He cursed under his breath.“Gallo?”
The name hung between us, a specter neither of us dared speak aloud in years.I said nothing at first.I only reached for the folder beside the photo and opened it.Inside, the glossy prints were older—faded surveillance from another lifetime.My father standing beside men in suits, their faces shadowed by the brim of their hats.One of them bore the same insignia on his lapel that I found drawn on the back of the folded paper crane from the warehouse.
“Could be coincidence,” Marco muttered.
I traced the edge of the photo with my thumb, feeling the old anger rise like smoke.“Father said the Gallos were finished.”
“Our father said a lot of things.”
That earned him a look sharp enough to cut, but I didn’t correct him.He wasn’t wrong.Father’s legacy was a monument built on half-truths and bodies buried in shallow graves.What he’d calledpeacehad really been silence bought with blood.
Now, that silence was breaking.
“Tell Luca to double the guard rotations.No one in or out without my say.”
Marco nodded.“How’s Mia holding up?”
I didn’t answer right away.My eyes shifted toward the closed study door, up the staircase beyond it where she slept.“She’s strong.Stronger than she knows.”
Marco stood there.“You really love her.”
I gave a small, humorless laugh.“You sound surprised.”
“Not surprised,” he said, crossing his arms.“Just wondering how far you’ll go when they come again.Because they will, Enrico.This isn’t finished.”
I leaned back, the leather creaking beneath my weight.“Then we make surewefinish it.”
The fire in the hearth burnt down to embers, but the glow carved my reflection across the window—a man forged from shadow and control, haunted by a name that refused to stay buried.
Marco stepped closer, lowering his voice.“There’s something else.”
He slid a small evidence bag across the desk.Inside, a single coin—silver, old, etched with the same crossed-circle emblem.My father used to carry one like it, a token from his dealings with Gallo back when alliances were temporary and betrayals permanent.
“Where did you find this?”
“Inside the trunk of one of the cars that hit the docks that night.Clean, no prints.But it was left there for us to find.”
A message, then.Or a promise.
The metallic glint caught the light as I turned it in my hand.On the back, someone carved a single word in Italian.
“Figlio.”
Son.
“Whoever did this, they’re not after the business.They’re after me.”
Marco frowned.“Why now?”
That was the question, wasn’t it?After all these years.The answer sat just beyond reach, hovering like smoke I couldn’t quite inhale.My father’s shadow was long, and it was crawling back to reclaim what I’d built.
“Because I finished what he started.And the Gallos don’t forgive.”
A low rumble of thunder rolled outside, distant but growing closer.The storm had been building; now it pressed against the windows, restless and wild.
Marco pocketed his phone.“I’ll get the men ready.”
“Do it quietly,” I warned.“I don’t want Mia hearing a word about this.”
