Chapter 19 Simeone
Simeone
The gun oil reeks of metal and violence as I drag the cloth through my Beretta’s barrel. My hands know this dance—disassemble, clean, reassemble—but my mind is on Flavio’s hands on Loriana, his latest violation of everything I’ve tried to protect. The rage won’t oil away tonight.
“You’re late,” I say without looking up as the door creaks open, my voice carrying the kind of quiet that precedes violence.
“Traffic was murder,” Flavio quips, sliding into the booth across from me with that casual arrogance that’s always grated against my nerves like fingernails on concrete. “Literally. Some poor bastard got himself shot on the interstate.”
I finally look up, studying the nephew I’ve raised as a son, noting the expensive suit that can’t hide the desperation in his dark eyes. Twenty-six years old and already showing the signs of a man drowning in debts he can’t pay and expectations he’ll never meet.
“Giuseppe’s gambling debts are affecting your judgment,” I observe, reassembling the weapon with practiced efficiency. “Three families are circling, and you’re making enemies faster than I can clean up your messes.”
“Giuseppe’s problems aren’t mine.” But the defensive edge in his voice tells a different story. “Besides, I didn’t come here to discuss that idiot’s poker addiction.”
“No? Then why are you here, nipote?” I slide the loaded magazine into place with a soft click that makes his eye twitch. “Because if this is another attempt to discuss Loriana—”
“Everything is about her now, isn’t it?” The bitterness in his voice is sharp enough to cut glass. “Your precious little breeding mare has completely rewritten the family hierarchy.”
The crude language makes violence rise in my chest like a tide, but I keep my expression neutral. Violence will come—but on my terms, at my timing.
“Choose your words more carefully.”
“Why? She’s not here to be offended by the truth.” Flavio leans back, trying to project confidence he clearly doesn’t feel. “Though I have to say, zio, you’re playing a dangerous game. Pregnant women are so... fragile. So many things can go wrong.”
The threat is subtle, wrapped in concern, but unmistakable. My finger finds the trigger guard of my weapon, not quite resting on the trigger but close enough that the message is clear.
“Elaborate.”
“Accidents happen. Especially to women in delicate conditions.” His smile is poison wrapped in silk. “Falls down staircases. Car crashes. Sudden complications that even the best doctors can’t prevent.”
“Are you threatening my child?”
“I’m stating statistical realities.” But his eyes gleam with malicious satisfaction. “Pregnancy is inherently dangerous. The mortality rate for expectant mothers, even with modern medicine—”
The Beretta is in my hand and pressed against his temple before he can finish the sentence, the cold metal making him freeze mid-word like I’ve turned him to stone.
“Breathe one more threat against what’s mine,” I whisper, my voice carrying twenty years of accumulated violence, “and I’ll redecorate this booth with your brain matter.”
“Zio—” He starts to protest, but I increase the pressure until the barrel dents his skin.
“I raised you from childhood. Fed you, clothed you, protected you from every consequence of your stupidity for two decades.” Each word is delivered with lethal efficiency. “I’ve given you everything a son could want, and this is how you repay my generosity?”
“She’s changed everything!” The words explode from him with desperate fury. “The inheritance, the succession, my entire future—all of it hanging in the balance because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants around some nobody bartender!”
I stand slowly, keeping the gun trained on his skull as I move around the table. The other patrons of the Viper’s Den have melted away like smoke, leaving us alone with the weight of family blood about to be spilled.
“Sit still,” I command softly. “Move, and you’ll be meeting your father sooner than planned.”
His face goes white at the mention of Ulrico, but something else flickers in his expression—something that looks almost like guilt mixed with triumph.
“My father,” he repeats slowly. “The brother you sent to die while you stayed safe at home. How does it feel, zio, knowing that you’re raising his son to replace the empire built on his blood?”
The familiar guilt twists in my chest, but I push it down. Twenty years of self-recrimination haven’t brought Ulrico back, and they won’t save his son from the consequences of his choices.
“Your father died serving the family. Honor his sacrifice by showing some respect.”
“Respect?” Flavio laughs, the sound sharp and bitter. “For the man who got him killed? For the uncle who’s now ready to throw away his legacy for some pregnant whore?”
The insult is the final thread holding my control in place. Without warning, I reverse the grip on my weapon and bring the butt down across his cheek with enough force to split the skin and send him sprawling across the floor.
“Stay down,” I snarl as he struggles to push himself upright, blood streaming from the gash on his face. “Unless you want the next blow to be permanent.”
But Flavio has never been smart enough to recognize when he’s beaten. He pulls himself to his knees, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Go ahead,” he taunts, his voice thick with pain and rage. “Kill your brother’s son. Complete the job you started twenty years ago.”
The accusation hits its mark, but instead of guilt, I feel something else—a cold, calculating clarity that’s been building for weeks. Because there’s something in his voice when he mentions Ulrico, something that doesn’t ring true.
“You know what I realized today?” I ask conversationally, holstering my weapon as I reach for a different kind of tool. “I’ve been so focused on protecting you from the consequences of your actions that I never questioned the story of your birth.”
His face goes pale, and for the first time tonight, I see genuine fear in his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“The timeline, nipote. Your mother claimed you were conceived during Ulrico’s last visit home, but I’ve been reviewing the operation reports.
” I pull out my phone, scrolling to the photos my investigator sent earlier.
