20. Galena
GALENA
I t was after midnight, and sleep had long since abandoned me.
The Kindle in my hands lay open across my lap, but I hadn’t read a single word in over half an hour.
My eyes kept drifting to the window. I had curled up in my chair in the room to watch the street and wait for Ilias’s return.
Rain had started spitting an hour ago, quiet and icy against the glass.
The kind of sound that only made my thoughts louder.
I’d tried sketching for a while, pulling out my little notebooks and pencils, but that hadn’t worked either.
My skin itched with the feeling of being left behind, of being watched and weighed and still somehow invisible. It annoyed me to no end that I was being locked out of the search for Vairo, Bello, and Scarpato. I wanted to get out of the brownstone more than anything.
I hadn’t heard anything since that night almost a week ago—since the war planning, the tension over greasy pizza, and the fire in my gut when I’d stood and demanded to be part of it. Ilias had looked at me differently after that.
We’d kissed again since. Twice. Three times, maybe, depending on how you counted moments that blurred the line between restraint and hunger.
But we hadn’t talked. Not about what we were.
Not about what came next. I’d been living in his house.
Wearing clothes he’d had delivered from somewhere.
Beautiful ones that seemed tailored specifically for me.
Still, I wanted to have a conversation with him. Were we doing the roommate thing? Was I his wife in more than just name only? I wasn’t sure why I needed qualifiers so much. Part of me just wanted to let it all play out. To not push him. What if he told me he didn’t want me?
But I reminded myself that I had survived so much. One man’s opinion meant nothing. If he didn’t want me the way I wanted him, then I would survive that, too. He didn’t define who I was, and he wouldn’t break me either.
My thumb rubbed absent circles into the fabric of my leggings as I stared out the tall window, listening for any sign of his return. And then—there he was.
Ilias’s car pulled up to the curb, headlights flaring once against the wet brick before shutting off.
I leaned forward, breath catching as the driver’s side door opened.
He stepped out slowly, jacket slung over one shoulder, black shirt clinging to him in the rain.
He looked tired. Tense. Handsome in that terrifying way he had, all dark lines and hard edges that promised power—and, in quieter moments, protection.
He moved like a man carrying the weight of too many secrets.
I didn’t know if he’d been avoiding me or if he was drowning in whatever work he did during the day. Either way, I was done pretending I could keep waiting. I wanted answers.
The wood creaked as I padded barefoot to the hallway and down toward the landing.
The brownstone was old, and I loved everything about it, even the noises it made as it adjusted at night to the temperatures or as people moved around.
It comforted me, almost like the house was talking.
The curved staircase in the center of the brownstone gave me a clear view from floor to floor, so I didn’t have to go all the way down.
The lights were turned down low, casting long shadows along the crown molding, and the house was quiet except for the gentle sound of the front door closing.
He entered quietly, his eyes lifting and locking with mine as if he sensed me there.
His fingers flexed as he hung his jacket on the rack, and I caught a clear glimpse in the light of the raw purple blotches against skin that had once been gold.
His knuckles were bruised and torn. He froze when he saw where I was looking and immediately dropped his hands.
“Hey,” I said, voice low, unsure.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked, stepping forward and climbing up the staircase to meet me.
“I was waiting up.” I watched as his hands gripped the banister, my fingers curling against the rail, trying to pretend it didn’t rock my world that I knew what those bruises meant. "You found them,” I said when he reached the top stair.
He didn’t answer right away, but I saw the tension settle in his shoulders. A long breath passed through his nose. “Well, we’d already known where Vairo and Bello were.” His voice was gravelly, thick with weariness. “We just decided to nab them before they took off.”
My heart stuttered. I felt it, like a pulse against my ribs as I processed what this meant. I wasn’t sure if I was hoping that they did kill them, or if they hadn’t.
"You didn’t have to go after them so fast." The words slipped out before I considered how they sounded. I was relieved that they’d gotten them, but I knew what it meant.
I’d said I wanted to be there. I wanted to look into their eyes and know that they got what was coming to them, but I knew I would be irrevocably changed again once it happened.
It was a conflicting feeling. I wanted it, but I didn’t all at the same time.
