He's making calls. Gathering allies. The Morellis, the Vidalis, even some of the Russians. Promising them pieces of Syndicate territory once he takes you down. He's telling everyone you kidnapped his daughter. Painting himself as the victim.
I read the words twice, letting them settle into my bones. I share the message with Rafael and then turn my phone over for the last bit of silence I’ll have until Enzo is in the ground where he can never hurt Ilona again.
Let him gather his army. Let him promise territories he'll never control. Let him spin whatever narrative makes him feel powerful.
My brothers and I have dismantled empires built by smarter men than him. We've buried threats that made Enzo look like a child playing dress-up in his father's suits. His trafficking operations, his money laundering, his cruelty toward anyone unlucky enough to fall under his control. All of it documented. All of it waiting for the right moment to become his grave.
He thinks taking Ilona was an act of war. He's right.
But he's not the one who gets to decide how this war ends.
I pull my wife closer, her body warm and pliant against mine. She murmurs in her sleep, something soft and unintelligible, and burrows deeper into my chest.
Let Enzo Marchetti come. He has no idea what's waiting for him.
Eleven
Ilona
Luca Valentina talks in his sleep.
He doesn't speak in full sentences. He doesn't murmur confessions or spill secrets into the darkness like I half expect from a man who trades in other people's sins for a living. It's just fragments and names I don't recognize. Numbers that sound like coordinates or account balances. Once, three nights ago, he whispered "jungle flower" against my hair and pulled me tighter against his chest, his arm a steel band around my waist, his heartbeat thudding slow and steady against my spine. I pretended to be asleep and pressed my smile into the pillow where he couldn't see it just in case he was awake.
This morning, the October light filters through the bedroom windows in pale gold while he sprawls across three-quarters of the bed like he's claiming territory even in unconsciousness. His long dark hair fans across the pillow, and one arm stretches across the space where my body was minutes ago. The sheets pool low on his hips, revealing the panther that prowls across his ribs and the viper coiling up his right arm, scars mapping stories between the ink that I'm only beginning to learn.
Two weeks of marriage. Two weeks of sleeping in this man's arms, breathing him in until his scent is more familiar than my own. Learning the rhythms of a life I never chose but am beginning to want. That last thought terrifies me more than my father ever could.
I slip out of bed and pad barefoot toward the bathroom, the hardwood floors cool beneath my feet. The contrast to the rolling nausea is welcome. I pause just outside the bathroom and inhale slowly, letting the air out to the count of five.
Ugh. I hope this stage passes quickly.
I step over the third board from the bedroom door out of habit, the one that screams like a wounded animal if you so much as breathe on it, and make it to the bathroom without waking Luca.
After brushing my teeth, I splash water on my face, patting my skin dry with a towel that smells like sandalwood because everything in this house smells like him now, and catch my reflection in the mirror. Tired eyes. Blue-tipped hair tangled from sleep and from his hands. I look like a woman who is softer than she did two weeks ago, and that observation unsettles me more than I want to admit.
The kitchen is my next stop, and I navigate the creaking floors like a woman who's memorized the minefield. The spot outside the library groans like an old man getting out of a chair, but I sidestep it with practiced ease.
Coffee. Then I can do all the things. I’ve been learning the ropes as Luca’s personal assistant and it’s been great. But demanding. I’ll need to shift to decaffeinated coffee, come to think of it. It will be better for the baby. I make a note on the list we have on the kitchen counter.
The machine Luca bought after I complained about his espresso being strong enough to strip paint gurgles to life, filling the kitchen with the rich aroma of medium roast and hazelnut creamer. Steam curls from my mug as I wrap both hands around the ceramic and lean against the counter, letting the warmth seep into my fingers.
"You're up early."
His voice reaches me before his footsteps do, low and roughened by sleep. He rounds the corner in black sweatpants and nothing else, his hair still loose, his eyes soft in a way they never are when other people can see. The morning light catches the gold flecks in his irises as his gaze finds me and holds.
I flick my eyes to the clock on the stove. Oh. I didn’t realize. "Morning sickness decided five-thirty was a great time to remind me it exists." I press a hand against my stomach, still barely showing and take a careful sip of coffee. "At least the nausea passed before I had to sacrifice your bathroom rug."
His lips twitch. He crosses the kitchen and slides his hands over my hips, lowering himself until his mouth hovers near my navel. "Morning, little one." His breath is warm through the cotton of my sleep shirt. "Go easy on your mother. She's grumpy enough without your help."
"I heard that."
"You were meant to." He presses a kiss to my belly, then rises to his full height and steals a sip from my mug. The easy intimacy of the gesture catches me off guard, the way he drinks from my cup without asking, the way his free hand rests on the small of my back like it lives there, like we've been doing this for years instead of weeks.
"Tell me about your mother."
The question falls out of me before I can examine whether I actually want the answer. We've been dancing around the personal details of our lives before meeting for two weeks. We’ve traded surface details like poker chips while both of us hoard the cards that matter. His favorite color is black, which surprises no one. He reads voraciously and prefers historical fiction over thrillers. He takes his coffee with one sugar, no cream, and considers anyone who drinks decaf a war criminal.
Which reminds me…
