10. Alessio
ALESSIO
The monitor hum vibrates against the soles of my boots.
A mechanical beast lives in these walls, feeding on the evidence I’ve collected for eleven years.
Blue monitor light catches the sharp line of Amara’s collarbone.
She doesn't look away from the data. She is the only thing in this room that doesn't feel buried.
Everything else is cold, sharp code, a blade pressed against a jugular.
My jaw aches, a dull throb radiating into my temples.
Letting her see the logs was a mistake. Letting her dig into the marrow of this family’s rot was worse, but she doesn't stop. She’s a relentless tide, and I’m already underwater.
I want her. Not the clean, patient kind of want, but a hunger that makes my teeth ache. I want to drag her away from the screens and back into the heat of my bed. My hands belong around her waist, my face buried in her neck until her scent chokes out the smell of ozone.
She chose to stand beside me. Every breath she draws in this fortress feels like something I have to keep safe. Every secret she uncovers is a thread tying her to my side. For eleven years, I’ve been the vault, carrying the part of the war I could not prove enough to share.
I’ve walked through the world with lead in my chest, watching my brothers marry and laugh and build lives on top of a foundation of lies. The silence used to be armor. Now it’s just a cage.
She focuses with a lethal, quiet intensity. I’m starving. I don't just want her; I need her. A feral, clawing thing lives in my gut, a possessiveness that turns my blood to fire. If the war touches her again, I will cut the threat out cleanly, no matter whose name is attached.
"Alessio." Her voice is soft friction against the silence.
I step closer, my chest brushing her shoulder.
I step close enough to shield her if the room turns hostile, but not close enough to take the screen from her.
"The logs don't lie, Amara." My voice is a low rasp, stripped raw.
“The pings started in the family library. The old terminal should have been replaced years ago, but it stayed because Dominic preserved that room like evidence.”
"It’s more than just pings," she says, her fingers flying over the keys.
She doesn't look at me. She’s too disciplined for that.
"The traffic is encrypted with a localized key.
Someone was sitting in that room, Alessio.
Someone who knew the patrol shifts. Someone with the clearance to bypass the internal firewalls without triggering an alert.
This wasn't a breach. This was a conversation. "
A conversation. The words hit like a slammed door.
For twenty years, while we were grieving, while we were hunting shadows and bleeding for every inch of territory, someone was talking to the enemy.
Someone sat in the heart of our home, talking to the men who put my father in the ground and kept the war alive long enough to take my mother later.
I walk to the heavy oak desk in the corner.
Files cover the surface, the edges frayed and yellowed.
This is my true work. Not the patients I stabilize or the wounds I stitch.
This room is my life. I reach into the bottom drawer and pull out a single sheet of paper.
I’ve carried these names in my head for eleven years, but the ink makes them dangerous.
“There are five on paper,” I say.
Amara stands and walks toward me. She doesn't look afraid. She looks ready to stand in the line of fire. My heart hammers a frantic, rhythmic drum against my ribs. "Five what?"
"Five names. People who had the access, the history, and the proximity. I’ve been vetting them for a decade. One by one, I’ve tried to find a reason to cross them off. One by one, they’ve stayed." I lay the paper on the desk.
She leans over it, her dark hair falling over her shoulder. I want to tuck it behind her ear, to feel her skin under my thumb. I hold back.
“Old Man Fiore,” she reads.
“My father’s most loyal soldier,” I grunt.
“He retired to Tuscany three years ago. He was there the night of the massacre. He took a bullet to the lung trying to reach my father’s crew.
He’s spent twenty years coughing up blood and drinking himself into a stupor.
He has the access, but the man can barely operate a remote control. ”
"He could be a front," she says, her forensic mind working the angles. "A name used to hide the real actor."
"Maybe. But Rossi loved my father. I watched him cry at the funeral until he collapsed. If he’s the traitor, then loyalty is a myth.
" I point to the next name. “Bianco. He runs the supply chain. Everything in this compound goes through him. Wine, ammunition, everything. He’s meticulous. He knows the schedules better than Dominic.”
"And the motive?"
"Greed, maybe. He has a daughter in private school and a wife who likes expensive things. But his accounts are clean. Boringly clean. Either he’s a god at hiding money, or he’s just a man who likes his job."
