Salvatore's POV
I saw the federal vehicles before anyone else did.
That was the thing about spending twenty years on both sides of exactly this kind of operation, you learned to recognize the formation.
The particular spacing of the vehicles on the road beyond the estate walls.
The way they positioned themselves not to block but to contain, cutting off the exit routes in sequence rather than simultaneously, which meant this was coordinated and rehearsed and had been planned with the specific knowledge of the estate's layout.
Someone had given them the layout.
I knew who.
I had known, or suspected, for long enough that the confirmation arriving now felt less like a revelation and more like a door closing on something I had been standing in the frame of for weeks, not quite inside and not quite out.
Twenty minutes. Maybe less.
I found Roberto first. Alessandro and Sofia, the instruction delivered quietly, the route specified. Roberto nodded once and moved without asking.
