Chapter 28
Chapter twenty-eight
Nicky
The call comes at two in the morning, shattering the peaceful silence of sleep with its harsh ring.
I’m awake instantly, years of training making the transition from unconscious to alert, nearly instantaneous.
Beside me, Liam stirs but doesn’t wake, just makes a small sound and burrows deeper into the pillows.
I slip out of bed carefully and grab my phone from the nightstand, already seeing Dante’s name on the screen. Nothing good ever comes from Dante calling at two AM.
“Yeah,” I answer quietly, moving into the hallway so I don’t wake Liam.
As quiet as I am, part of me is internally screaming. Voiceless pleas spinning in my mind. Why now? Everything was finally going so well. Please, not now.
“We have a problem.” Dante’s voice is tight, controlled, but I can hear the undercurrent of tension. “Russians hit the club on Brick Lane an hour ago. Three of our guys injured, one critical. They left a message.”
My blood runs cold. “What kind of message?”
“The kind that says they’re not interested in negotiation anymore. They want blood, Nicolo. They want to make examples.”
I lean against the wall, my free hand rubbing over my face. The situation with the Russians has been deteriorating for months. Territorial disputes, broken agreements, the usual power struggles that define our world. But this is different. This is escalation, the kind that leads to all-out war.
“What does Dario want to do?”
“Meeting tomorrow. Nine AM. He wants everyone there. Capos, soldiers, everyone who has skin in this game.” Dante pauses. “He’s worried about Molly.”
Of course he is. Molly is Dario’s entire world, the reason he killed his own brother for control of the family, the reason he restructured everything to create something safer, more legitimate. The idea of the Russians targeting Molly to get to Dario would be Dario’s worst nightmare made real.
“Has there been a specific threat?”
“Intel suggests they’re looking at vulnerabilities. Ways to hurt us where it matters most. Extended families, partners, anyone we care about who isn’t directly protected.”
The words hit me like ice water. Anyone we care about who isn’t directly protected.
Liam.
My mind immediately goes to him, asleep in our bed, completely unaware that he might have just become a target simply by loving me.
He has no training, no street smarts for this kind of danger, no ability to protect himself from the kind of people who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt him to send me a message.
“Nicolo? You still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I’ll be at the meeting.”
“Good. And Nicolo? Make sure your own house is in order. If they’re going after soft targets, you need to think about who in your life fits that description.”
The call ends, and I stand in the dark hallway for a long moment, my mind racing through scenarios and contingencies.
Security measures I should have implemented months ago.
Precautions I’ve been too complacent about taking.
All the ways I’ve left Liam vulnerable because I wanted to give him a normal life, wanted to keep him separate from the darkness that defines my world.
But you can’t keep the darkness separate when you live in it. It bleeds through eventually, contaminating everything it touches.
I look back toward the bedroom, where I can just make out Liam’s form in the bed, peaceful and trusting and completely unaware of the danger circling closer.
The thought of someone hurting him, of using him to get to me, making him pay for my choices and my life…
fills me with a murderous, possessive rage I didn’t know I was capable of.
I’ve killed people. It’s part of my job, part of who I am in this world.
But the cold, calculated violence I’ve employed in the past is nothing compared to what I would do to anyone who touched Liam.
That would be personal. That would be the kind of rage that doesn’t stop until everything is burned to the ground.
The realization is both terrifying and clarifying. I’ve been so focused on helping Liam heal from his past trauma, on protecting him from his own mind, that I’ve been blind to the very real external threats my life poses to him.
I can’t let anything happen to him. I won’t.
The meeting the next morning is tense, the air thick with barely contained violence.
Dario sits at the head of the table in his private office, looking every inch the powerful man he is.
Sharp suit, sharper eyes, and an aura of controlled danger that makes even the most hardened soldiers sit up straighter.
But I can see the worry underneath. The way his fingers tap against the table, the tightness around his eyes when Molly’s name comes up. He’s terrified, and trying desperately not to show it.
