Chapter 14 Vincenzo
Vincenzo
The door creaks open and Kiril fucking Atanasov stumbles out like a man shot at close range.
His eyes are glazed, lips swollen, hair damp with sweat.
Kiril, who’s taken bullets through the thigh and kept running.
Who once shattered a guy’s spine with nothing but his forearm during a drill.
The same Kiril who has led tactical assaults in simulation halls that left half the class bruised for days.
That Kiril just walked out of a supply closet like he barely survived.
And I don’t need to ask who did it, because ten seconds before that, he walked out.
My grip tightens on the banister.
I can feel it in my chest—the pressure, the restraint. The part of me that wants to move, to react, to drag him into a corner and tear that fucking smirk off his face with my teeth or my fists or both. I don’t even know anymore; I just know I’m vibrating with the need to do something.
I know exactly what he’s doing. He could’ve fucked anyone, anywhere.
But he chose here, right outside my next class.
Right in the hallway that I always pass through at this hour.
He wanted me to see, wanted me to hear every breath, every begging sound he pulled out of someone who’s never dropped for anyone.
And now he’s walking away with Kiril’s pride still dripping down his fucking spine.
I shove off the railing too fast. I don’t look at anyone who passes me; I don’t care. I head straight into the lecture hall and drop into my usual seat, forcing every breath back under control.
The professor hasn’t arrived yet, and the rest of the heirs filter in slowly, laughing, talking, unaware of the war happening inside my skull. I sit in silence, but my thoughts are blistering.
Because this is what Dragovich does. He gets in your head and crawls under your skin. He presses and presses until you’re either on your knees or on your back. And if you don’t fight it, if you don’t claw your way out, he owns you.
He doesn’t care about the crown. He doesn’t care about legacy or bloodlines or alliances, and he’s not trying to survive here. He’s trying to unmake me, and it’s working.
While I’ve spent a week trying to smother the hunger in silk sheets and perfume, he’s been building an empire in whispers and moans.
Recruiting smaller families, blackmailing allies, turning trusted names into liabilities.
I’ve heard it, the murmurs in the hallway, the rumors that don’t attach themselves to him—but to me.
That I’m slipping, that I’ve gotten quiet.
He’s poisoning the well from the inside out, and I’ve let him get too close.
No more.
If he wants to turn this into a game of leverage and dominance, fine. But I don’t play like him. I don’t seduce my enemies; I annihilate them. He thinks he can break me with blood and temptation.
He’s wrong.
I don’t bend, and I sure as hell don’t beg. I won’t attack his pride—that would be a waste of time. I go after the only thing he’s trying to pretend isn’t real: control.
I’ve spent weeks studying him. Not just the way he moves or the weapons he favors, or the smirk he uses when he knows he’s gotten under someone’s skin.
I’ve studied the silences between his words, the way he leans on his left foot when he lies, the twitch in his jaw when someone touches a nerve.
I’ve studied him like I’ve studied every threat I’ve ever learned to kill.
And today, I’ll finally make him crack.
We’re in the dining hall on Monday morning.
The tension after morning drills still clings to the walls, all salt and sweat and the quiet thrum of rivalry humming beneath the marble arches.
Vintermoor doesn’t do breakfast like normal schools.
There are no pancakes, no laughter, no communal joy.
Just rows of cold-blooded heirs in suits or scars, eating in silence and watching like hawks.
I sit where I always do—center of the East Wing table, surrounded by the youngest generation of the Five Families, the Vieri loyalists in tailored navy, black, and slate gray. Each of them knows their place, and each of them knows mine.
Each of them knows something’s about to shift because today, beside me, there’s a guest.
Elio Mancini.
Son of Angelo Mancini, one of the old bloodline dons from Calabria.
Their family used to be tight with the Vieri name, but they’d started drifting in the past decade, lured by whispers and offers from smaller factions who promised more power than we ever gave them.
Until last week, when I made him a better offer.
Loyalty, sealed with blood, in exchange for protection, access, and presence.
Elio’s been sniffing around Nikolaj for weeks.
Laughing too loud at his jokes and trying to gain favor with the Bratva heir like a dog chasing after cold scraps.
And Nikolaj, the arrogant fuck, let him.
Played along with his teasing, let him laugh and flirt and touch his arm, knowing I was watching.
I said and did nothing.
Until now.
Elio sits to my right, dressed in black, rings on his fingers, and a bruise already blooming on his jaw from the stunt I asked him to pull in the training yard two nights ago.
A staged sparring match gone “wrong.” A way to get Nikolaj’s attention.
To make it look like he was disrespected in front of the Bratva.
To sell the lie that I needed him to believe—that Elio wanted back into the fold, but only through Nikolaj.
He walks in now, eyes scanning the room with that same predator ease, flanked by Kai and Maksim, all Bratva ink and cold stares.
His jaw’s tight, hair’s wet like he just left drills and didn’t bother to towel off.
There’s a cut above his eyebrow that wasn’t there last night, but it doesn’t stop him.
He looks like the kind of bastard who enjoys the sting.
But today, he falters when his eyes land on me, then on Elio. Then on the way Elio leans too close, the way I let him, smirking faintly like I’ve just shared something private with him. A joke. A memory. Something intimate.
Nikolaj’s steps slow only for a second, but I see it.
I fucking see it.
