Chapter One
Two weeks later
Lorenzo
Matteo's office is flooded with chaos when I arrive. I stop outside the door and don’t immediately let myself in.
I can hear my brothers' voices trying to talk over each other, and Matteo's cold voice cutting through like a sharp knife.
I lean against the cool wood of the door, letting the noise wash over me.
It's all familiar chaos, a kind of energy that I know intimately.
I'm the one the family calls when there is a mess they can't fix with blows or cold hard cash, and this feels like one of those cases.
I close my eyes for a moment, breathing in the air that carries a mix of coffee gone stale, anger, and irritation. I can feel the tension radiating from the other side of the door, a palpable weight, but it's nothing I'm not used to.
“Where the hell is Lorenzo?”
I hear my brother, Antonio, call out. He is the underboss and second in command to Matteo. He’s also the least patient of my brothers, so I figure it’s time for my grand entrance.
I let out a slow breath, then push the door open. The noise intensifies, but this time, it's focused on me. Every head in the room turns, and I watch as relief washes over their faces; it's almost comical.
“Jesus Christ, Enzo, where've you been?”
“What took you so long, Lorenzo?”
“Do you have any idea what's going on?”
“Sit,” Matteo's voice cuts through the others. “We have a situation.”
The others seem to go quiet and occupy their seats as if the order was meant for them, but then again, Matteo's voice and presence command that kind of respect.
He was groomed into the leadership position from the moment he was born, and although it's been more of a partnership with everyone having their role in the family business, one has to use a firm hand at times with us stubborn Rossi brothers.
“Alright,” I say, my voice calm as I walk to an empty chair. “What's the damage?”
Matteo nods and walks to his desk, leaning against it as he watches the rest of us.
“Everyone I trust most is in this room,” he starts, taking a moment to look everyone in the eye.
He starts with my two older brothers, Antonio and Dante, then to my stepbrother, Nico, and Luca, who was practically adopted into our family.
Finally, those dark eyes stop on mine. “There's a traitor in our organization. A mole or whatever the fuck you want to call it. And I want his head!”
“What happened?”
“Someone stole another one of our shipments,” Dante, the charmer of our family, says.
His mouth is set in a firm line, and I can tell he's livid.
“I closed the damn deal a week ago, and the shipment was set to arrive today, but someone fucking intercepted it. Can someone tell me how the fuck a shipment just disappears into thin air? I swear to God...”
“It's not just that,” Luca, our capo, cuts in.
“I've noticed a lot of things going wrong this past month.
The cops seem to know a whole lot of shit they have no business knowing, and I've had to dish out more money than usual to pay them off. There is too much happening for it to be a coincidence. Someone is messing with us.”
Oh, everyone is pissed. How the fuck did I miss this, and why are they just telling me now?
Sure, I have a lot going on—between handling IT for the legitimate businesses and being the only trusted hacker in the family, it leaves you with a shit load of work.
But I could have nipped this in the bud before it got this far.
Maybe you didn't notice because your mind has been focused on a certain Norse goddess.
I shake off the thought as it comes, grabbing my laptop and turning to my brothers, “Give me everything you have.”
I listen and note down everything I'll need to check out, and as information floods in, I realize that there is indeed a mole in the organization—and they're high-level too.
They have information the low ranks wouldn't know or have access to, and now, I'll have to weed them out.
I question if this is something I can involve my Norse goddess in but shake off the thought. Family business is not a game.
This is nothing like the game we played two weeks ago.
A smile threatens to tug at my lips at the memory of how fired up Var had been when I asked her to participate in a CTF event with me to solve a series of security challenges. It was one of the most complex we've ever done, but watching that beautiful mind of hers work mesmerized me.
Fuck, I’ve never met anyone like her. No one on my level but Var comes close. Hell, I don’t even need to know what she looks like to know she's a beauty. I've heard her voice, and I've seen her work—two of the things that make a man's dick go hard. At least they do mine.
I want her.
A woman I have never met, but her voice and her work are enough to excite my dick. The way she gets so exhilarated when we take part in a competition together. Those little frustrated noises she makes when a challenge is too difficult, but she doesn't let me help until she has no choice.
