“Leo…” Sergio warned quietly.
I ignored him. Ventura’s face turned blotchy red beneath my grip. The twins finally lost some of their composure.
“Easy,” Santino snapped.
“Take your hands off him,” Angelo added sharply.
I turned my head slowly toward them. Something in my expression made both men go silent again. Good. Because right then, I genuinely wanted to kill every single man in that warehouse.
Sergio still had the gun trained steadily on them, finger resting near the trigger. One word. That was all it would take. And God, part of me wanted to say it. But they were still blood. Some of the only blood I had left. I hated that fact enough to make my stomach turn.
“You listen carefully,” I said softly. The dangerous kind of soft.
“If either of you even looks at Chiara wrong again…” I tightened my grip until Ventura gagged violently. “I will burn every fucking thing you own to the ground.”
Nobody moved. Rain thundered overhead. Water dripped steadily somewhere deeper in the warehouse. The twins stared at me differently now. Not like spoiled cousins. Like men finally realizing the monster in front of them was real.
“You think she’s leverage?” I asked quietly. “You think threatening her makes you powerful?”
Neither answered. I stepped forward instead, dragging Ventura with me like dead weight. His expensive shoes scraped helplessly against the concrete floor.
“She’s mine,” I snarled.
The possessiveness in my own voice shocked me. But not nearly as much as how true it felt.
“I decide who breathes near her,” I continued. “I decide who says her fucking name.”
Ventura wheezed beneath my hand, tears leaking from his tiny pig eyes now.
“And if any of you touch what belongs to me…” My smile turned vicious. “I’ll leave your bodies floating in this harbor so bloated your mothers won’t recognize you.”
Silence swallowed the warehouse whole. Because finally they understood. This wasn’t politics anymore. It wasn’t inheritance. And it sure as fuck wasn’t business. It had become personal.
“Just say the word, boss.” Sergio’s voice cut through the warehouse like a blade.
Cold. Steady. His handgun stayed trained directly at my cousins’ chests, black metal gleaming beneath the flickering industrial lights. Rain hammered the warehouse roof hard enough to shake rust from the beams overhead while the harbor churned black beyond the loading docks.
Nobody moved. Nobody fucking breathed. And beneath my hand, Lorenzo Ventura wheezed like the bloated rat he was.
I had him pinned against a stack of shipping crates hard enough to splinter the wood behind him. His expensive suitjacket strained against his fat body while sweat poured down his greasy face in thick shining rivulets. Gold rings cut into my wrist as he clawed desperately at me, whiskey and fear sour on his breath.
Pathetic. This man had spent eighteen years terrorizing Chiara. Beating her. Breaking her. Selling her. And somehow he still thought he could threaten me.
Lorenzo gagged violently. But then, the fat bastard smiled. Not fully. Just enough to make something ugly crawl up my spine.
Interesting. Very fucking interesting. The twins noticed it too.
Santino’s expression sharpened slightly while Angelo slowly lowered his whiskey glass onto the table beside him. Lorenzo coughed hard against my grip, piggish eyes watering.
Then he laughed. A wet, ugly sound.
“You already lost,” he rasped.
My jaw tightened. “What?”
“I said…” He coughed again, throat straining beneath my hand. “You already lost.”
The warehouse went quieter somehow. Even the rain sounded farther away now. I stared at him carefully. And I understood something horrifying.
