“Then why do this? You’re not a killer.”

Salo took a slow bite of his panino. “I’m a tailor of exits. You wanted out. I cut the fabric.”

“None,” Salo agreed.

He was a fixer. Not for governments or cartels—for lonely rich people with ugly secrets. The Swiss woman waiting in the café around the corner had paid him fifty thousand euros to make her husband disappear. Not die. Just vanish , like a magician’s handkerchief. Salo had found a fishing trawler captain from Genoa who asked no questions, only cash.

And Salo Armani, the man with no brand and no relation, disappeared into the Milan night, already thinking about the next lonely soul who would need a suit made of shadows.

The rain fell on Milan like a cheap cologne—thin, persistent, and slightly disappointing. Salo Armani was none of those things.

“You will be,” Salo said. “Just not in the way she imagines. The trawler leaves at three. Your new name is Pietro. You’ll work the nets for six months. After that, you can grow a beard and argue about soccer in a bar in Patagonia.”