Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
PIETRO
Three days of scheduling meetings at dawn, at midnight, any hour that keeps me from crossing paths with her. I send Liam with messages. Use email for documents that need approval. Take calls from the warehouse instead of the office.
Three days of pretending Nora Kelly doesn't exist.
Except she's everywhere.
Her laughter floats from the kitchen where Giulia teaches her some family recipe.
Liam mentions she fixed a shipping error that would have cost us fifty grand.
Even the dock workers—men who trust no one—go quiet when she walks by.
They tip their heads. "Miss Nora," they call her, a respect they don't even give me.
I pace my office, phone pressed to my ear as Lorenzo's voice fills the silence.
"I went to see Bruno today." The name hangs in the air, heavy as a tombstone.
My hand tightens on the phone, the plastic groaning. The medical facility. The place we pay obscene amounts to keep our brother alive while machines breathe for him.
"How is he?"
"The same." Lorenzo pauses. "Pietro, we need to talk about this. About Bruno. About Riccardo. We've been burying it all, pretending—"
"There's nothing to discuss." The words come out sharper than intended. "Bruno's getting the best care. Riccardo's gone. What else is there?"
"You know that's not what I mean." His voice gentles the way it always does when he's trying to reach me. "We lost our brother. Bruno might never wake up. And you're carrying all of it alone."
"I'm managing."
"By working yourself to death? By pushing everyone away?"
Through my office door, I catch movement. Nora at her desk, organizing files with that focused intensity she brings to everything.
"Damiano Feretti's going to want a meeting soon," Lorenzo continues. "About the casino, about business moving forward. You can't avoid that forever either."
"I'm not avoiding anything."
The line goes dead silent. I can hear his fucking disappointment across the city.
"I have to go. Shipment coming in tonight."
"Pietro—"
I end the call.
The Torrino shipment. Two million in product hidden in furniture crates. The documentation has to be perfect—customs forms, bills of lading, everything that makes us look legitimate while we move enough cocaine to supply half of Chicago.
I could handle it myself. Should handle it myself.
Instead, I open my office door. "We need to review the Torrino paperwork."
Nora looks up from her computer, and for a second neither of us moves. Three days of distance evaporate in that single glance.
"Of course." She gathers her tablet and follows me inside.
The door closes with a soft click that feels like a trap springing shut.
"Everything's here." She spreads the documents across my desk—manifests, customs declarations, receipts. "But there's a discrepancy in the weight calculations. Dock records show eight thousand pounds, but the manifest lists seventy-five hundred."
Her finger traces the numbers. I force myself to focus on the papers, not the curve of her wrist, not the way she leans forward, bringing her scent into my space.
"Someone's skimming." "Or the dock weight's wrong." She pulls up another screen on her tablet. "But if we cross-reference with the fuel consumption records from the ship..." Her fingers fly across the screen. "No. You're right. Someone's taking five hundred pounds between dock and warehouse."
She's brilliant. Fucking brilliant. And standing close enough that I can count the freckles across her nose.
"I'll handle it." I step back, needing distance. "Pull everyone's schedules who had access to that shipment."
"Already done." She hands me a printed list. Our fingers brush. It's not electricity. It's fire. A brand on my skin that sears a path straight to my groin.
Neither of us pulls away.
One second. Two.
She withdraws her hand first, but slowly, fingers trailing across mine in a way that's definitely not accidental.
"I'll get the security footage from those dates." Her voice comes out rough.
"Good."
But neither of us moves.
The air between us crackles with three days of forced distance, three days of wanting what I can't have. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and the last thread of my control goes taut, ready to snap.
"I should go." She doesn't move.
"You should."
Her eyes drop to my mouth. Just for a second.
I turn away, gripping the edge of my desk hard enough to hurt. "Get the footage. We'll review it tonight."
She leaves without another word, but I feel her hesitation at the door, feel her wanting to say something more.
When she's gone, I sink into my chair and pour three fingers of whiskey. My hands shake as I lift the glass.
This is insane.
I shouldn’t care.
She fucking rejected me.
NORA
I drop into my desk chair, fingers pressed against my temples. The ghost of his touch burns across my skin like I've been marked.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Three days. Three days of him avoiding me like I carry some contagious disease, and the second our fingers touch, I practically combust. My body betrays every ounce of common sense I've fought to maintain since walking into this office.
I can't want Pietro Sartori's mouth on mine. Can't crave the weight of his hands on my waist, can't imagine what that controlled violence would feel like channeled into passion. Can't. Can't. Can't. But I do.
God help me, I do.
I pull up the footage files, forcing my brain to function. Five hundred pounds of cocaine doesn't just disappear. Someone's stealing from the Sartoris, which means someone has a death wish.
Pietro will handle it the same way he handles everything else. The same focused intensity he turned on me in that office, eyes dark as midnight, looking at me like—
Like Declan used to look at you before he tried to kill you.
