Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Pietro
The elevator rises through the building's spine, and I watch Nora in the mirrored doors.
She stands with her shoulders squared, chin lifted, green eyes focused on something beyond the reflection.
The burgundy blouse brings out the copper in her hair, pulled back in a twist that exposes the elegant line of her neck.
"You don't have to do this today." My voice fills the small space.
Her gaze shifts to meet mine in the mirror. "Yes, I do."
The doors slide open to my floor. Nora moves past me. She pauses at her desk and starts sorting papers into piles.. This is what she needs. Order from chaos, problems with solutions.
I lean against her desk, watching her work. The morning light catches the red in her hair, turns her skin luminous. After everything—the warehouse, the revelations about Finn, finding out her entire identity was built on lies—she's here. Choosing to stand beside me.
"Coffee?" She doesn't look up from the manifests she's organizing.
"Black."
"I know how you take your coffee, Pietro." The hint of her usual sharpness returns. Good.
She moves to the small kitchen, and I follow her with my eyes.
My phone buzzes. Lorenzo.
Everything okay?
I text back: Working. She needed normal.
Normal. Right. Because our lives are so normal.
I pocket the phone as Nora returns with two mugs. She's made herself tea.
"These shipping manifests." She spreads papers across her desk. "I need the last three months."
"Why?"
"Because something's been bothering me." She pulls out her laptop, fingers flying across the keys. "The Irish hits on our shipments. They were too perfect, too precise."
I straighten. "We knew they had surveillance—"
"No. I think there is something I haven’t checked." She shakes her head, pointing to dates on the manifest. "Look at this. October fifteenth, they hit the warehouse exactly when the shipment arrived. Not an hour before when it was supposed to arrive, but when it actually arrived after the delay."
My blood cools. I move behind her chair, leaning over to see the screen.
"The Irish knew about the change."
"Who has access to these schedules?" My reflection stares back from the glass, features hard.
"Inner circle only. At least that’s what I know." Her voice carries no inflection. "Your brothers. Top lieutenants. Me."
Of course the leak would be someone that is close to me. I didn’t really want to face it but I have to.
We work through the morning, turning my office into a war room. Papers cover every surface—shipping schedules, personnel files, security logs. Nora creates a timeline on the wall using post-its, each leaked shipment marked in red.
"Lorenzo was in New York during the October hit." She adds a green note. "Couldn't have communicated the delay."
"Nico was with me for the November third change." I mark another elimination.
"Marco knew about all of them." She taps his name on the list.
"Marco's been with the family for fifteen years. My father trusted him."
"I'm not saying it's him. Just that we can't eliminate anyone based on sentiment."
She's right. I know she's right. But the thought of someone who's eaten at our table, protected our family, being the snake—
"Wait." Nora's staring at the security logs. "Tony Marcelli. He accessed the shipping database the night before each hit."
The coffee mug slips from my hand, shattering on the floor. Coffee spreads across Italian marble like blood.
"That's not possible."
Nora looks up at me, and I see my own sick realization reflected in her eyes. "Pietro—"
"Tony held me as a baby. He’s been there more than anyone." The words scrape my throat raw.
"The pattern's clear." She turns the laptop toward me. "Every time. He accessed the files, and within twelve hours, the Irish knew. We didn’t even do the research so long and it’s right in front of us."
I stare at the data, each timestamp another nail in the coffin of a man I've loved like an uncle. Tony Marcelli. Sixty-three years old. With the family since before I was born. Giuseppe's loyal soldier who became the son's trusted lieutenant.
"Maybe someone's using his access codes." Even as I say it, I know I'm grasping.
I'll kill him.
"Pietro." Nora's hand covers mine. "We need to know why."
"Why doesn't matter. Betrayal is betrayal."
"It always matters." She squeezes my fingers. "He had to know he'd be caught eventually. So why risk everything?"
I pull away, needing distance from her logic when all I want is blood. "Where is he now?"
She checks the personnel schedule. "His shift at the warehouse ends at eleven."
I check my watch. Eleven-thirty.
Marco usually stops at Gino's for coffee after. I don't want to call him yet. If he's not there I'll go to his place.
"Get your coat."
"Pietro—"
"I'm not asking, Nora."
She stands, chin lifting. "I know you're not. I'm telling you that walking in there with murder in your eyes won't get you answers."
"I don't need answers. I need blood."
"You need the truth." She steps into my space, one hand flat against my chest. "The Pietro I know is smarter than blind rage. Be smart."
The Pietro she knows. Like she sees something in me worth knowing, worth believing in. My hand covers hers, pressing it harder against my chest where my heart pounds like a war drum.
"He betrayed us."
"Yes." Her green eyes hold mine. "But you're better than that."
"Could you come with me?" This time he asks.
"To confront Tony?"
"To keep me from killing him on sight."
She nods once, grabbing her coat eventually.
The drive to Gino's takes twenty minutes. I drive myself, needing the control, the action of shifting gears and navigating traffic. Nora sits quiet beside me.
Gino's is a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop on the South Side, the kind of place that's been here fifty years and will be here fifty more. Tony's Lincoln sits in the side lot.
"He's here." I kill the engine.
"How do you want to handle this?"
"Carefully." I check the Glock in my shoulder holster. "He might run."
"He might be armed."
"Tony's always armed." I meet her eyes. "Stay behind me."
"I'm not helpless."
"I know. But if bullets fly, you're my priority."
She nods and presses her lips on mine.
Just one kiss and I’m ready to back off from whatever else.
This time though, I have to face whatever comes. We move.
