restaurants, docks. Streets that, in the end, meant very little.

To Liliana, it was almost laughable. Men in tailored suits playing at war while the real war had only just faded from memory. Alfie had been to France, that much she knew. There was something in him that carried it still, buried beneath humour and scripture and long-winded speeches. Sabini, however, had never seen a trench, never watched a man disappear into mud, and yet he spoke of territory as though racecourses and nightclubs were battlefields. Pride had a way of disguising itself as strategy. She understood that this could have been handled differently, had Sabini been less arrogant and Alfie less stupid. Their rivalry had always followed the same tired pattern: posturing, retaliation, negotiation. One would push too far, the other would respond just enough to restore balance, and business would continue. It had always been theatre dressed up as violence, a controlled burn rather than a wildfire.