Chapter 24
Turo
The war roomwas built for men like me. No windows. No softness. A long table that could take a knife strike without flinching. Screens mounted on the walls, pulsing feeds from cameras and drones and silent motion sensors that never sleep.
It was meant to make danger feel manageable.
It wasn’t working.
“Three passes,” Matteo says, voice clipped. He’s standing with a tablet in his hand, jaw tight. “Same vehicle. Same speed. Same route. Whoever it is, they’re mapping response time.”
“Or they’re baiting,” Gianni counters. The fact that Gianni is in this room at all tells me how close to the edge we are. “Three passes mean confidence. They want us to move first.”
“It could be press,” another man says. “If the gala footage leaks, they’ll smell blood. They’ll circle just to see what we do.”
Matteo scoffs. “The press doesn’t circle an estate gate at midnight.”
“Not press,” I say quietly.
They all look at me. My men don’t usually need translation. But lately, everyone wants certainty. Everyone wants me to name the monster so they can stop pretending it’s invisible.
I keep my hands flat on the table. “A family enemy,” I continue. “Or Marco.”
A ripple runs through the room. Disbelief, anger, something like embarrassment. Marco’s name is a stain in a room full of polished surfaces.
Gianni’s mouth tightens. “He wouldn’t dare.”
He would. Not because he’s brave. Because he’s stupid and furious and publicly humiliated, and those are the most dangerous men in the world. Men who don’t understand consequences until they’re choking on them.
Matteo taps his screen, flips to a map. “Perimeter teams are responding within twenty seconds. We can cut that to fifteen if we?—”
“If we do what?” Luca interrupts from across the table. “Put men on every lawn chair? Turn the estate into a bunker? That’s not security. That’s panic.”
“We should be panicking,” Matteo snaps. “Someone is probing our fucking gates.”
“Lower your voice,” I say.
My tone is mild. It doesn’t matter. Matteo’s eyes flash. Luca’s hands lift, agitated. Two men who have blood on their shoes and pride in their throats, both convinced the only way to protect me is to be louder than the other.
“You want to wait until they breach?” Luca says, voice still rising. “Until a car comes through and someone gets shot in the driveway?”
Matteo leans forward. “You want to do nothing and call it restraint because it makes you feel superior?”
“That’s not what I…”
The room heats. The air thickens with that old male thing. Territory and ego and fear disguised as strategy. Voices climb. Someone’s chair scrapes back hard. I feel the pressure behind my ear twitch. I don’t move.
Stillness is authority. It always has been. But it’s harder today. Because every raised voice hits a different part of me now. Every sharp consonant feels like it could travel down the hall and reach?—
The door cracks open. Soft. Barely a sound, but my head turns before my body decides to.
And there he is. Nico. Small in the doorway, hair still slightly messy like he doesn’t believe in combs yet. A toy car clutched tight in one fist. His eyes wide, curious at first. Drawn by the noise the way children always are.
Then he takes in the room. The men. The tension. The way Luca is half out of his seat, the way Matteo’s face is sharp with anger.
Nico goes still. Completely still. Not the playful freeze of a child waiting to be noticed. The other kind. The kind that listens for impact. His shoulders rise a fraction, as if his body is bracing against something his mind hasn’t named yet.
And his hand lifts. To his ear. My men don’t notice at first. They’re too busy being men.
