Tone
Baron Vilevski was going to die.
There was no question about it. The only thing that was questionable was when.
We’d been on him for days—shadowing his routes, breaking down his patterns, learning where he felt untouchable. Every habit mapped. Every weakness tested.
We watched and waited.
And now we were done with that.
There’s a fine line between chaos and choice. What we are planning was not heat-of-the-moment violence.
Our kind of violence was selected. Measured. Personal.
Men like Vilevski don’t stop. They don’t bargain. They don’t step back unless something forces them to—and even then, they don’t stay down.
They come back. Unless you end it properly. So we would.
To protect our family and preserve our bloodline. To uphold the rule that sat at the core of everything the Cavalho name was built on—you do not come for one of ours and expect to walk away.
This wasn’t just about eliminating a threat. It was about making an example. A message that would carry far beyond one man’s death.
We protect our own. Always.
We defend what is ours—until our last breath.
And if you’re foolish enough to test that—you better be ready to face the full force of who we are.
We only got one shot at him, and now we were going to take it.
I wanted to make some sort of smart-ass comment about how he looked better in a dress. It was right there on the tip of my tongue. But the second I saw his face, I swallowed it.
Archie wasn’t embarrassed. He wasn’t uncomfortable. He looked… offended. Like the world had personally overstepped by putting him in something this absurd—and it was going to pay for it.
That alone should’ve been enough to keep me quiet. But a laugh slipped out anyway. Soft. Controlled. Almost polite.
I turned away quickly, pressing my hand over my mouth, shoulders tightening as I forced it down before it could get any louder.
Because this wasn’t funny. Not when the man in front of me looked like he could still break someone in half without wrinkling the fabric of his dress.
“This is a mistake,” Archie muttered, his voice low, edged, as he stared at his reflection in the mirror.
Izzy snorted beside me, completely unbothered as she adjusted the wig on his head.
“Now,” she said, tugging it into place with zero regard for his mood, “you need to check your attitude, Archie. Remember why you’re doing this. Stand still.”
“I am standing still.”
“You’re brooding.”
“I am not brooding.”
“You’re radiating homicide,” she shot back. “It’s throwing off the look I’m aiming for.”
“And what look would that be?” he said flatly, like the word itself was invalid.
I risked turning back, but that proved to be a big mistake. Izzy stepped away from him, hands on her hips as she assessed her work.
Archie stood there—tall, broad, carved like he was built for war and simply dropped into the wrong setting. The dress clung to him in all the wrong ways. Or maybe the right ones, depending on how you looked at it.
It didn’t make him look soft. It made him look like he was pretending to be.
A dangerous man wearing a disguise just convincing enough to get close.
The slit of the dress shifted as he moved, exposing muscle that didn’t belong in anything designed for elegance. His shoulders strained the fabric. His jaw was tight. His eyes—God. His eyes hadn’t changed at all. They were cold. Sharp. Hungry.
I folded my arms, tilting my head as I took him in properly this time.
“Well,” I said slowly, letting my gaze drag over him with deliberate provocation, “if this whole thing doesn’t work out, I think you’ve found your calling.”
His eyes cut to me. Not annoyed or amused, but dangerous.
“Careful.”
I smiled.
“Or what?”
He took a step toward me. The heels didn’t slow him down.
If anything, it made it worse—the contrast between what he wore and the monster he was.
“That mouth of yours,” he said, voice low, controlled, like it took a lot to hold himself back, “is going to get you into trouble.”
My pulse hit harder against my ribs. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of stepping back.
“Funny,” I murmured. “I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
Something flickered in his expression then. Something that had nothing to do with the dress and everything to do with the fact that we were about to walk into a room and carry out a massacre.
Izzy groaned behind us.
“Oh my God, can you two not?” she complained, dragging a brush through the wig like she was trying to physically separate the tension in the room. “We’re about to commit murder, not film a romance.”
“We’re not—” I started.
“We’re not,” Archie said at the same time.
Izzy looked between us. Then laughed under her breath.
“Right,” she muttered. “Sure you’re not.”
I broke eye contact first. Only because if I didn’t, I wasn’t entirely sure what would happen next.
And now we had even bigger problems to ponder.
I glanced over at Gianni across the room. He looked ridiculous. There was no other word for it.
He wore a blonde wig and a pink blouse. His nails were painted a shade that could be seen from space. And yet—somehow—he still managed to look like a man you wouldn’t want to cross in a dark alley.
“Tone,” Archie whispered close to my ear. His breath felt like a caress against my skin. “If you ever speak of this again, I will personally end you.”
I winked at him before I replied.
“You’d miss me too much.”
“Not even a little.”
Atlas stepped into the room then. His disguise was the most convincing—subtle, polished, almost believable if you didn’t know what you were looking at. But there was something in his eyes that no amount of makeup could soften.
Violence. Refined. Controlled. Waiting.
The room shifted around him, the way it always did.
No one spoke for a second—because Atlas had that effect. He didn’t demand silence. He took it.
“Time,” he said simply.
Izzy straightened, all traces of humour gone as she gave Archie one last adjustment, smoothing the line of his shoulder like she was preparing him for a casual day out.
It wasn’t.
None of this was.
Gianni rolled his neck once, cracking it like he was about to step into a boxing ring instead of a beauty parlor.
I pushed off the counter. My pulse had changed to a stutter. Like something inside me had settled into place.
This was the part I understood. The quiet before the storm.
I reached for the small clutch on the table, slipping my fingers inside long enough to feel the cool metal hidden within. Grounding. Familiar. Real.
Near me, Archie moved and stopped just short of touching me, close enough that I could feel the heat of him again, even through the layers between us.
“Stay where I can see you,” he said quietly.
Not a request. Not even advice. A command.
I tilted my head, meeting his gaze.
“You planning on watching me all night?”
His jaw tightened slightly.
“I’m just trying to keep you alive, Tone.”
Something sharp slid through my chest. I smirked anyway.
“Try not to get distracted, then.”
Archie’s gaze dropped—brief, deliberate—catching on my mouth before dragging back up like he hadn’t meant to linger.
There. Gone.
“Not a problem,” he said.
I let out a quiet breath, tilting my head as I held his gaze, catching the tension he’d just buried.
Liar.