His brow rose slightly in surprise. "Did you want me to wait?" He cleared his throat. “I gotta say that we wouldn’t have. Your brother wouldn’t even wait for Dimtri.” He gave a rough chuckle as his hand scraped the stubble on his chin.
"No. Just..." I trailed off, my throat tightening. “It’s real now. That sounds stupid.” I hesitated, trying to put into words what I meant. “For a long time, I didn’t know who they were. They didn’t have names in my nightmares.
This has all moved so fast that I’m still processing it all.
” I shrugged. Shooting a glance at him, I focused on something he said. “Dimitri?”
He nodded. “I told you about him. Your other brother, but that doesn’t sound stupid at all. I get what you mean.”
“Right, the other brother.” I was starting to have a hard time keeping track of all this new family I had. Brothers and cousins. A nephew. Relationships that I had to try to fit into my life somehow.
“Anyway. Now that we’ve got Vairo and Bello, we can move forward. You okay?”
That meant Dino was still out there, but two were off the street, and that was good.
Don’t be a Negative Nancy , I reminded myself.
Think of the good parts. For so long, I’d been afraid that I’d dodge down one of those alleys and right into men who had been part of my mother’s murder.
Part of the worst afternoon of my life. This was a step towards not having to look over my shoulder anymore.
“Just thinking it through.” I finally lifted my gaze to him. Those dark eyes of his always caught me off guard—all that intensity, tempered by something that lurked underneath. “What about Dino?" The name tasted like rust.
Ilias shook his head once. “So far, we keep missing him. The first time, we almost had him. The second time, we missed him by an hour. He moved out of his last safehouse and left behind two men to hold the line."
My eyes flicked again to his hand. "That from them?" I ached to know the whole story behind it.
His mouth twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Some of them. Don’t give them any credit. We were searching for a few clues on where Dino might go, and we all wanted to make them hurt a little. We might have overdone it a bit.” He looked at his hands, giving them a quick inspection.
I shook my head. “Were you going to tell me you found Vairo and Bello?” I knew he and my brother didn’t exactly seem to approve of me having anything to do with ending them.
“I was going to tell you.” His features softened as he stepped closer, but the tension in his shoulders didn’t ease.
I swallowed, heart hammering. “Where are they?”
“Warehouse. Vaso and Kostas are with them now. We’ve kept it quiet,” he said.
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw, and the bruises stood out again.
Now that I knew how he’d gotten them, I couldn’t look away.
“They weren’t hard to catch. Vairo tried to run, took out two tires, and still attempted to make it on foot.
Bello was holed up with some chick, hiding in plain sight. Thought we wouldn’t find him.”
The image of those names burned behind my eyes. “What did they say?”
“Not much. Nothing useful.” He paused. “We agreed to wait for you, but we did rough them up a little.” He gave me a quick wink. “A lot.”
I stepped closer. “I want you to know how much I appreciate you doing this for me.” It was important to me that he knew I understood that it didn’t come at a cost.
He met my gaze, steady. “I’m doing this because you deserve peace. You deserve justice. But you should know that they would have died anyway for breaking the rules. They should never have touched you to begin with. Women are off limits. Dino thought he could get away with it for some reason.”
My throat tightened, and I nodded. “And Scarpato? How will we find him?”
"We'll find him," Ilias said, with a conviction that didn’t leave room for doubt. "He’s the kind of bastard who always resurfaces. Arrogant. Entitled. He thinks he’s untouchable. That makes him predictable. Everyone is on the lookout for him. Angelo is meeting with a couple of the other mafia families today to make sure they will be helping us. Dimitri is flying in, and Veronica will coordinate with Kostas on the tech front. We will deploy every resource we have.”
I stared at him carefully. "And when you do... you'll kill him?"
He hesitated for the briefest second. “Eventually.”
I took a breath. Then another. The air felt thick in my lungs. "You and Maxim... you both said I could be there. When it happens."
"We did, and I meant it. We have Vairo and Bello in a warehouse waiting right now. I have a few options for you if you want to discuss it.” He looked at me carefully. “If you still want to be there.”