This city knows me. It responds to me. It bends because it understands the cost of resisting. For years, that was enough for me. Power. Order. Expansion. The quiet satisfaction of an empire that works. But now, now there are two more lives tied to it. Jenna and Amauri. Suddenly, Vegas isn't just something I rule. It's something I have to protect them from.
That changes everything.
My city—my beautiful, dangerous city—will feel the shift long before anyone else realizes it's happening. Because when a king stops ruling for himself… the ground always moves.
I pull my phone from my pocket and call Alessio.
"What time are we wheels up?" I ask, already pacing the length of the room again.
"Two," he answers without hesitation. "Everything's arranged. Private terminal. No noise."
Good. That gives me time. A few hours with Jenna. With Amauri. Enough time to remind myself why I'm doing all of this. The call ends. I don't waste a second before dialing Damiano. "How's our guest?"
A low chuckle comes through the line. "Still breathing. Still bitching. Louder by the hour."
I can picture it. Whitford, chained to a chair, pride bleeding out of him one complaint at a time.
"Can I shut him up yet?" Damiano asks.
"Gag him if you need to," I reply coolly. "He doesn't get comfort. He gets time."
"Understood."
An expression from Whitford's face returns to me. The one he wore on the plane when I told him who I was. I'm confident I can peg a liar a hundred miles away, and he didn't wear the mask of one. He really didn't know who I was. But my name rang a bell. Not that it wouldn't. Everyone in Vegas at least knowsofme. The fear I saw could be from that, or from what he knows. Only one way to find out.
"Actually, why don't you have a chat with him?"
"About?"
"About what he knows about the hit and run ten years ago. About what Kingsley told him or how and why he might have been involved."
I can hear a thousand questions on the other end, but Damiano doesn't ask them. He knows I'll tell him when I'm ready. The boardroom doors open, and Enzo walks in with a calm expression and eyes sharp enough to cut glass. He takes one look at my face and knows better than to open with small talk.
"I've got to go," I tell Damiano, ending the call. The line clicks dead. Then my attention shifts fully to Enzo.
He nods once. "Everything ready?"
"Yes," I nod, "But things just got… complicated."
That gets his full attention. I move to the head of the table, palms braced against the polished wood, jaw tight.
"Sit," I tell him.
Enzo takes the chair across from me like he's done a thousand times before. Calm. Unhurried. He pours himself a drink without asking, the sound of ice too loud in the stillness. I stay standing, hands braced on the edge of the table, my reflection looks fractured in the polished wood.
"Remind me, what Bello told you. Exactly. About my uncle."
Enzo's hand pauses just long enough to notice. He gives me a puzzled look. Then his brows knit in concentration as his mind goes back ten years. He doesn't ask what this is about. "He said he overheard a conversation. Your uncle and one of your cousins. Cesar was complaining. Again." He takes a sip. "Said you were pushing too hard. That you were moving pieces without permission."
"And?" I press.
"And your uncle said it was time to put a stop to it," Enzo continues. "That you were becoming a liability."
I turn my head slowly. "His words."
Enzo meets my gaze. Steady. "Those were Bello's words."
I nod once, like I'm filing paperwork. "And Bello said he heard this himself."
