Chapter Seventeen
Antonio
I’m back in my penthouse, and the place feels too clean and organized for the mess in my head.
I want to break something, shatter it into a million pieces across the floor.
I pace instead—shoes on stone, then wood, then back to stone—like I can wear a path into it if I go long enough. The city glitters beyond the glass, indifferent. My jacket is on the back of a chair, my tie is gone, and the quiet is loud enough to get under my skin.
Elsa’s face won’t leave me alone.
The moment her eyes went cold. The moment her voice sharpened. The way hurt sat underneath the anger like a blade you don’t see until it’s already cut. I keep seeing her in that black dress, the slit, the red mouth, the seduction act.
And I keep seeing her last night, too—softer, happier, turned on. Trembling under my mouth like she didn’t know whether to push me away or pull me closer.
I rake a hand through my hair and turn hard at the edge of the living area, catching my reflection in the dark glass. I look like a man who thought he had control and found out he was wrong.
Because I didn’t know.
I didn’t know Nilsson and Elsa were the same woman until she said it. Until she threw it right at me and watched me choke on it.
My stomach twists again, hot with it—shock turning into something uglier. The speed of her attack, the precision. The way she hit exactly where it would hurt.
I stop at the bar cart, stare at it without seeing it. There’s a decanter I’ve kept for years, something old and expensive, something I used to pour when nights went long, and the world felt simple. I don’t touch it. I don’t want anything dulling my thoughts. Not tonight.
Tonight, my thoughts are already a weapon—just pointed at the wrong damn target.
Because now I’m screwed on the deal.
I can hear Roberto’s voice in my head, the clipped tone, the warning wrapped in command.
Monday. A-game.
This acquisition cannot go to Bellandi. It can’t. If it does, it’s not a missed opportunity, it’s Chicago stepping onto our coast and planting their flag in our sand.
Bellandi Syndicate won’t “expand.” They’ll invade.
And if they get Northstar, they don’t just get contracts and clients. They get access. They get doors. They get security protocols and membership lists and the kind of credibility that lets them slide into rooms that used to be ours.
They move into our territory.
They start leaning on people. They start poaching. They start making examples.
We don’t let them.
I don’t let them.
I pace again, faster now, passing the office I barely use. Passing the hallway that leads to my bedroom, to the bathroom where the drops of water still cling to the glass from earlier, when my whole day had been simple—shower, meeting, dinner, her.
Her.
She’s supposed to be here right now. Not just in my bed, in my arms— and the rest of it too. The easy laugh after, late-night conversation on the couch, the slow, lazy kisses that turn into more. I was looking forward to it. The whole day.
I thought I’d found something.
I thought I’d found someone.
It's insane to think of a woman I've known for one day, spent one night with, and feel… loss. Like I'm missing a limb. Like a part of my chest is empty.
And it's worse because I'm not just angry at her for thinking the worst of me.
I’m angry at myself for giving her the ammunition.
Northstar is in play. I’m pursuing it. That’s a fact.
She’s Elsa Nilsson. That’s also a fact.
And the fact that I didn't know who she was when I touched her doesn't erase the fact that I wanted her anyway. The problem is, she'll never believe that now.
She thinks last night was a strategy. She thinks tonight’s dinner was a move.
She thinks every word out of my mouth was designed to manipulate her.
The way she looked at me when she stood up from that chair. The scrape of it. The sharpness. The devastation she tried to hide under that beautiful cruelty.
“You didn’t have to use me.”
The words feel like a punch I didn’t brace for, just as painful now as they were coming out of her mouth.
Use her.
Christ.
I didn’t go looking for her because she was due diligence. I didn’t touch her because of Northstar. If I had known—if I’d had even an inkling—there is no universe where I would have taken that risk. Not because I wouldn’t have wanted her.
Because I would’ve known I couldn’t afford it.
I don’t even know if that’s true, and that’s the part that turns my stomach.
Because even now, with everything burning down, I can’t untangle the want from the damage.
I can’t think about her without thinking about her mouth.