His jaw ticks, and then he’s back to pace—but that second? That pause? That was for me. He hates that I’ve touched something he thought was his, even if he never claimed it.
He takes his seat without looking at me again, but I feel the tension in him like a live wire crackling from across the room. He doesn’t speak to his table or mock me. Doesn’t throw one of his usual barbs designed to make me react. Because now he’s reacting, and it gets better.
Elio turns to me mid-meal, voice low. “He’s watching us,” he says under his breath, fork gliding through a slice of blood orange. “You want me to do it now?”
I nod once. Elio pushes back his chair, stands, and walks toward the North Wing table. Every eye on our side follows him. They know this isn’t done—not between wings, not without permission. And especially not to the Bloody Prince.
But Elio does it anyway.
He walks up behind Nikolaj, leans down, and murmurs something low—something only they can hear. But I know what he’s saying.
Should’ve let me finish what I started.
I wait, then Nikolaj slams his knife into the table. A metallic clang rings out across the dining hall, and everyone freezes. The silence is the kind that follows gunshots—eyes wide, breaths held, hearts waiting to see who moves next.
Nikolaj straightens without looking at him. “Back off, Mancini,” he says.
And Elio, trained well, just smirks. Nikolaj doesn’t move, but I see the rage in his shoulders. I see the chaos under his skin. I’ve always known what he is: a bomb waiting for a fuse to be lit. But now I’m the one lighting it.
Elio walks back to my table like nothing happened. Slides into the seat beside me, still chewing the last of his orange. He doesn’t look at me, doesn’t smile. Just leans in slightly and says, “He’s going to break something. Might be me.”
I take a sip of my coffee. “Good.”
I wait for another beat before glancing over. Nikolaj is looking at me now; there’s no smirk, no games, just cold fury. I nod once, and then I mouth it.
Mine.
His lip curls. It’s the closest I’ve ever seen him come to snarling. He doesn’t get up, but he doesn’t eat either.
I’ve won for now. But even as I sit there, victorious, I know this isn’t over. When he strikes back, it won’t be clean, it’ll be war.
… And it comes just after dusk.
I’m halfway through unwrapping my hands after evening drills when Lucien walks toward me, face pale. His black shirt is sweat-soaked from the gym, but his eyes are wide.
He doesn’t even close the door. “Elio’s dead.”
Two words. No buildup. No apology. No pause
My fingers clench around the gauze, and for a second, I don’t move, breathe, or think.
Because that doesn’t make sense. He was alive at breakfast. He was laughing. Smirking. He sat beside me and told me that Nikolaj looked like he wanted to rip his spine out and wear it like a belt. He winked when he said it.
“What did you just say?”
Lucien swallows hard. “Someone found him outside the West Wing stairwell at the bottom of the drop. Skull cracked open like an egg.”
I slowly unwind the gauze from my knuckles and set it down with careful precision. My heart is hammering in my chest, but I keep my expression flat.
“Who?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
He hesitates. “No witnesses.”
That’s bullshit, and everyone knows it. Vintermoor is a spiderweb of secrets, but someone always sees and someone always hears. This school breathes gossip like oxygen and bleeds truth in whispers. The cameras catch what they want to catch, and the rest is left to the laws of silence and power.
But this is different.
No one saw, or no one’s talking?
I rise from the bench. My muscles ache from hours of drills, but the pain keeps me grounded. Keeps me from grabbing Lucien by the throat and demanding answers he doesn’t have.
“Who found him?” I ask, voice low.
“One of the guards. Said he must’ve slipped. There were no signs of struggle.”
Slipped.
That’s rich. Elio Mancini might’ve been a flirt, a liability, a hotheaded idiot—but he was agile, trained, and careful with his footing. He didn’t just fucking fall from that stairwell.
Lucien looks like he wants to say more, but I walk past him and out into the corridor. I don’t wait for him to follow. I don’t need an escort. I don’t need fucking comfort.
I need answers, and I already know where to start.
The West Wing stairwell is taped off by the time I get there, a thin stretch of red and black silk ribbon strung across the entry like that’s supposed to mean anything to people like us. There are blood smears on the marble just beyond the tape—dark, jagged arcs that say more than any report could.
One look, and I know he didn’t fall—he was pushed.
Not in a fit of rage, not with a scream or a struggle. This was quiet. Intentional. Planned.
Only a monster could’ve timed it this perfectly—waited until Elio was alone, walking down toward the lower quad where the shadows pool deep and the guards conveniently rotate shift.
Only a monster could’ve smiled while placing a hand on his back and shoving him off the edge, knowing exactly how he’d land.
Only one monster here makes killing look like art.
My jaw tightens, and my hand fist. I know with the kind of certainty that burns low in my gut.
Nikolaj.
Of course it was him. No proof. No witnesses. No trail. Just blood, silence, and a message that speaks louder than any bullet ever could.
Betray me and die.
I stare at the edge of the stairwell, my eyes burning. Not with grief or even with guilt. Elio knew what he was doing. He stepped into the game because I told him to, and he played his part.
But now he’s gone.
I turn away because if I stay here a second longer, I’ll lose the last shred of control I’m holding onto, and I can’t afford that. Not now. Not yet.
I need to be smart. Nikolaj is not just playing for power, he’s playing for my throne, and he just removed my knight.
Fine.
He wants blood, he’ll get it. Because he made a mistake tonight—he made it personal.