I cannot stop it. The trauma is permanently wired into my nervous system.
I am twenty-four years old again. The phone call vibrating against the kitchen counter. The desperate, frantic voice of a low-level associate. The drive across the city. The rain slicking the cobblestones of the narrow alley. The smell of wet asphalt and copper. The flashing red and blue police lights reflecting in the dirty puddles. I can still taste the smog and the fear in the back of my throat.
Carlo Costa. My father. Lying in the garbage and the mud.
The execution was brutal. A trap in a warehouse, followed by the indignity of being dumped like trash six blocks away. I did not see the warehouse. I did not witness the bullets tearing into him. I only found the aftermath. I only found the silence.
The county morgue the next morning. The smell of antiseptic and cold steel. The pale, lifeless face of the strongest man I had ever known. The heavy responsibility crashing down on my shoulders. I was twenty-four. Dante was only sixteen. Turi stood beside me, his hand heavy on my shoulder, his face carved from stone. The blood war started that night. We slaughtered dozens of Bellanti men in retaliation. We built our empire on a foundation of vengeance and paranoia. We turned ourselves into monsters so the monsters in the dark would fear us.
I rub my hand over my face. The coarse hair of my beard scrapes against my palm.
My chest heaves. The darkness tries to swallow me whole.
I killed the boy I was in that alley. I became the brutal, heavy underboss of the Chicago syndicate. I do not feel fear. I do not feel hesitation. I only feel the cold, calculating drive to protect my blood.
And now, her. Clara.
The thought of her soft skin, her sassy mouth, the way she looks at me with a mixture of terror and absolute trust. The scent of her erases the smell of the morgue. She is the only thing in twenty years that has silenced the screaming. If the Bellantis get to her, if they touch a single hair on her head, I will butcher every last man bearing their name. I will rip their empire apart brick by brick.
The security monitors flash red.
My head snaps up. Adrenaline spikes directly into my bloodstream. Lungs lock. Chest pounds. Blood roars in my ears.
Camera four. The alley behind Il Corvo.
Two black SUVs roll to a stop out of sight of the main street. The headlights cut. The doors open in unison. Six men step out into the shadows. Tactical gear. Suppressed automatic weapons. Face masks. This is not a sloppy street crew. This is a highly trained extraction team. The Bellantis are not waiting. They tracked the flash drive, or they tracked Reeves, or they guessed that the Costa underboss would take the collateral to his most secure location.
They are coming for the logs. They are coming for her.
My feral instincts take absolute control. The civilized man vanishes. I am a predator defending his territory. I am a monster defending his mate.
I stand up from the desk. I draw the Glock from my shoulder holster. I rack the slide. The sharp, metallic clack echoes in the silent office. A live round enters the chamber. I tap the earpiece sitting on the charging dock and slide it into my ear.
"Control, this is Matteo," I bark into the comms. "We have a breach. Six tangos, heavily armed. South alley entrance to Il Corvo. Lock down the perimeter."
"Copy that, Boss," the gravelly voice of my captain replies. "Deploying the vault crew. ETA three minutes."
"Three minutes is too long. I am going down."
I sprint out of the office. My boots make no sound on the marble. I cross the living room in long strides. I reach the master bedroom. I disengage the deadbolt and push the heavy oak door open.
The room is dark. Clara is sitting straight up in the bed. She clutches the heavy duvet to her chest. Her eyes are wide, reflecting the ambient light from the city outside. She senses the shift in the atmosphere immediately. Her intelligence is one of the things that drives me insane with obsession. She does not scream. She does not ask stupid questions.
"Matteo?" Her voice trembles, but her chin stays up.
"Get out of the bed." My voice is a harsh, guttural command. It leaves no room for argument.
She scrambles off the mattress. Her bare feet hit the floor. She grabs one of my oversized black t-shirts from the chair and pulls it over her head. The fabric swallows her curves, hanging down to her mid-thigh. The sight of her wearing my clothes spikes a territorial possessiveness so sharply I lose my focus. Not now. Focus on the threat.
I cross the room in two massive steps. I grab her upper arms. My grip is tight, bordering on painful, but I need her to understand the absolute gravity of the next sixty seconds.
"Focus, Clara," I demand, forcing her gaze to lock with mine.
"I am looking at you," she fires back, her sassy defiance breaking through the terror. "You have a gun in your hand. You are terrifying. What is happening?"
"The Bellantis sent a tactical team. They are in the alley downstairs. They are trying to breach the restaurant."
Her face goes pale. The scent of her fear hits my nostrils, bitter and sharp. It fuels my rage to a boiling point. "My father..." she whispers, the realization crushing her. "They found us."