“The Russians are testing us,” he says, his voice carrying easily through the room. “They think we’ve gone soft, that our move toward more legitimate business means we can’t fight back the way we used to.”
“Then we show them they’re wrong,” Carlo says from across the table, his usual easy demeanor replaced by something harder, colder. “We hit them back twice as hard.”
“We will,” Dario agrees. “But first we protect what matters. Our families, our people, anyone who might be vulnerable. The Russians play dirty, they’ll go after soft targets if they think it will hurt us.”
His eyes find mine across the table, and I see the question there. Are you prepared for this? Do you understand what’s at stake?
I nod slightly. I understand perfectly.
“Molly will be moved to a secure location,” Dario continues. “Somewhere the Russians don’t know about, with protection.”
“My place,” I hear myself say before I’ve fully thought it through.
The room goes quiet, everyone turning to look at me. Dario’s eyebrows rise.
“Your apartment?” he asks carefully.
“It’s not on any of our official properties. Not in my name, purchased through a shell company years ago. And I’m pretty much a low-ranking nobody. The Russians wouldn’t know or think to look there.” I lean forward, committed to this now that I’ve said it. “And I’ll be there. He’ll be safe.”
What I don’t say, what everyone in this room understands, is that offering to protect Molly is offering to take on the single most important responsibility in Dario’s world.
Molly isn’t just his boyfriend, he’s the reason Dario does any of this.
The center of his universe, the thing he’d burn the world to protect.
Trusting me with Molly’s safety is trusting me with everything.
Dario studies me for a long moment, weighing, calculating, reading me the way he’s learned to read everyone who works for him. “You’re sure about this?”
“Completely.”
“What about Liam? He’ll be there too.”
“He will. And I’ll keep them both safe.”
The words come out with more confidence than I feel. Because the truth is, I’m terrified. Not of the Russians or the violence that might come, I can handle that. But of failing, of letting my guard down for one crucial moment and losing everything that matters.
Of becoming the thing that destroys Liam instead of protects him.
Dario stares at me some more, his dark gaze boring into my soul. I don’t try to hide the calculated part of my move, because it isn’t anything to be ashamed of.
Placing the center of Dario’s world next to the center of mine, means that all of my boss’s formidable skills, contacts and resources are going to be wrapped around Liam too.
“Alright,” Dario says finally. “Molly stays with you until this is resolved. I’ll send additional security for the building, discreet surveillance.
But Nicolo…” his voice drops, becomes something harder, “if anything happens to him, if he gets so much as a scratch because of this, there’s nowhere you can hide from me. ”
“Understood.”
It’s not a threat. It’s a promise, and we both know it. But I’d expect nothing less. If our positions were reversed, if someone failed to protect Liam, I’d be exactly the same. Worse, probably.
The meeting continues, strategies discussed, contingencies planned, violence authorized.
But I’m only half-listening now, my mind already racing ahead to how I’m going to explain this to Liam.
How I’m going to tell him that his peaceful, healing existence is about to be invaded by the realities of my world.
That the safety I’ve been trying so hard to build for him is more fragile than either of us wanted to believe.
Ifind Liam in the kitchen when I get home, making lunch and humming that Italian phrase I taught him. He looks up when I enter, his face breaking into a smile that makes my chest tight.
“How was the meeting?” he asks, turning back to the sandwiches he’s assembling.
“Complicated.” I lean against the counter, trying to figure out how to explain this without scaring him. “We have a situation with the Russians. It’s getting serious.”
His hands still on the bread. “Serious how?”
“They’re escalating. Going after people connected to the family, trying to hit us where we’re vulnerable.” I take a breath. “Molly needs protection. Somewhere safe that the Russians don’t know about.”
“And you offered our place,” Liam says, not a question but a statement of fact.