The bell above Gino's door chimes our arrival. The place smells like decades of coffee and fried food. Tony sits in a back booth, hunched over an espresso, looking older than his sixty-three years. He glances up, sees me, and his coffee cup rattles against the saucer.
"Pietro." His voice cracks. "Didn't expect to see you here."
I slide into the booth across from him. Nora takes the seat beside me, and I feel Tony track the movement, calculating.
"We need to talk, Tony."
"About?" But his eyes give him away—darting to the door, the window, anywhere but my face.
"About the shipping schedules you've been sharing."
The blood drains from his face. His hand moves toward his hip, but I'm faster, my Glock appearing on the table between us, my hand casual on the grip.
"Don't."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Nora pulls out her tablet, showing him the access logs. "Every hit, Tony. You accessed the files hours before."
His shoulders collapse. The fight goes out of him like air from a punctured tire. "How long have you known?"
"About an hour." I keep my voice level, but inside I'm screaming. "Why?"
Tony's eyes fill with tears. The man who helped raise me, who stood at my father's right hand, starts to cry into his coffee.
"They have Michael."
Michael is Tony's grandson. Seven years old. I remember him at the last family barbecue, playing with toy cars.
"Who has him?"
"The Murphy's. I talk to someone Declan Wilson." Tony's voice breaks on the name. "Took him three months ago. Said if I didn't feed them information, he'd... he'd send him back in pieces."
''Oh my God.'' Nora says, hovering her mouth with her hand.
Tony is looking at her but I don't have time to spend on explanations. Not to a man who betrayed the entire family.
I now have many more reasons to hate Declan fucking Wilson more than every human on Earth.
"Three months." The timeline matches perfectly. Every leaked shipment, every ambush. "You should have come to me."
"You were grieving Riccardo." Tony wipes his eyes with a shaking hand. "Taking over as Don. Bruno. The family was in chaos. I thought I could handle it, feed them just enough to keep Michael safe until I figured something out."
"You got our men killed."
"I know." The words come out broken. "I know what I've done. But he's seven, Pietro. He still sleeps with a nightlight."
I stare at the man who stood guard outside my hospital room when I broke my arm at eight. The betrayal burns, but underneath it, I understand. Family makes us all weak.
"Where's Declan keeping him?"
"I don't know. They call me, give me demands. I comply or they hurt him. Last week they sent a photo of him with a black eye because I was late with intel."
The rage returns, but different now—directed at the Irish bastard using a child as leverage.
"Pietro." Nora's voice is soft. "We can get him back."
Tony's head snaps up. "What?"
I look at her, see the certainty in her eyes. She's already working the problem, that brilliant mind cutting through emotion to strategy.
"We can trade for him," she continues. "Information for the boy."
"Declan won't trade. He has all the power."
"Not if we make him think he's getting something better." She looks at me. "Me."
"Absolutely not."
"Hear me out. Declan thinks I'm Connor's daughter. He'd trade a random kid for Connor O'Sullivan's daughter."
"I said no."
She turns to Tony. "Do you have a contact method?"
"Nora." My voice drops to a growl.
She ignores me. "Tony?"
"They call me. Burner phone." He pulls it from his pocket with trembling fingers.
"We'll set up an exchange. Tell them you have information about me, but you want Michael released first."
"They won't go for it."
"They will if you sell it right." She takes the phone, examining it. "When do they usually call?"
"Tonight. Eight o'clock."
I watch her mind work, see the pieces falling into place. She's brilliant and fearless and completely insane if she thinks I'm letting her anywhere near Declan.
"Tony." I draw his attention back to me. "You understand what you've done."
"Yes." He meets my eyes for the first time. "I betrayed the family. The punishment is death."
"It is."
Nora stiffens beside me, but stays quiet.
"After we get Michael back," I continue, "you and your family disappear. Chicago, the business, the life—it's over for you. You take Angela and Michael somewhere far away and never come back."
Tony blinks. "You're... you're letting me live?"
"I'm exiling you. You'll have nothing but what you can carry. No protection, no family support, no connections. You start over with nothing."
"That's more than I deserve."
"Yes, it is." I lean forward. "But that little boy doesn't deserve to pay for your choices. And the Tony who raised me, who stood for my family—he deserves a chance to make this right."
Tony breaks down completely, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. A waiter appears with coffee refills, takes one look at us, and retreats to the kitchen.
"Thank you." The words are barely audible. "Pietro, thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. We still have to get him back." I turn to Nora. "And we're not using you as bait."
"Then what's your plan?"
I don't have one, but looking at her determined face, I know she won't let this go. She sees the echo of her own situation.
Connor abandoning her, Declan hunting her. She won't let a child suffer the same isolation.
"We'll figure it out." I stand, pocketing my gun. "Tony, you go home. Act normal. I'll have someone come and pick you up later. When they call tonight, you'll tell them you have urgent intel but you're being watched. You need to meet in person."
"They won't agree—"
"You'll make them agree. We'll find a way to push it."
Tony nods, stumbling to his feet. "Pietro, I—"
"Go." I can't look at him, not yet. Maybe not ever again. "Before I change my mind."
He leaves, the bell chiming his exit. I sink back into the booth, suddenly exhausted.
"You did the right thing." Nora's hand covers mine.
"My father would have killed him slowly."
"You're not your father."
"No?" I meet her eyes. "Because right now I want to tear Declan apart for using a kid like this."
"That's different. That's protecting the innocent." She laces our fingers together. "Tony made a choice, even if it was under duress. Michael didn't choose anything."
"You really wanted to use yourself as bait?"
"I want that little boy safe." Her jaw sets with familiar stubbornness. "And I want Declan to pay for everything he's done."
This woman won't stop making me admire her with her strength and her fucking stubbornness.