Stubborn, she is. My smart little goddess.
I try not to think of her as I work with my brothers and strategize on weeding out the fucking virus in our organization.
We work for nearly three hours, and when I finally snap my laptop closed, there is much more ease in the room.
Hell, some of my brothers even start laughing as the conversation shifts from the mole in the organization to the dinner party my sister-in-law, Elena, and her bodyguard-turned-husband are hosting.
“We'll ride together to the dinner party, Enzo,” Matteo says, those dark eyes saying what his mouth does not. He wants to have a private conversation with me, so I don't even bother telling him that I drove here.
“Sure,” I say, turning to chat with my brothers as everyone starts leaving.
“We'll need to pick up Sophia on the way,” Matteo says when we head for his car, waiting until we’re inside to speak. “I want to talk to you about something I couldn’t say inside there.”
“You don't suspect one of our brothers, do you?” I ask, my voice tight. I would lay down my life for any one of my brothers, and I know they would do the same. “There is no fucking way it's one of them.”
“Not directly,” Matteo says, ignoring my sharp tone. “But I believe it's someone close to one of us.”
My brows furrow at that. “What do you mean?”
“It's not just the shipments that have disappeared or deals gone sour. Someone has been taking money from our accounts.”
My breath hitches, and suddenly, I understand what he’s getting at.
Sure, we have different avenues that need funds and different people that manage those funds, but there is a tight leash on these things.
Money gets lost or mismanaged here and there but nothing noticeable.
My father ran a tight ship, and so does Matteo since he inherited the title.
Stealing money from the mafia is not just hard—it's also suicidal.
“Could this mean we are dealing with more than just one person?”
“Possibly,” he says with a firm nod. “I want you to go through all the files and accounts of everyone that works directly under us,” he says as he starts driving.
“I don't think the others will appreciate having their assistants and direct advisors investigated, but it's a necessary evil. Do it discreetly and weed them all out.”
“Right,” I say, and I hear what he’s not saying.
I’m not to use any of my assistants on this.
I have to do all the work myself, and fuck, that’s going to be a shit ton of work without help.
It’s like he said earlier—he trusts everyone in that room, but that trust doesn’t extend to their direct assistants. Mine and his included.
“Everything else you’re working on can wait until we take care of this mole problem.”
“Got it.”
We sit in silence as the weight of the information swirls in my head.
Matteo makes a detour to his wife’s office building to pick her up, and the air in the car changes when she joins us, filling it with cheerfulness.
Suddenly, the discussion changes from moles and investigations to Sofia Marino’s upcoming fashion event, and it’s quite something watching my brother engage in her discussion.
I’ve never been in their company alone, and it feels like I’m interrupting a private moment.
The dinner party is well underway when we arrive at Roarke and Elena's new home, a stunning townhouse with its clean lines and contrasting textures—smooth, charcoal grey stucco meeting panels of warm, natural wood.
Floor-to-ceiling windows that offer a glimpse into the warm, lit interior, and a manicured garden sits just below.
Roarke and Elena meet us at the door, so I push everything else to the back burner as we're ushered to the dining room. I start to put on my usual charming smile, but it freezes on my lips when I see...her.
The music and the loud chatter in the room fade as my breath hitches and all my focus falls on her—Roarke O'Shea's sister. I've seen her before, in the distance, at some family functions, but never like this.
I'm not sure if it's the way the light catches her, but I'm completely stopped in my tracks.
She wears a thin-strapped black evening gown, the kind that whispers against the skin and seems to absorb all the light around it, making her glow even brighter.
Her dark red hair falls down her shoulders in waves, a stark contrast to the sleek fabric of her dress.
And her eyes... Christ, they're like pools of the clearest blue, like the skies on a summer morning or the calm of an ocean.
I stand by the entrance, frozen, as my mind struggles to catch up with what my eyes are seeing. She's standing near the window, a glass of something sparkling in her hand, and the way she holds it, the casual elegance of it, is mesmerizing.