He sits behind the heavy mahogany desk in his office with a file open in front of him, one hand resting beside it, the other loosely holding a pen he is no longer using.
Late afternoon light cuts across the room through the tall windows behind me, laying warm stripes over the dark rug andthe bookshelves and the polished wood that always smells faintly of tobacco, leather, and whatever expensive cologne my father has worn for the last twenty years.
The office has always felt like him. Quiet. Imposing. Ordered down to the inch.
And at the moment, it feels like a trap.
I stand in front of his desk in a cream silk blouse and black trousers, my laptop bag still hanging from my shoulder because I came straight here from my office at the casino.
Straight from a meeting about quarterly forecasts, a staffing headache in the high-limit lounge, and an argument with one of our beverage vendors about a delivery discrepancy that’s my problem because anything involving numbers is always my problem.
I should be headed home. I should be reviewing the weekend count reports and answering the emails Olivia flagged for me earlier.
Instead, I am here.
Being informed, apparently, that I am about to lose the last scraps of privacy and freedom I have left.
My father finally lifts his eyes to mine.
“You need one because I said so.”
I let out a short laugh that holds no amusement at all.
“Right. Great. Good talk.”
I shift my bag off my shoulder and set it down hard in one of the leather chairs across from him, then fold my arms over my chest.
He watches me do it with the kind of patience that only makes my temper sharpen.
Luca Conti in one of his quieter moods is almost worse than when he is angry. When he gets angry, at least he shows his hand.
When he stays calm, it means he has already decided how this is going to end.
His gaze does not move from mine. “There was another threat.”
The words register, of course, but not the way he probably expects them to.
There have been threats before. Anonymous calls. Notes. Rumors passed along through channels that are never as secure as the men using them like to pretend. The family is always dealing with threats, direct or implied.
That is what happens when your last name is Conti and your father sits at the head of an empire built on fear, loyalty, money, and blood. Men always want something. A weakness. An opening. A score to settle. A piece of what belongs to us.
Still, something cold slides through me anyway.
“Against who?”
“All of you.”
My jaw tightens.
He closes the file in front of him. “My children.”
For one second, neither of us speaks.
I hate that. I hate the tiny break in my anger. I hate the way my body reacts to those words before my pride can catch up. Because whatever else my father is, whatever else this family is, I know what that means.
Threats against Luca Conti’s children are not vague. They are a message. They are leverage. They are a promise of escalation.
But I am still not giving him this.
