Chapter 1
Chapter One
Dante
Houston, Texas
“Have you lost your fucking mind?”
My oldest brother, Matteo, stands behind our father’s old desk, shoulders squared, sleeves rolled to his forearms, tie loosened just enough to signal he’s past civility. The lamplight cuts sharp angles down his face.
He’s our family’s don now. And he’s compelled my presence. In fact, to ensure I knew how serious he was, he sent several of his men to my house.
Nico, my cousin and the Moretti family’s consigliere, stands off to the side, one hand resting on the bar cart, posture relaxed in a way that fools absolutely no one. His gaze tracks me with quiet, razor-edged calculation. Clearly he’s already working on the massive issue I created.
I close the door behind me and take a couple of steps into the familiar study.
The air smells of aged leather and faint cigar smoke, a remnant of Father’s era.
As always, I take note of Don Raffaele Moretti’s portrait. It hadn’t been there when he was alive, but Matteo had it commissioned right after the funeral.
So none of us forget our legacy, our responsibilities.
The distance I leave between us is deliberate. I’m near enough that they know I’m not backing down and far enough to make my own point. I’m the family’s underboss and not a subordinate.
I had reasons for what I did. And they all involve protecting our turf and the Moretti family.
“I asked you a question, Dante.”
I could lie. I don’t.
Instead, deadly calm, I meet his gaze. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”
Matteo’s fingers curl around the edge of the desk, the muscle in his jaw ticking. “You goddamn well took Fabrizio Russo’s daughter off a rooftop in Dallas. Without authorization.”
Authorization. As if this family has survived by waiting politely for approval.
“She was compromised.”
I offer no apologies. No explanation. Just the truth, as I see it.
Nico’s voice comes low, cooling an already-icy room. “Compromised how?”
“Drugged.”
The word lands like a dropped blade.
Matteo’s stare sharpens. “By whom?”
I hold his gaze until I feel it press against the back of my skull. “Does it matter?”
“Fucking hell.” His nostrils flare. “It matters if we’re about to go to war with Dallas because you couldn’t keep your damn impulses in check.”
He’s not wrong. He’s also not right.
“She was already a target.” I let my words unwind slowly, deliberately. “The Russos have been encroaching on Houston for months. She was seen here twice in the last week, both times without an escort. They were testing our borders, and we all know it.”
Nico shifts, subtle but absolute, the easy posture dropping away.
His attention sharpens because he understands exactly what that means.
“Her presence was a deliberate, hostile act,” I continue, voice steady.
“Russo knew where she was, and he allowed her to waltz into our territory like she owns it.” And that’s bullshit.
“She wandered around Montrose and shopped at the Galleria as if the city already belongs to them.” I form my hands into tight fists.
“He poked at a sleeping wolf, and no one—including you, big brother—should be shocked when it wakes up.”
Matteo’s jaw flexes. The muscle there jumps like he’s grinding back all the things he wants to say.
“The moment she stepped onto Houston soil,” I add, “she made herself a target.”
Nico’s eyes flicker.
“Their consigliere didn’t reach out to you before she sashayed through the Heights, did he?”
We all know she’s the family’s unofficial consigliere, but there are protocols that could have been followed if they wanted to avoid this kind of situation.
“Nico?” I prompt.
“No,” he confirms.
There’s agreement, unease, and calculation in his expression.
He sees the map the way I do.
Every movement is a message.
Every appearance in enemy territory is a provocation.
“They wanted to see if we’d respond.” I let the truth settle like a weight across the room. “We had no choice.”
“No choice?” Matteo echoes, voice disbelieving. “Kidnapping the Russo family princess while she was safe at home was the only move you saw on the board?”
Matteo and Nico exchange glances.
Casually I shrug. “They deserve this.”
Matteo exhales. “We can’t prove anything.”
Fighting to keep my anger in check, I slap my hands on his desk and lean forward. “They fucking murdered our father. And they’re muscling into our territory. I won’t allow it.”
