Scarlett finally fell asleep a while ago, and that alone brought me little relief as I feared she’d end up with a fever from all that crying. Her breathing is slow and even against my chest.
I barely breathe, as if staying perfectly still might somehow keep the world from taking anything else from me.
My son is out there. With Viktor.
My chest tightens painfully whenever I think of it. This is the man I trusted above almost everyone—except Marco.
Fifteen years at my side. Fifteen years of blood, of gunfire, of bodies buried and secrets shared. I gave him my back in every fight, and I gave him my family.
When did he change? How come I didn’t get even the slightest inkling?
How did I not notice him spinning his web strand by strand while I walked straight into it, blind and arrogant enough to believe loyalty was unbreakable?
Now my son is paying for that mistake.
The thought makes me want to bury my fist into another wall. I’ve already destroyed my office. Already shattered everything within reach. But the rage is still there, burning under my skin like acid, and there’s nowhere for it to go.
Scarlett shifts against me, murmuring something in her sleep. Probably another nightmare. She’s had three already, each one pulling her awake with Luca’s name on her lips before exhaustion drags her back under.
I press my mouth to her hair and breathe her in, my arm tightens around her automatically, some primitive instinct trying to protect what’s left even though I already failed at protecting what mattered most.
She still blames herself.
I should have told her it wasn’t her fault, said something to ease that guilt crushing her from the inside out. But I couldn’t find the words because all I could think was that I had fifteen years of warning signs and I missed every single one.
Viktor always asked too many questions about the families’ movements. Had always positioned himself close to sensitiveinformation. Always had an excuse ready when something went wrong on his watch.
And I dismissed every red flag because I didn’t want to see them. He is my second-in-command after all and has protected me from death a couple of times.
Dawn soon arrives, and I realize we don’t have much time left.
I ease myself gently out from under Scarlett, carefully tucking the blanket around her shoulders before I stand. She needs rest more than I do, and one of us has to be functional when we get Luca back.
The hallway outside is quiet, but I can hear activity downstairs. Marco’s voice giving orders. The familiar rhythm of men preparing for war. The sounds should comfort me, but they just remind me how badly I failed. All these resources, all this power, and I couldn’t keep one five-year-old boy safe in his own bed.
I take the back stairs down to the basement where most of my people don’t even know there’s a door. The security panel recognizes my palm print and retinal scan, and the reinforced steel slides open with a creak.
The operations room spreads out before me, full of screens and servers and enough firepower to level a city block. I built this over six years, piece by piece, while everyone thought I was just my father’s attack dog.
I started with a single server and a handful of contacts. Now it’s an intelligence network that rivals government agencies, weapons stockpiles hidden in warehouses across three states, offshore accounts fat enough to fund a small army.
They had no idea. My father, the council, the other families. They looked at me and saw muscle, an enforcer, and a weapon to be pointed at their enemies.
What they never saw was the empire I was building right under their noses.
I cross to the main console and pull up the cathedral blueprints for the hundredth time. St. Sebastian’s is old, built in 1892 with stone walls three feet thick and a basement that used to hide bootleggers during Prohibition. Viktor chose it because he knows I can’t just storm the place without risking Luca. The ledger is hidden there somewhere, probably in one of the old smuggling compartments, and Viktor wants both prizes in one location.
Smart. I always knew he was smart.
I just never thought he’d use it against me.
“Boss.”
Marco appears in the doorway, looking almost as wrecked as I am. There are dark circles under his eyes from hours of no sleep. He’s been running search teams all night while I held Scarlett together.
“Anything?”
“We found one of Viktor’s cousins. Third cousin, who lives in Queens.” Marco moves to stand beside me, studying the blueprints. “He doesn’t know where Viktor is, but he confirmed something interesting. Viktor’s been moving money for the past eight months. Offshore accounts in Cyprus.”
