A beat of silence.
“She’s your weakness, Enrico.”Marco’s voice carried no judgment—only truth.
Enrico’s jaw flexed.“No.She’s my anchor.”
The words shouldn’t have made my stomach flutter.They shouldn’t have made me want to run to him.But they did.
He turned then, pacing the room with a predator’s restlessness.“Father believed in ruling by fear.He thought control was loyalty.But look where it got him—buried under the same marble he built his empire on.The Gallos took everything from him—his brothers and his wife.”
He paused, hand gripping the edge of his desk.“They’ll expect me to repeat his mistakes.But I’m not our father.”
Marco exhaled, steady but grim.“Then what’s your move?”
Enrico’s gaze flicked toward the window again, where sunlight met the dark glass like two forces colliding.“I built a new empire.One they can’t touch.But if they come for her…” He trailed off, voice lowering into something dangerous.“I’ll erase their name from the fucking earth.”
I backed away from the door, pulse hammering.The Gallos.Enrico’s father.The way his voice cracked onwife.A knot formed in my chest.I didn’t want to be his weakness—or his weapon.But part of me couldn’t untangle where love ended and protection began with him.
When I reached the balcony, a white paper crane rested again.My brow furrowed.I reached for it.The paper was thick, the kind you’d use for an invitation, not a warning.My fingers trembled as I unfolded the small square.The ink was written in an elegant looping hand.
A debt never buried.History bleeds.The Gallos remember.
A chill ran down my spine.The words blurred as the wind caught the paper, snatching it from my fingers.It fluttered over the balcony rail like a ghost and disappeared into the courtyard below.I took a step back then static.It came from the mounted camera in the corner of the hall.The red recording light blinked once, twice—then went dark.Enrico and Marco installed every camera in this house.He didn’t tolerate blind spots.He didn’t leave vulnerabilities.
I moved slowly, every sense sharpened.“Enrico?Marco?”Something was wrong.I wrapped Enrico’s shirt tighter around me.Another flicker.Then footsteps.Steady, measured.Coming closer.I froze at the top of the staircase.The sound echoed from the far end of the hall—slow, deliberate, not the hurried tread of a servant or the heavy boots of Enrico’s men.“Who’s there?”
The steps paused.For a single heartbeat, everything held its breath.Then a voice—low, velvety, dangerous.“You shouldn’t be alone, my love.”
Enrico.
Relief crashed through me so hard it hurt.He stepped from the shadows at the end of the corridor, jacket open, dark hair damp from rain.But something in his expression stopped me cold.His eyes were darker than usual—storm-dark, the kind that hid too much behind the surface.“Why are the cameras out?”
He glanced toward the nearest lens, jaw tightening.“Power surge.Or something meant to look like one.”
His hand brushed the small of my back as he guided me toward his study, touch protective but trembling faintly, like his control was threadbare.Inside, the desk was scattered with open files, photographs, a map of the docks marked in red ink.
He poured whiskey, handed it to me.“Drink.”
I obeyed, the burn tracing fire down my throat.“There was a paper crane again.”
Enrico stilled.The faint clink of glass against wood was the only sound as he set his drink down.“What did it say?”
I recited the words.His expression didn’t change, but the vein at his temple pulsed once, hard.
“The Gallos remember,” he repeated under his breath, like the phrase was an old wound reopened.He moved to the window, the rain streaking silver over the glass.Lightning flashed, catching the profile of his face—the sharp lines, the exhaustion beneath the anger.“They’re reaching back decades.My father started this war.I was just the child who inherited the battlefield.”
I crossed to him, laying a hand on his arm.“Then end it.”
He turned toward me.For a moment, the world shrank to the distance between us—the faint hum of the storm, the warmth of his skin under my palm.“You don’t end men like them.You bury them.One by one.”
Something in his tone made my chest ache—a hollow note, a promise that tasted like ashes.Lightning flashed again, throwing the room into stark relief.I caught my reflection in the window beside his: his shadow swallowing mine, two shapes fused by circumstance and choice.
“Enrico…” I began, but the words died when his hand found my waist.
He drew me closer until our foreheads touched.His breath ghosted over my lips, a confession carried in silence.“They won’t take anything else from me.”
I wanted to believe him.I wanted to drown in the certainty of it.But the storm outside had its own voice, rumbling low and hungry, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were standing at the edge of something vast and inevitable.A soft chime interrupted us—one of the security alerts Enrico had tied to his private system.He turned sharply toward the desk, eyes scanning the screen.A blinking dot pulsed red near the northern fence line.
“Motion.”His voice was all steel again.