The thought slams into me, cold water on flames. My hand goes to my throat. This is what happens when I trust my judgment. When I let myself feel. I thought Declan loved me, thought those heated looks meant something real.
But Pietro's different.
Right?
The thought whispers through my mind before I can stop it. Pietro doesn't pretend. Doesn't smile while plotting betrayal. His darkness sits right on the surface. Honest, brutal, real.
When he looks at me with that hunger, it's not calculation. It's a raw need fighting against iron control.
Which makes it worse. So much worse.
Because I can handle liars. I've learned that lesson in blood and bruises. But an honest monster? One who makes no apologies for what he is?
That's the kind of danger I don't know how to navigate.
The smart thing would be to run. Pack my things tonight, disappear into another city, another name, another life. I've done it before.
Yep, you're good at running from your problems instead of facing them.
Coward.
PIETRO
Midnight. The office building stands empty except for security and us.
We've been at this for hours—reviewing footage, cross-referencing schedules, tracking every moment of that shipment from dock to warehouse. Professional. Focused. Except for the way she keeps pulling her hair up, exposing the curve of her neck. Except for how I can't stop watching her work.
"There." She points at the screen. "Look at the timestamp. Three-fifteen a.m. The truck stops for twelve minutes on Route 47. No reason for a delay there."
I lean over her shoulder to see better. My chest brushes her back. She stiffens, then relaxes into me just slightly.
"You're right." My voice comes out rough. "That's our window. Someone offloaded product during that stop."
She turns her head, and suddenly we're inches apart. Her breath catches. Mine stops entirely.
"I need air." She says and I know she means ‘I don’t want you close to me. Leave me alone.’
I nod and I leave her standing there. The elevator ride to the parking garage feels endless. My car's where I left it, but I bypass it, heading for the stairwell instead.
The Sartori compound gym is empty at three a.m. Perfect.
I strip off my shirt and wrap my hands, not bothering with gloves. The bag hangs like an accusation, and I lay into it with everything I've got.
Jab. Cross. Hook.
Again.
Uppercut. Cross. Jab.
Again.
Hook. Jab. Cross.
My knuckles split. Blood spots the canvas. I don't stop.
"Fuuuuck!" The word tears from my throat as I land a particularly vicious combination.
Women have always been simple for me. Beautiful distractions. Temporary pleasures. I fuck them, they leave, everyone understands the rules. No feelings. No complications. No risk.
But Nora...
I slam my fist into the bag hard enough to send it swinging.
Nora doesn't look at me like I'm the dangerous Sartori son. She looks at me like I'm just a man. Like I could be more than the monster I've become.
My hands throb. Blood drips onto the mat. I keep punching.
The truth I've been avoiding crashes over me with each impact: I've never loved anyone. Not the women I've fucked. Not even the ones who stayed longer than a night. Love requires something I don't have—the ability to let someone in, to be vulnerable, to risk loss. A heart maybe.
Pablo was the last person I loved without reservation, and look how that ended.
The bag splits. Sand pours onto the floor.
I stand there, chest heaving, knuckles raw, staring at the destruction. This is what I do. This is who I am.
But when I think of Nora, a different ache blooms in my chest. Not for violence.
Not for control. It's a hollow longing that a bullet couldn't fix, and that terrifies me more than death because she doesn’t want me. She might not see me as a monster but she can’t see me as anything else than just her boss.
The office building feels like a tomb when I return. My hands are wrapped now, white gauze already spotted with red. Four a.m. and she should be gone. Should have left hours ago.
I find her slumped over her keyboard, one hand still on the mouse, the other pillowing her head. The security footage plays on loop on her screen—she found something, was probably waiting to show me.
Her face in sleep loses its careful guard. The fierce line of her jaw softens. She looks younger, the fight gone from her, leaving only a peace that makes my chest ache.
A strand of hair falls across her cheek, and my hand moves without permission, tucking it behind her ear.
She stirs but doesn't wake.
I should leave her. Should maintain this distance I've fought so hard to create since she pushed away from that kiss.
Instead, I shrug off my jacket and drape it over her shoulders. The leather settles around her like armor, like protection, like a claim I have no right to make.
She burrows into the warmth, and my name escapes her lips. "Pietro..."
My control cracks. Splinters. Threatens to shatter entirely.
I allow myself one more moment—my fingers ghosting over her hair, not quite touching. She smells like vanilla and something uniquely her. In sleep, she turns toward my hand like a flower seeking sun.
This woman is going to destroy me.
The thought should send me running. Instead, I pull up a chair and sit beside her, watching her sleep, my jacket around her shoulders like a promise I can't make.
I think about what Giulia said. That Pablo would have liked her. That she sees past the monster.
But what if the monster is all there is? What if I'm not capable of being what she deserves?
Maybe I can't love. Maybe I'm too broken, too damaged, too far gone.
Or maybe—and this thought terrifies me more than death—maybe I've just been waiting for her.