“I will be,” he said, offering a faint, tired smile.

“But this is only the beginning,” he added. “Enzo has allies outside of Rome.”

“Let them try,” I said.

My phone vibrated in my palm again, the screen lighting up with an unknown international number.

I stared at the flashing digits, my breath catching in my throat.

It was a prefix I recognized all too well—the country code for Argentina, where my father had fled.

I swiped the screen to answer, pressing the phone to my ear.

“Emily,” a frantic, familiar voice gasped on the other end.

“Emily, is that you?” my father’s voice cracked, sounding thin and distant over the static of a poor connection.

I gripped the phone tightly, my knuckles turning white against the plastic casing.

“I’m here, Robert,” I said, refusing to call him father.

“Thank God,” he gasped, his breath rattling in my ear. “You have to help me. They found me in Buenos Aires. I need money, Emily. Just fifty thousand to get to the coast.”

I looked down at the leather binder containing the Vitale secrets.