Chapter Twenty-One
Antonio
I’m on the bed in the suite Elsa and I spent the night in, staring at the ceiling like it’s going to give me the answers if I look long enough.
It’s pathetic. I know it is. I can hear my own voice saying it in my head—Antonio Conti, grown man, strategist, the one who always has a plan, lying on a hotel bed because he can’t let go of a woman he knew for a day.
Two weeks ago.
Two weeks since I’ve seen her. Two weeks since that conference room when she kissed me and sobbed, then ran for the door like she was escaping a fire. After that, the Northstar group headed back to New York, and negotiations have been continuing virtually—screens, emails, scheduled calls.
I haven’t had any contact with any of them.
Not Malcolm. Not David. Not Eleanor. And not Elsa.
My talents don’t translate to virtual. I’m good in rooms. I’m good when I can read the micro-shifts in someone’s posture, so I can head off a ‘no’ before it comes out of someone’s mouth.
I’m good at making people feel understood and cornered at the same time. None of that works through a webcam and muted microphones.
So I sit on the sidelines while Roberto does what he does and Caterina does what she does, and I tell myself it’s better this way. Safer.
It doesn’t feel safe. It feels like I’m watching my life through glass.
I’ve been depressed. Moping. There’s no other way to say it. I get up every day, I go through the motions, I show up for meetings, I take calls, I do my job—and then I come home, and I’m empty.
Or worse, I’m full of her. Full of the memory of her mouth, her voice, the way she held on tight just before she broke away for good.
I’ve tried to snap out of it.
I’ve told myself it was one night. I’ve told myself I’ve had one-night stands before, and I didn’t care. I’ve told myself I have bigger problems—Bellandi, territory, family, a deal that can’t slip because the consequences aren’t just financial.
None of it works.
Because lying here, in this exact suite, I can still remember her pressing against me.
And I hate how much I want to reach for my phone and do the one thing I’ve been refusing to do for two weeks—break the silence first—when I don’t even know if she’d pick up.
When I don’t even know if she wants me to.
My thumb hovers over her name anyway.
I lock the phone and toss it onto the bed beside me, harder than I need to. It bounces and falls off the mattress.
I stare at the ceiling again and force a breath through my nose slowly, as if that will do something.
My phone buzzes from the ground.
I ignore it.
It’s not her. I know it.
The buzzing stops.
Then it starts again—seemingly more insistent this time.
“Fuck,” I mutter, and swing my legs off the bed.
I scoop the phone off the floor and glance at the screen.
Roberto.
I answer before it can buzz a third time. “What?”
“Where are you?” he asks. No hello. No preamble.
I sit up and let my gaze flick over the room. Her dress isn’t in a pile on the floor. Her shoes aren’t tossed carelessly aside.
“Out,” I say.
He doesn’t even bother to acknowledge my lie.
“Come up to Caterina’s office,” he says.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because,” Roberto says, and I can hear the clipped patience he’s forcing into his voice. “Now.”
My jaw tightens. My first instinct is to say no. To stay here where the ghosts at least comfort me. Where the emptiness matches what’s in my chest.
But Roberto wouldn’t call for no reason, and definitely not twice.
“Fine,” I say. The word comes out rough. “I’m on my way.”
“Don’t take your time,” he adds, and then the line goes dead.
I stare at the phone for a second like it’s personally offended me.
Then I shove it into my pocket and stand, the movement too sharp, like I’m trying to shake her out of my skin.
It doesn’t work.
Nothing does.
I pick up my jacket, sling it over my arm, and walk out of the room.
I take the elevator to Caterina’s floor and walk, unbothered, through security.
Caterina’s office door is shut.
I knock once and go in without waiting, because if I hesitate, I’ll turn around and I’ll end up right back in that suite staring at the ceiling.
Caterina is behind her desk, tablet in hand, posture perfect. Roberto is standing by the window with his arms folded, jacket on, perfectly pressed.
They both look at me at the same time.
Caterina’s brows lift. “Tio,” she says, and there’s zero softness in it, just blunt truth. “You look like hell.”
“Grazie, Caterina,” I say, not even working up the energy for sarcasm.