She moves her finger to the third name. "Silvio."
“Head of perimeter security. If the Bellantis wanted to hit us, he’s the one who would open the gates. He’s cold. No family, no friends. He lives for these walls. I’ve never trusted him, but I’ve never found a reason to doubt him either. He gives me nothing to hold.”
"And Leo."
"Dominic’s former driver. He was young back then.
Ambitious. He saw things the rest of us didn't because he was always in the car.
He disappeared for six months after the massacre, hiding in Florida.
When he came back, Dominic let him back in.
He runs the docks now. Snakes usually thrive in the damp. "
Amara looks at the last name. The air in the room turns to lead. The name is written in darker, more permanent ink.
"Turi," she whispers.
My lungs seize. It’s a physical rejection of the data.
I can feel the phantom sensation of a hand on my shoulder, the way Turi used to steady me when the world spun out of control.
He found me in the alley after my father was murdered.
He wiped the blood off my face. He raised us.
He held Dominic together when the weight of the Don’s chair nearly crushed him. He is the heart of this family.
"No." I pick up a pen. My hand shakes with a fine tremor. I press the tip to the paper and draw a thick, black line through his name. I try to cross it out. The paper tears under the pressure.
"Alessio, look at the logs," Amara says, her voice firm. She never backs down. "The pings came from the library. Who spends the most time there? Who has the keys to every room? Who has been here since the beginning?"
"It’s not him." I step toward her, my shadow swallowing her.
My control splinters into a thousand jagged pieces.
"You don't understand. Turi is the only reason we survived. He taught us how to be Costas. He loved my mother. He told me she was the brightest light he’d ever seen.
And that is why I can't make the math fit.
You don't sell the woman you love into a war and call it protection.”
"People do terrible things for complicated reasons," she counters.
She reaches out, her hand hovering near my arm.
She doesn't touch me. She’s waiting for the storm to pass.
“The data doesn't have feelings, Alessio.
It doesn't remember who held you. It just records the truth. The transmissions originate from the library terminal assigned to his access key.”
“Then the data is showing us what someone wants us to see,” I growl, my chest heaving.
“Someone is framing him. Someone is using his terminal because they know no one would suspect him. It’s the perfect cover.
If I name Turi as the traitor, I destroy this family.
We wouldn't just lose a war. We would cease to exist. Dominic would lose his mind.
It would be a slaughter from the inside out. "
I turn away, walking to the wall where maps are pinned. I need to move. Frantic energy buzzes under my skin.
"For eleven years, I’ve carried this. I’ve looked at my brothers across the dinner table and wondered which one was a liar.
I’ve watched the table and wondered which familiar face was lying.
I built this room so I wouldn't have to carry it in my head.
I thought if I found the name, I could end it. I could cut out the cancer."
I stop in front of an old photo of my parents, taken years before the war turned visible. They’re smiling in front of the old house. They didn't know their old friend might have opened the first door.
“I’ve stayed awake until dawn for thousands of nights, Amara. I’ve analyzed every hit, every failed shipment. The anonymous tips didn’t start this month. They go back years. Someone has been feeding us intelligence. It doesn't make sense. Why would a traitor save the people he betrayed?"
"Guilt?" she suggests.
“Or guilt dressed up as strategy. Saving us one wound at a time without ever undoing the first one. If the Costas win, he tells himself he earned it. He’s been playing penance while we’re the pieces getting knocked off.”
She moves behind me. This time, she doesn't hesitate. She presses her body against my back, her arms wrapping around my waist. She leans her forehead against my shoulder blade. The tension in my spine snaps. I exhale, a ragged, broken sound.
"You’ve been alone in this for so long," she whispers.
"I had to be. If I told Dominic and I was wrong, he’d kill an innocent man. If I was right, he’d burn the world down before we were ready. I had to be the vault."
"You’re not alone now."
I turn in her arms, grabbing her face. I’m not gentle. My thumbs press into her cheekbones, forcing her to look at the wreckage in my eyes. “Do you understand what happens if I’m wrong? If I name him and I’m wrong, I become the knife that cuts this family open. I break the only father I have left.”