That lands more than he understands.
"They're shielding someone," he continues quickly, lifting his hand as if to ward off the curse he knows is coming. "I don't know who, but whoever it is, they're positioning. Vegas. They want to take it."
He hasn't given me a name, but his words align. Did they know Amauri is my son? No, I dismiss that thought almost instantly. They would have sent demands or a finger; they took him because of Kingsley's bill. They want the road cleared to bring in their drugs from Mexico and push me out of the picture. The truth hits. This is all about Vegas.
My jaw locks. Vegas isn't just territory. It's blood. Infrastructure. Legacy. A city I bled for until it knew my name. My crown. Something hard clicks into place behind my eyes. I still want Silvestre to suffer. That urge doesn't vanish just because I choose not to indulge it. It coils tighter, sharper, promising patience instead of release. Silvestre deserves pain measured in hours, not seconds. Deserves to understand exactly what it means to touch my blood. And that's the one currency I don't have right now. Time.
But the others do. Even if they're New York. Even if I don't like them. Even if trusting them feels like swallowing broken glass. After last night, after watching Conti and DeSantis move, after hearing the way they speak about vengeance, not as spectacle but as obligation, I know their grudges are as personalas mine. This isn't business for them either. It's debt. Old, intimate, unforgiving.
As far as Oksana is concerned… she has an iron or two in this fire. I saw it in her eyes when Silvestre spoke. Not sympathy. Not mercy. Calculation sharpened by experience. She understands what I'm only just finishing mapping: Silvestre is a node, not the collector.
He didn't design this.
He was hired.
Which means there's another man out there who thought he could orchestrate this from a distance. Thought he could hide behind cartels and borders and plausible deniability while my son paid the price. That man matters more than Silvestre ever did. I can let the old bastard suffer at the hands of others—thoroughly—and in the meantime, I gain something far more valuable than blood on my hands tonight. I gain momentum. I gain allies who will bleed him for their own reasons. I gain time to turn and face the one who masterminded this.
Silvestre is just the door. The real enemy is waiting on the other side. I lower my gun. Silvestre exhales like a man clawing his way out of a grave. I turn my head and look at Conti.
"A deal is a deal," I say evenly. "He's all yours."
Relief moves through the courtyard like a sigh. Guns lower. One by one. The air loosens.
Silvestre's face drains of color. "No—no, you promised!" he wails. "You said?—"
I step forward and drive my fist into his gut. Hard. The sound is wet. The kind of hit that empties lungs and dignity in one blow. He folds with a strangled sound, retching. I lean down, in a voice laced with malice, and I spit, "I don't make promises to child snatchers and blackmailers."
Then I straighten and snap my fingers. "Enough. Let's go get my son." I turn back to Silvestre. "Where are they?"
He blinks. He knows he's lost. "In the basement," he croaks.
That's when DeSantis steps forward.
"I know where it is," his certainty hums with lethality beneath the words. "Follow me."
My men fan out instinctively. Gabe is at my shoulder, others flanking left. Conti's hand flexes once, like he's deciding whether diplomacy officially dies tonight. I notice Gabe pulling out his phone, staring at a message. We move as one. The villa's stone hallways swallow us, emergency lights flicker, and gunfire echoes faintly in the distance as what's left of Valverde's army is erased.
DeSantis leads us through a grand foyer. There is a staircase to the right. A corridor to the left.
He turns left.
A door opens onto a narrow stairwell. Gabe leans in close, his mouth near my ear, voice pitched low enough that only I hear it. "Boss. The Mexicans made a move. They tried to snatch Jenna."
The world narrows to a pinpoint. My stomach churns so hard it feels like a fist closing inside me. "Max got her out," Gabe continues quickly. "Nobody got hurt. We grabbed one of theirs. Alive. Enzo's standing by, wants to know if you want him questioned now."
For half a second, everything inside me turns to molten lava. Someone dared touch her. Not threaten. Not circle. Touch. The urge to turn around—to abandon the stairwell, the basement, Silvestre, Valverde, all of it—and burn Vegas to the ground with my bare hands roars up so fast it almost breaks containment. I see red.
Pure. Blinding. Unapologetic.
With a herculean will, I force it down, knowing I need to restrain myself. "Tell Enzo to start," I murmur. My voice doesn't shake. That alone costs me effort. "I want names. Routes. Who gave the order. I want it all before I step foot back on my plane."
Gabe nods once and peels off without another word. My pulse is still hammering. The Mexicans didn't move out of fear. They moved because they understood something before I did. Whitford and Amauri ceased being leverage the moment they realized Jenna mattered more. And the Venezuelans? They were already written off.
Which means two things: first, the Mexicans knew the Venezuelans were compromised before I put a knife to their throat. That timing isn't luck. That's foreknowledge. Someone talked, either from my house or from La Famiglia's. A rat doesn't need to sell me out completely. He just needs to whisper once, at the right moment.
Second: they abandoned the Venezuelans without hesitation. Cut them loose like excess weight. No warning. No extraction. Just silence.
Whitford was a placeholder. Amauri was pressure. They realized Jenna was the real prize. If they pivoted this cleanly, this fast, then they weren't reacting to me. They were planning around me. Kingsley won't bend without his daughter. And now they know she's under my protection. Which means this stopped being transactional. This is personal now. Bloody.