“Fuck me.” Matteo drags a hand through his hair. “This isn’t your goddamn decision.”
I can’t argue with that. He’s head of the family. But I know he thirsts for blood as much as I do.
Nico exhales. When he speaks, his voice is as precise as a scalpel. “Where is she?”
“Safe.”
“Damn you, Dante.” Matteo’s voice drops, deep and clipped. “Quit fucking bullshitting us. You’re walking a fine line.”
I push myself upright again and meet his stare without flinching. “At my house.”
My words hit hard.
The way a bullet lands when it hits the protective armor plate but still bruises the ribs.
Matteo tightens his fingers around the edge of the desk.
Nico draws in a slow breath.
Though they exchange glances, neither of them speak.
Because the meaning is unmistakable: I didn’t stash her in a warehouse. I didn’t tuck her into a safehouse. I didn’t leave her with soldiers or send her out of state.
I put her under my roof.
The Moretti underboss’s roof.
The place no one enters without permission.
The symbolic weight is massive.
We all know what the rest of Texas’s Families will assume.
“Who’s with her?” Nico asks.
“Adriano.” His name comes with an image—my soldier outside my bedroom door, back against the wall, expression blank but eyes always moving. The faint strip of corridor light at his boots. The sight of the lock behind him.
“She’s…resting,” I add. “The door’s locked.” From the outside. I’ve been planning this. So I took that extra precaution. And, of course, an almost invisible thumbprint sensor so I can open if from the inside in case of an emergency. “Cameras are rolling. I guarantee her safety.”
Matteo’s brows draw low. “You goddamn well put her in your bed.”
There’s a beat of silence that’s heavy. Telling.
It pulls the memory up with brutal clarity—her weight soft in my arms as I carried her upstairs, the faint, intoxicating scent of her skin and shampoo.
The tremor in my fingers as I undressed her with more care than I should have. The warmth of her cheek beneath my knuckles when I brushed her hair aside.
Nico speaks, jolting me from the past as he demands an exact timeline of what happened.
As I answer in a calm, unhurried tone, Matteo stares at me like he’s deciding whether to reach across the desk and knock me out cold. “Did I make a mistake naming you my underboss?”
His words reopen wounds. The sight of our father’s body in the morgue, his satin-lined coffin, the vows I made as he was being lowered into the ground, the work I’ve done in blood and shadow so Matteo wouldn’t have to.
Thick and suffocating silence spreads over the room. The old clock on the wall ticks once, twice—too loud in a room where everything else has gone still.
Finally I answer him. “We needed revenge.”
“Fuck.”
“And I prevented a war.”
He stands and moves around the desk, leaning against it, arms folded. “You prevented a war?”
“Yes.” I keep my voice steady. “With the escalation, the way they were testing us. If the Russos happened on one of our crews, there’d be a gunbattle. And my way…” I shrug. “Not a drop of blood spilled.”
“As long as you’re unconcerned that kidnapping is a federal offense. And we already have enough heat.”
Feds made their presence known even as we laid the Moretti boss to rest. “I didn’t cross state lines with her.”
“Jesus Christ. That’s your defense?”
Finally, in the tense silence, Nico speaks. “It looks as if she went with you willingly?”
“She let her friends know she was leaving.” I remember the ridiculous, adorable heart shape she made with her hands.
“And her soldiers?”
“She told them she was safe.”
Nico is both practical and matter-of-fact. “You left Dallas immediately?”
I nod. “Took her to my room.” Not 2317. A different tower, entirely. “Private elevator to the helicopter.”
Nico glances at his pricy—and new—Bonds watch. “An hour, more or less from wheels up to wheels down.”
“Correct.”
Nico regards me. “Is it possible she hasn’t been missed?”
“As I was on my way over here, she received a message from her soldier.”
“You responded to it, of course,” Matteo assumes.
It was easy enough to press her finger against the screen for biometric access. “I did.”
Nico raises an assessing eyebrow.
He hasn’t been consigliere very long, and Matteo had doubts about a man so young becoming his father’s most trusted adviser.
