The same calculation Lorenzo made when he took Diana.
“Pull complete intelligence on her,” I say after a long pause. “Locations, routines, security protocols. We don’t move unless Lorenzo escalates beyond current parameters.”
Pavel nods, making notes. “He’ll escalate.”
“Then we revisit the option.” I close Serena’s file, uncomfortable with how easily I’m considering tactics I’d have rejected weeks ago. “I want alternatives mapped thoroughly before we target family directly.”
“All right.” Pavel flags the file for expanded intelligence gathering. “I’ll coordinate with our surveillance teams. Serena splits time between New York and a family property in Connecticut. Security is moderate but not extensive—Lorenzo doesn’t expect her to be threatened.”
The oversight is notable. For all his strategic planning around Diana’s abduction, Lorenzo left his own sister vulnerablethrough assumption that family targeting would remain mutually prohibited.
That assumption is now under active reconsideration.
We spend another two hours mapping operational details—timelines for account freezes, coordination with port contacts for shipment interception, political pressure campaigns against Sartore-aligned senators.
The strategy is comprehensive, designed to hit Lorenzo from multiple directions simultaneously while maintaining plausible deniability for the most aggressive actions.
By the time Pavel leaves, it’s past midnight and exhaustion is setting in around the edges of focus I’ve maintained since Diana’s abduction.
I gather the files we generated and head back to the estate, aware that sleep won’t come easily despite the physical need for it.
The drive passes in a blur of streetlights and late-night traffic. My mind cycles through contingencies—Sartore responses to expect, council dynamics to manage, the expanding web of violence that Diana’s protection has triggered.
Worth it,I remind myself. Every frozen account, every intercepted shipment, every detained lieutenant—all justified by keeping her safe.
The conviction should feel more solid than it does.
***
The estate is quiet when I arrive, household staff retired for the night, security rotating on schedule. I head upstairs intending to check on Diana before retreating to my office for the work that’s piled up during the past twenty-four hours.
The bedroom is empty, sheets disturbed but no sign of her.
Concern spikes before rational thought catches up. She’s probably in the library or sitting room, somewhere she felt safe enough to move around rather than staying confined to bed.
I find her in my office, asleep at the desk with her head pillowed on her arms. Papers are spread around her—the files I gave her access to weeks ago, cross-referenced with notes in her handwriting that suggest she’s been working while I was at the assembly.
The sight stops me in the doorway.
Diana sits surrounded by evidence of Bratva operations, maps showing shipping routes and shell corporation structures, analysis that connects political donations to maritime logistics in ways Ethan started but never completed. She’s not just reading these files—she’s actively contributing to the intelligence we’re using to dismantle Sartore operations.
My wife. My partner. The variable that’s transformed from liability to asset to something I don’t have clean terminology for.
I cross the office quietly and crouch beside the desk, studying her sleeping face in the lamplight. The forehead wound is healing cleanly, bruising already fading to yellow-green.
Tension lines her expression even in sleep, stress that won’t fully release despite being back in safe territory.
She’s been working instead of resting, processing trauma through analysis rather than allowing herself to feel it fully.
The impulse is familiar. I’ve done the same thing countless times—buried emotion in operational planning, transformed fear into strategic action, avoided processing until necessity forced it.
Recognizing the pattern in Diana makes me aware of how thoroughly she’s integrated into this world. She’s not the civilianwho confronted donors at charity galas anymore. She’s someone who analyzes Bratva intelligence files and contributes insights that shape our tactical approach.
The transformation should feel like corruption—Diana losing innocence to survive proximity to violence and calculation. Instead, it feels like evolution. She’s becoming someone who can navigate this world with agency rather than just enduring it under protection.
Someone who chooses to stay not because she lacks alternatives, but because she’s decided this is where she belongs.
With me.