The red gloss. The way her breath hitched when I said her name.
The way she tilted her head back for me without even realizing she’d surrendered the most vulnerable part of herself.
And then I remember her turning away from me at the end—just walking out and leaving me there.
My chest tightens.
I don’t do this.
I don’t fall apart over women. I don’t sit in my own home and pace like a man waiting for a verdict. I’ve had one-night stands. Plenty. Easy ones. Clean ones. Nights that ended with a door closing and me not caring whether I ever saw the woman again.
“One-night stand.”
The phrase replays in my mind, and something in me rejects it so hard it’s almost nauseating.
Because it was never that. Not really. It wasn’t going to be some story I remember later with a shrug or a fond smile. It wasn’t disposable.
It was… more. Something.
That’s what makes me feel sick. That I can’t deny it, even now. Even after the look on her face when she realized who I was. Even after she said she wasn’t letting the acquisition go through, and made it sound like I use my body as just another tool in my kit.
I stop pacing and stand in the middle of the living room, hands on my hips, staring at nothing.
What happens now?
Nilsson—Elsa—has a say. The say. She’s the make-it-or-break-it on this. The key to the lock. And now she thinks I targeted her to pry it open.
Maybe she’ll convince Malcolm and the others to walk away out of pure spite. Maybe she’ll do it because she genuinely believes we’re a risk. Maybe she’ll do it because she wants to punish me. Maybe she’ll do it because she thinks it’s the right move.
Whatever her reason, the result is the same.
If Northstar doesn’t choose us, Bellandi has a shot.
And if Bellandi gets that shot and lands it, we’re staring at something a hell of a lot bigger than corporate paperwork.
We’re staring at a war.
My jaw clenches so hard it aches.
I can’t let that happen.
I won’t.
So I have to do something. Anything. I have to talk to her—really talk to her—fix this, make it right, make her believe me when I say I didn’t know. Make her see that last night wasn’t a move.
It was a mistake— No, not a mistake. It was just reckless, not calculated.
I exhale sharply, and my hands curl into fists.
And if that doesn’t work…
If she refuses to believe me. If she chooses to burn this deal down just to watch me choke on the smoke—
Then I have to outplay her.
The thought forms automatically, the way strategy always does in my head. Outplay. Outmaneuver. Find leverage. Control the board. Win.
And the second it’s there, I hate myself.
Because she’s not an opponent. Not really. She’s not a rival family. She’s not Bellandi.
She’s a woman with bruised pride and wounded trust and sad eyes who I can’t stop thinking about.
I can’t stop thinking about lying in bed with her last night, laughing over something stupid.
I can’t stop thinking about her fingers tangled in my hair, and the taste of that sweet pussy on my tongue.
At the way she looked at me this morning as if she didn’t want to leave.
At the hurt in her eyes at the restaurant.
And I’m sitting here turning her into a problem to solve.
I drag a hand down my face, palm catching on my jaw.
My family comes first.
It has to. That’s the rule. That’s the only thing that keeps everything, and everyone, standing. We protect what’s ours. We keep our people safe. We don’t let outside syndicates waltz into our territory because I couldn’t keep my hands off a woman, no matter who she is.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a second.
I can’t let some one-night stand start a war.
There it is again—one-night stand—and the sickness is immediate, rolling low in my gut.
Because if that’s all this has become, I’m going to regret it in a way I don’t have language for.
I open my eyes and stare toward the hallway, like I’m going to see her there. Like she’s going to walk back into my life and make this simple again.
It won’t be simple.
But it also can’t be over.
Not like that.
“Fuck,” I mutter to the empty room.
Then: “I have to fix this.”
And the words feel like a vow. Like a threat.
Because I don’t know whether I’m trying to save the deal, or save her, or save myself from the fact that I’m already too far gone.
But I know one thing with absolute clarity as I start pacing again, faster, purpose edging out panic—
I’m not letting Bellandi into our backyard.
And I’m not letting Elsa walk away as if she were nothing.
Not when she never was.