But after the assassination, he immediately made Nico his own consigliere.
There’s a comfort in keeping everything in the family. No questions about where loyalties lie.
Matteo levels a look at Nico. “Get on the phone before Fabrizio discovers his daughter is gone.”
Already in motion, Nico nods once.
I know he’s calling the family—consigliere to consigliere. The job he’s paid handsomely to do.
He slips outside, the glass door shutting behind him.
The room tightens without him.
Matteo turns back to me. “How long will she sleep for?”
The question that acknowledges everything. That I was the one who drugged her.
“Not much longer.”
Voice tight, my brother grits out, “How much longer?”
“She’ll be awake any minute.” If my calculations are right. Which is why I’m anxious to get the fuck out of here.
Before Matteo can go on, the terrace door opens again. Nico steps inside, phone still in his hand.
“Dallas is aware.” His voice is calm. His eyes are not.
Matteo stiffens. “Terms?”
“They need a proof-of-life call before sunrise.”
Or the fires of hell will be unleashed.
The most dangerous phrase in our world.
Even though he doesn’t need to, Nico confirms what we’re all thinking. “If it doesn’t happen, Dallas will mobilize.”
Matteo drags a hand over his jaw as he levels his gaze on me. “She’ll call her father?”
“She will.”
The room goes still, carved out and hollow for a single suspended breath.
Then my phone vibrates.
I grab it from the pocket in my suit coat, and all of us look at it.
Adriano. My soldier.
I answer without hesitation. “Talk.”
“Boss. She’s stirring.” His voice is low, controlled. “She moved a minute ago. On her back now. Breathing steady.”
Heat coils low in my gut—tight, dangerous, and oh-so-fucking welcome. “Keep eyes on her.”
Then, after ending the call, I open another app. One that will show a feed of my bedroom. I shouldn’t do it. But damn it to hell, I can’t help myself.
Matteo and Nico move in closer, and we form a tense triangle around the glowing screen.
My bedroom appears, lit softly by the bedside lamps.
She’s there.
Before the fucking vultures can get a better look at her, I turn away.
She lies in the center of my bed in my shirt, the black fabric draped over her curves, sleeves rolled to her elbows. One knee is bent, and her thigh is pale against the dark. Her hair spills across my pillow like I arranged it that way.
Her beautiful pink lips are parted. Her breathing is slow. And color has started to return to her cheeks, leaving her soft and flushed.
My pulse kicks.
I remember everything—the delicate slide of the zipper parting beneath my fingers, the whisper of her dress falling, the warmth of her skin under my hands, the way her body felt against mine as I carried her to this exact place. The faint sigh when I brushed hair from her face.
The possessive thought I should never have allowed:
Mine.
On the screen, she shifts again, her long, beautiful lashes fluttering.
With a nod, I make the screen go blank and face my family.
Matteo’s gaze is on my face, and whatever he sees there makes his expression darken.
“You’re staring at her like she’s the first sunrise you’ve ever seen.”
I don’t look away. Not immediately. Not fast enough.
Nico’s voice cuts in quietly. “This doesn’t look like control, Dante. It looks like obsession.”
“Good.”
The word is low, steady, honest.
Let them think I’ve lost my mind over her. Let them misread the entire shape of this move. People underestimate a man they believe is ruled by hunger.
Then, unable to help myself, I check on her again.
On the screen, Valentina’s lips part around a soft breath, her brows drawing together as she eases toward consciousness.
I lean in, just a little closer.
Matteo notices. Face tightening, he swears viciously under his breath. “Christ. You didn’t just light a fire, little brother. You dropped a match into gasoline.”
I watch her breath catch, the first stirrings of a woman who will wake furious, brilliant, and dangerous.
“Fucking fix your mistake.”
Oh. I will.
But they will not like how I do it.
Even though I nod, my focus is on her and not the men in front of me.
And I realize something with bone-deep certainty…something I dare not confess.
I have zero fucking regrets.