I step farther into the room and stop in front of her desk, hands loose at my sides like I’m not clenching them into fists. “What do you want?”
Roberto’s gaze doesn’t move off my face. “Sit.”
I drag a hand down my face and drop into the chair opposite her desk, spreading my knees, elbows on the armrests, posture saying relaxed even though my body feels tight.
“Talk,” I say.
Roberto pushes off the window and comes closer, stopping behind Caterina’s chair.
He nods at Caterina, and she presses a button on what I recognize as her security remote.
Across the room, a TV comes to life with grainy security footage.
It’s an empty hallway in the hotel.
“What is this…” I trail off as two people come into view.
Me. And Elsa.
The very first night.
I watch as the Elsa on camera laughs and moves into my arms, pressing her perfect body against mine.
I remember the taste of champagne on her lips as I made sure she wasn’t too drunk. The kiss heated up as our hands started roaming. Well, her hands started roaming. Mine were busy keeping her pressed against me and trying to unlock the door.
It took me two tries to unlock the door, then we disappeared behind it with a slam.
Then the hallway is empty again.
A button is pressed and the tape rewinds, pauses with my hand on Elsa’s waist. Her head tipped back, laughing.
I don’t realize I’ve curled my hands into fists until my knuckles ache.
Roberto’s voice comes from behind Caterina, quiet and dangerous. “Tell me you fucking didn’t.”
My jaw tightens. I swallow once, slow, like I can choke the truth back down.
“Would you believe me if I did?” I ask dully.
Roberto explodes, cursing. It’s very rare for him to lose his temper like this.
Roberto’s hand slams into Caterina’s desk hard enough to make the wood whine.
“Don’t get cute with me,” he snaps. “Of all the selfish—"
Caterina’s voice cuts in, sharper than his. “How could you do this, Tio?” Her eyes are bright with fury. “This acquisition was important. This was Northstar. This was—”
Roberto is still going off on his own tirade. “—a war we’re trying to prevent on our turf,” he says viciously.
And that’s what gets me.
I stand and slam my own hand against the desk, fire back in my blood.
“Hey, don’t hit me with that bullshit,” I snarl. “You can see the date on that video just as well as I can. We didn’t know the Bellandis were involved until the next morning.”
Roberto stills like I’ve thrown a knife at him.
For half a second, the room goes dead quiet.
Then he takes one slow step closer, the kind of movement that’s more dangerous than shouting.
“You don’t get to hide behind a timestamp,” he says, voice low. “You knew Northstar was in play. You knew we were walking into a negotiation that could shift territory. And you still took a risk you didn’t have to take.”
“I didn’t take a risk,” I bite out. “I met a woman. I—” The words snag in my throat, rage tangling with something uglier. “I didn’t even know who she was.”
Caterina’s gaze snaps to mine, sharp as a blade. “You didn’t know Elsa Nilsson was Elsa Nilsson,” she repeats, like she’s trying to make sense of the information I’ve given her. “Or what? You didn’t even bother to get her name before you dragged her into that room?”
“First,” I bite out, “I didn’t drag her, as you can very well damn see. She went quite willingly. Second, I got her first name. You told me Nilsson. Not Elsa Nilsson. And she wasn’t even supposed to be there that night. Her flight was delayed, remember?”
Caterina blinks once, then twice, like the memory is rewinding in her head.
“That—” she starts, and the anger on her face shifts into something else. “Yes. Her flight was delayed. They told us that at the gala. They said she wasn’t coming.”
Roberto’s eyes cut to Caterina. “You told him ‘Nilsson’ and nothing else.”
“It didn’t seem relevant,” Caterina snaps, then immediately looks like she wants to swallow the words back. “We weren’t expecting him to”—her gaze flicks to the screen, to Elsa laughing in my arms—“to do that.”
Roberto’s jaw works. He drags a hand over his mouth, thinking fast, recalculating. When his eyes land back on me, they’re colder.
“So you’re telling me,” he says slowly, “that you didn’t target her.”
“What? No,” I say, incredulous. “You all went on the tour of the casino, and Elsa walked in. She’s hard to miss. I saw a beautiful woman, we had a few at the bar—which you can damn well see on some other security tape—and then we decided to go upstairs together.”
