The Cosenza syndicate is vast, old, interwoven with other families, politicians, ports, and oaths that stretch back generations. If I strip it down to only the three people I trust without question—men I know would never turn on me even with a gun to their heads—I wouldn’t be ruling an empire anymore. I’d be presiding over a carcass.
An exposed one.
Allies would smell it instantly. Rivals, like the Bellantis, would circle like sharks. Every syndicate that’s ever resented our reach would see opportunity in the vacuum I’d create, and every fragile alliance my father and brother died to maintain would fracture overnight.
Elena breaks the silence gently. “Who do you still trust, Dante? Without a shadow of a doubt.”
The question catches me off guard. I turn my head toward her, brows knitting. “What?”
She drags her fingers slowly through Luca’s hair, smoothing the strands back from his forehead with practiced care. The intimacy of the gesture makes something in my chest ache before she even speaks again. “Who can you count on? Who do you trust isn’t going to screw you over if what my father’s ledger says is true?”
I draw a slow breath through my nose, my tongue pressing against the back of my teeth. The names come to me immediately. “Ettore Romano, Tommaso Bianchi, and Leonardo Sarto.”
She nods, as if that confirms something she already suspected. “Then you should connect with them. They’re here when you’re not. They see things you don’t and hear things when you’re too busy to notice. Even if they haven’t put it together yet, they’ve noticed something.”
My hands curl slowly into fists at my sides.
She’s right. I hate how easily the truth slips from her lips, how instinctively she understands the machinery of my world despite never truly belonging to it. Out of everyone in this house, those three are the only ones I could trust with information this volatile. If Giovanni’s ledger turns out to be nothing more than paranoia scribbled by a desperate man, at least the damage would be contained to just us.
The alternative of letting this leak before I know what I’m dealing with would be catastrophic.
“Alright,” I say quietly.
Her shoulders ease just a fraction. Her voice drops another degree. “You should get some sleep too. You look exhausted. More than usual.”
I don’t answer. Not because I want to argue but because a traitorous part of me wants to do something infinitely worse.
For a split second, I imagine telling her to move over before slipping into the bed beside her with Luca tucked between us. I imagine the sound of her heartbeat under my ear and the way she used to card her fingers through my hair when sleep wouldn’t come, grounding me without asking for anything in return.
Four years ago, that would’ve been enough to relax me even with this same situation looming over me.
Now, I know it would destroy me.
Letting myself fall into her again would mean pretending the past never happened. Pretending she didn’t disappear when I needed her most. Pretending she didn’t hide my son from me and try to get me to believe he belonged to my dead brother.
I can’t survive her twice. If I let myself need her again, I’ll die if she walks away.
“You carry all of this. The family. Your grief.” Her eyes search my face. “You need to take care of yourself before you start putting out more fires.”
Something inside me snaps. The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, jagged and cruel. “You’re one of the fires I’ve had to put out.”
The second the words leave my mouth, I regret them.
Her flinch is immediate.
Instead of stopping, I barrel forward, anger rushing in to cover the fracture I’ve just exposed. “You left me to bury my brother and father alone and rebuild this family. Don’t think for a second I’ve forgotten that.”
Her face drains of color. She doesn’t argue or try to defend herself. She just looks at me like I’ve confirmed the worst thing she’s been afraid of—that no matter what’s happened since, no matter what truths have come to light, I will always see her as an enemy.
Something twists in my chest at that. I wish it were that simple. I wish she were nothing more than a threat I could neutralize because if that were the case, then none of this would hurt the way it does.
I turn away from her before she can speak. The room suddenly feels too small, the walls pressing in around me. When I pull the door open and step into the hallway, I close it behind me more gently than I feel, more carefully than she deserves if I’m being honest with myself.
The click of the latch sounds final in the quiet, a line drawn that neither of us knows how to cross anymore. I stand there for a brief moment, my hand still resting against the wood as I fight not to open it again and apologize or beg her to forgive me.
I can’t. Staying would mean admitting how much I still care.
Instead, I force myself to walk away.