“Interesting discrepancy—my brother was handling business in Montenegro for three months during the period you were conceived. No breaks. No trips home. And your reckless attitude over the years has shown you cannot be carrying the Codella blood in your veins.”
The color drains from his face completely, leaving him looking like a corpse.
“That’s impossible—”
“Is it?” I move closer, letting him see the cold calculation in my eyes. “Because nine and three weeks months before your birth, Ulrico was on the other side of Europe, bleeding for the family while someone else was warming your mother’s bed.”
“You’re lying.” But his voice lacks conviction, and his hands shake as he struggles to process what I’m telling him.
“DNA doesn’t lie, Flavio. And tomorrow, I’ll have the results that prove what I’ve suspected for weeks.” I crouch down until we’re eye level. “You’re not a Codella. You never were.”
The truth between us feels like a death sentence. Twenty years of lies, twenty years of raising another man’s son, twenty years of guilt over a dead brother’s child who had nothing to do with the family legacy.
“Even if that’s true,” he whispers, “you still raised me. I’m still your nephew in every way that matters—”
“You threatened my pregnant woman. You spoke of accidents befalling the mother of my heir.” I stand slowly, reaching for the brass knuckles in my jacket pocket. “Biology or not, that makes you an enemy.”
I work him over with professional efficiency, each blow calculated for maximum teaching value. Twenty years of wrong choices guide my fists toward making one thing right.
I start with his ribs—short, sharp jabs that steal his breath and leave him gasping.
The brass knuckles catch the light as they connect with bone, each impact accompanied by the satisfying crack of cartilage giving way.
Flavio tries to curl into a defensive position, but I grab his hair and haul him upright.
“This is for every threat you made against her,” I snarl, driving my fist into his solar plexus with enough force to double him over. “For every sleepless night you caused her with your pathetic campaign of terror.”
His attempt to swing back is clumsy, desperate. I catch his wrist and twist until something pops, earning a scream that echoes off the walls of the empty bar. The sound should disturb me—would have disturbed me twenty years ago when I still believed in family loyalty above all else.
Now it just sounds like justice.
“Please,” he wheezes, blood streaming from his nose. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“You meant every word.” I slam him against the wall, my forearm pressed against his throat with just enough pressure to make breathing difficult. “You meant every threat, every insult, every implication that accidents happen to pregnant women.”
His face is turning purple, eyes bulging with panic, but I don’t relent. Twenty years of enabling his cruelties, of making excuses for his behavior because I thought I owed his father’s memory something. Twenty years of letting family blood excuse inexcusable actions.
“Can’t... breathe...”
I release the pressure just enough to let air back into his lungs. “Neither can the people you’ve terrorized. Neither could Loriana when you had your hands around her throat in my own home.”
The next blow catches him across the jaw, splitting his lip and sending him sprawling across the floor.
Blood spatters the worn wood like abstract art, and for a moment, I see him clearly—not as family, not as obligation, but as what he truly is: a predator who’s been allowed to hunt under the protection of a name he doesn’t deserve to carry.
When I’m finished, Flavio lies curled on the floor like a broken doll, breathing in shallow gasps through what’s probably a fractured rib.
“Consider this your severance package,” I say, straightening my tie with hands that don’t shake despite the violence I’ve just dispensed. “Any future contact with my family will be considered an act of war.”
I leave him where he belongs—broken on a dirty floor. Outside, the world feels different, like I’ve shed a skin I’d outgrown years ago but never had the courage to discard.
The drive home is silent except for the purr of the engine and the weight of suspicion settling in my chest like lead. Twenty years of unquestioned loyalty to a nephew whose very existence might be built on lies.
My phone sits heavy in my jacket pocket, containing the contact information for the private investigator who confirmed what I’ve suspected for weeks.
The timeline doesn’t match. Ulrico was handling operations in Montenegro a few months before and after when Flavio was supposedly conceived—no visits home, no breaks from the operation, no opportunity to father the child his grieving widow claimed was his.
But suspicion isn’t proof. And until I have concrete evidence, I’m trapped between family obligation and growing certainty that everything I believed about Flavio’s parentage is fiction.
As I pull through the estate gates, I make the call I’ve been dreading.
“Dr. Standall? It’s Simeone Codella. I need a DNA test processed. Discretely, and urgently.”
The arrangements are made with clinical efficiency. Hair samples, blood work, and results in forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours to learn whether twenty years of guilt and obligation have been based on an elaborate deception.
I park in the circular drive, staring up at the mansion where Loriana waits, unaware that everything I thought I knew about family might be built on lies.
Twenty years of sleepless nights, twenty years of making excuses for him, twenty years of believing blood meant something. In forty-eight hours, I’ll discover if the Codella name he carries is his birthright or his disguise.
But the more I think about it, the more the pieces fall into place. The timeline that never quite made sense. Flavio’s increasing desperation as Loriana’s pregnancy threatens his position. His willingness to make threats against a woman carrying what he believes to be his cousin.
If he’s not family, if he has no legitimate claim to the Codella legacy, then his escalating obsession with my pregnant woman takes on an entirely different dimension.
This isn’t succession drama.
This is survival.
He’s built everything on borrowed identity, and when that foundation cracks, men like him don’t just fall—they take everyone down with them.
I stare up at the mansion where my real family waits—Loriana and our unborn child, the only legacy that actually matters. Whatever comes next, whatever Flavio thinks he can take from me, he’s about to learn the difference between family obligation and genuine protection.
Because nothing compares to the fury of a man protecting what’s genuinely his.