“Yeah. I know it’s asking a lot, having someone else in our space when you’re still…”
“When I’m still crazy?” he interrupts, but there’s no heat in it, just sad acceptance.
“That’s not what I was going to say. But this is serious, Liam. These are dangerous people, and having Molly here means we become a target if they find out.”
“Molly is your boss’s boyfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“The one you’ve told me about? The person who has been a really good friend to you?”
“Yeah,” I say again, this time flushing a little, because damn have I been too self-absorbed to realize it. Molly has become an amazing friend. He is far more than simply the boss’s boy.
Liam sets down the knife and turns to face me properly, his expression thoughtful. “Molly is Dario’s whole world.”
“Yes.”
“And Dario is trusting you to keep him safe.”
“Yes.”
“Then we keep him safe.” He says it simply, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Whatever you need me to do, however I can help, we do this.”
The ease of his acceptance catches me off guard. “Just like that? No questions about the danger, no worry about what this means for your recovery?”
Guilt gnaws at my insides. Liam’s reasons are much more wholesome than mine. He doesn’t even know Molly, and he is willing to help purely out of the kindness of his heart. Whereas, while I do want to help keep Molly safe, my main motivation is the protection it extends to Liam.
“Are you sure?” I ask, and my voice trembles a little.
“Nicky, I work for a mafia doctor now. I stitch up gunshot wounds and treat overdoses and keep my mouth shut about who I see and what they tell me. I’m already part of this world.
” He crosses to me, taking my hands. “Besides, you’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?
If I needed protection, you’d move heaven and earth to keep me safe. ”
“Without hesitation.” I already am. That is why I am doing this.
“Then we do it for Molly. Because he matters to Dario the way I matter to you.”
Jesus Christ, Liam is a much better man than me. And the parallel he has drawn is exact, perfect, terrifying. Molly and Liam, both vulnerable, both precious, both the soft centers in the lives of hard men who would do anything to protect them.
I pull him close, wrapping my arms around him and breathing in the familiar scent of his shampoo. “I’m going to keep you safe,” I promise. “No matter what happens, no matter what it takes.”
“I know.” His arms tighten around my waist. “But Nicky? You need to know that I trust you. With my life, with everything. So whatever you need to do to keep all of us safe, you do it. Don’t hold back because you’re worried about me.”
The permission, the trust implicit in those words, is both a gift and a burden.
Because he’s right, I have been holding back, trying to shield him from the full reality of what I am and what I do.
But if the Russians are coming, if this situation deteriorates further, I might not be able to maintain that separation.
He might see me at my worst. Might witness the violence I’m capable of when protecting what’s mine.
And I can’t guarantee that won’t break something between us.
“When does he arrive?” Liam asks, pulling back to look at my face.
“Tomorrow afternoon. I’ll need to do security upgrades today. Cameras, reinforced locks, panic buttons.”
“Then we’d better get started.”
He says it so calmly, so matter-of-factly, like turning our home into a fortress is just another item on the to-do list. Like he’s not scared or worried or having second thoughts about tying his life to mine.
Looking at him now, all steady and determined and willing to face danger because it’s the right thing to do, I’m struck by how much he’s changed from the broken man who came home from prison. He’s found his strength again, his purpose, his ability to care about things beyond his own survival.
And I’m about to throw him directly into the fire.
But maybe that’s what love means in my world. Not keeping each other safe from all harm, but standing together when danger comes. Being strong enough to face the darkness as partners instead of one person trying to protect the other from their own life.
“Alright,” I say, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Let’s get ready.”
As we spend the afternoon installing security measures and preparing the guest room, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re standing on the edge of something. That the relative peace we’ve built over the past weeks is about to be tested in ways neither of us can fully predict.
But looking at Liam working beside me, determined and capable and choosing to face this with me rather than running from it, I think maybe we’re strong enough for whatever comes.
We have to be.
Because the alternative, losing him, failing to protect what matters most, isn’t something I can survive.
Not now. Not ever.