Niccolò shakes his head. “Queens and Manhattan have their own Bratva problems. Let them handle their territory unless this spreads.”
“And Brooklyn?” Giovanni asks, eyes directly staring at me.
I meet his gaze. “Brooklyn is mine. I’ll handle it.”
Niccolò studies me for a beat, then nods. “I figured you would.”
Giovanni smirks. “You always did like homework.”
He’s right. It’s why I always start with research. It’s the part of this job I was trained for, back when I wasn’t supposed to wear the crown. I was the second son. Support. Structure. Strategy. Then Marco died, and my father nearly followed him, and suddenly ink and books were replaced with guns and funerals.
Ruthlessness suits me. It always has. I don’t pretend otherwise.
Still, my attention drifts back to the bar.
Rose has a book open now, one of those old ones with illustrated plates and cracked spines. She reads the way scholars do, slow and absorbed, fingers careful with the pages. It pulls at something I don’t indulge. Nostalgia, maybe. Or the memory of a life where learning was the point, not a luxury.
I don’t allow myself to linger there.
Her arrangements have always been precise. Intentional. If you know flower language, they’re practically confessions. Last week, after Donald tried to short her pay, she sent out a mix of yellow carnations, striped tulips, and basil. Contempt. Rejection. Ill will. I caught the meaning immediately and had to hide a smile behind my glass. It takes a lot to make me laugh.
Lately, though, she’s changed. Quieter. Thinner. Dark circles under her eyes that no amount of sleep would fix. She looks over her shoulder more than she used to. She stays until closing now, every night, like she’s afraid of the dark streets but more afraid of being alone in them.
That’s when I started following her home.
A month in, I felt it too. Someone else in the shadows. Someone careful enough to avoid me while still staying close to her. It’s been a month-long stalemate since then, neither of uswilling to move first. I can’t risk exposing myself to her. Not yet. Not until I know who I’m dealing with.
Giovanni raises his glass, snapping me back. “To kicking the Russians out of our city.”
I clink mine against his and Niccolò’s. “To that.”
Across the room, Rose finishes her drink and stands.
I straighten without thinking, already tracking her path. Bratva problems or not, I’m not going to take my eyes off her.
Not even if it fucking kills me.
3
ROSE
Amber performs all the usual closing magic. She’s the one who gets off the latest, so it’s her unspoken duty to wrap things up for the next day. Usually, a manager would have to take care of that, but Donald always magically disappears before the last customer does, so it’s Amber who gets stuck with it.
Unfair, but that’s management for you.
Once the blinds are drawn, the alarm set, and the doors locked, Amber walks me to the subway entrance and pulls me into a quick hug. “Text me when you get home.”
“You too.”
After an excruciatingly long ride all the way to Brooklyn’s ass crack, I step outside into the cool night air. The street is quieter here. Not always a good thing.
I adjust my grip on my keys, slipping them between my fingers out of habit, and head for my apartment.
I don’t take the shortest way home. I haven’t in a long time. I stick to streets that stay bright past midnight, cross when the light is about to change, and loop once around the block before I commit to my building.
Nothing happens.
Which should be reassuring, but just feels like the pause before a jumpscare. Hell of a way to live, but at least I’m never bored.
