And nothing can tear us apart.
Right?
21
GIOVANNI
The hole left by the sniper’s bullet that tried to kill me hurts like the bejesus. But I’m still upright, I’m healing, and in my world that distinction matters.
The doctors insist on another week before I abandon the crutch, but they don’t understand that power doesn’t wait for bones to knit cleanly, and neither do enemies who believe injury makes a man hesitant.
I let them fuss, let Lucia glare at me when I push past their caution, and then I dress myself slowly and with intention, choosing a dark suit and a white shirt and no tie, because this is not a meeting of equals and I have no need to decorate myself for a man who arrives already kneeling in his soul.
Bellandi comes to me because he has run out of room to pretend otherwise.
I didn’t need to summon him. That, too, matters.
The offer is brutally simple. If he wants his daughter to live, he’ll surrender himself to Dragoni custody without spectacle or an entourage that can be mistaken for leverage.
He will come alone, or he will not come at all.
He comes.
Of course he does.
The estate is quiet when his car arrives, the gates opening with practised indifference, the guards positioned where they can be seen and where they cannot, because humiliation is most effective when it is undeniable but not announced.
I stand on the front steps with Lucia beside me, her presence neither shield nor provocation, simply a fact that cannot be ignored, and I watch the vehicle roll to a stop in the gravel as if this were any other afternoon.
Bellandi steps out slowly, his hands empty, his posture stiff with the effort of restraint, and I register the changes in him without commentary.
He’s lost weight. His hair is less carefully groomed. His eyes move too often, assessing exits, counting men, calculating whether the distance between us could still be closed with violence if desperation made him foolish.
He believes I’ll kill him.
That belief is useful.
“Giovanni,” he says, his voice steady enough to suggest courage, yet thin enough to betray fear beneath it.
“Salvatore,” I reply, because manners cost me nothing and unsettle men who expect brutality.
He inclines his head towards Lucia, not quite a bow, not quite a dismissal, and I see the calculation flicker across his face as he decides whether acknowledging my wife strengthens or weakens his position.
He chooses wrong, as he so often does.
“I see you keep her close,” he says carefully. “Even now.”
Lucia doesn’t react. She doesn’t need to.
I turn my attention fully to him, letting the silence stretch until he shifts his weight and regrets opening his mouth.
“You surrendered yourself,” I say at last, my tone conversational, almost mild. “Do not mistake that for permission to comment on my household.”
His jaw tightens. He exhales through his nose, then nods once.
“I came in good faith,” he says. “I came because you said there could be… discussions.”
There it is. The incomplete surrender. The hope that proximity equals negotiation. The belief that showing up earns him a voice.