Caterina’s nostrils flare. “And then she happens to be the due diligence lead.”
“Yes,” I say. “She happens to be the due diligence lead. That’s the truth.”
Roberto points at the screen, at Elsa’s laughing face. “And what does she think? The ethical voice of the acquisition? Does she believe it was a play?
“She did,” I say, but raise my voice over Roberto’s as he curses hotly again. “But not anymore. I fixed it.”
“She was awfully cold at the meeting a couple of weeks ago,” Caterina says. “Are you sure you fixed it?”
“Yes,” I say, remembering that Elsa was anything but cold after that meeting. “After. You set it up so I would take her on the tour, remember?”
She narrows her eyes. “Did you sleep with her again?”
“What? No,” I say, offended. But I definitely would have if she’d wanted to. “I told you. I fixed it. We talked. That’s all.”
And kissed. A lot.
“And if I had, it would be none of your business.”
Roberto’s stare cuts through me.
“It became our business the second it touched the family,” he says, voice like ice. “So don’t get defensive.”
Caterina leans forward, elbows on her desk, eyes narrowed. “You’re saying she’s not going to tank the deal over conflict. That she’s… what, over it?”
“I’m saying she knows I didn’t target her,” I bite out. “She knows I didn’t know who she was.”
Roberto’s laugh is sharp, humorless. “That’s not the same thing as her not blowing our deal out of spite. Again, Antonio, the ethical voice, something she takes seriously, if I understand her correctly.”
I open my mouth, then shut it. Because he’s right. Because “fixed” could very well be a wound that’s still bleeding.
Caterina’s gaze flicks to the paused frame on the screen—Elsa’s head tipped back, laughing—then back to me.
She looks at Roberto and gets the nod.
I furrow my brows and sit up straight again at the exchange. “What is it?”
She picks up the remote again and presses another button. Elsa’s face disappears, and another image fills the space.
Outdoors. Nowhere in Atlantic City that I recognize. In fact, the building in the background makes me think of New York.
As I’m about to ask what’s going on, Elsa comes into view on the screen, her long legs eating up the sidewalk. A doorman in the building opens the door for her, and she smiles, steps in, and disappears from view.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Just watch,” Roberto says.
A minute or so later, two men walk into view. My gut clenches instinctively. My muscles tense, like I’m preparing for a fight.
I don’t even know who they are.
I recognize what they’re doing, though. Because I’ve done the same on too many occasions to count.
One checks his watch. The other scans the street without moving his head, eyes sliding over the glass doors. Watching angles, cameras, the doorman.
They don’t stop in front of Elsa’s apartment building but just walk on by.
I feel ice trickle down my spine.
“Who are they?” I ask coldly, though something is telling me I already know.
“We think Bellandi,” Roberto confirms my suspicions.
“And what the fuck is Bellandi doing outside of Chicago, standing outside Elsa’s building?”
No one bothers to answer.
We all know. Elsa is the make-it-or-break-it on the deal. They’re there to make sure she sides with them. By any means necessary.
My pulse spikes hot and violent.
“How long have they been watching her?” I ask, gritting my teeth.
“This is the first footage we’ve found of it, but we’ll be combing through more,” Caterina says.
Footage. That’s usually my job.
But I’ve got more important things to do.
I meet Roberto’s eyes, and he nods.
“Luca gave the okay,” he says. “Go.”
I’m moving before he finishes.
“But not alone,” he says.
“Fine,” I snap. “Have men ready. I’m not waiting. I want discreet. I don’t want her or them”—I point to the two men now paused on the screen—“to clock them. Check footage for other members of the Northstar group. Likely they’re watching them as well.”
“What will you tell her?” Caterina asks.
I stop at the door, hand on the handle, and for a second, my brain is nothing but anger and knives.
“I’m going to tell her the truth,” I say.
“The truth?” Caterina pushes up from her chair, incredulous.
“Yeah, the truth,” I repeat and look back at her. “It’s what I owe her after all this.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Roberto asks. “You think she’ll handle it?”
“I think she can handle anything,” I say, yanking the door open.
“Even you showing up at her door?” Caterina calls after me.
“Even that,” I say and walk out.