Silence stretched between us, heavy but not hostile.Finally, she stepped forward and laid her hand over mine.Her fingers were warm, delicate.I turned my hand and held hers.“Be careful.”
“I will, my love.”
She smiled—small, tired, real—and squeezed my hand before pulling away.At the door, she hesitated.“Your father,” she whispered.“What would he have done?”
“Made an example,” I said.“A bloody one.”
She nodded and left.The door closed.
My men came that evening.Marco, Luca, and Alessio—my trinity of chaos and loyalty.They took their seats without ceremony.
Marco slid a phone across the desk.“We squeezed one.He gave us a gym.Cash payments.Local muscle.Eastern names.He said they have something to do with it.”
“Follow the money.It will lead us to whoever is responsible.”
“The men we caught?”Luca asked.“What do you want done?”
“Alive,” I said.“Separate cells.Fed, cleaned, and made comfortable—until I need them uncomfortable.”
That earned a dark chuckle from Alessio.
We mapped it all—the gym, the shell companies, the money trails.Forty-eight hours.That’s all I’d need.
Mia stood in the doorway.My men rose immediately.
“Don’t,” she said.“Don’t send them away.”
She crossed the room, calm but alert, and took the empty chair beside me.Her presence changed everything.
“How much did you hear?”I asked.
“Enough to know what you’re planning.”Her eyes went straight to Marco.
“Then you know why it has to be done.”
“I know you think it has to be done,” she said.“I just don’t want to lose you to it.”
“You won’t.”
Her eyes flicked to my men.“He says that, but you’ve all seen what vengeance does to him, haven’t you?”
Marco shifted in his chair.No one answered.They didn’t need to.
“Ten minutes,” I said to them.“Then we move.”
They stood, silent as ghosts, and left us alone.
I met her eyes.“My father said love is leverage.That to own what you love, you have to make it fear losing you.”
“And you believed him.”
“I did.Until you.”
Something shifted between us then—small, fragile, dangerous.“Then promise me one thing.”
“If I can.”
“Come back.Whole.Don’t let this turn you into him.”
