Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
PIETRO
The compound gates close behind me like a tomb sealing shut. Blood crusts my jacket where the bullet tore through my shoulder.
My shoulder screams, but the pain is a whisper. A ghost. The real wound is a hollow space in me, a vacuum where Nora’s next breath should be.
Nora.
Her name pounds in my skull with each heartbeat. The image of her walking toward Declan burns behind my eyelids.
I slam through the front doors hard enough to rattle the crystal chandelier.
"Conference room. Now." My voice cracks through the house, a command that shatters the silence.
Lorenzo appears from the kitchen. Nico emerges from the security office, tablet in hand. Vittoria rushes down the stairs, her face pale with worry. Liam follows me in, closing the heavy doors behind us.
No one breathes. Lorenzo’s fingers are white where he grips his phone. Nico stares at a fixed point on the wall. The air is so heavy it feels like a physical weight pressing down. I plant my palms on the table, leaning forward.
"We're getting her back." The words come out raw, scraped from somewhere deep in my chest. "Whatever it takes."
Lorenzo and Nico exchange glances. That silent communication between brothers that says everything without words.
"Pietro—" Lorenzo’s voice is smooth, diplomatic. It’s like oil on fire. My skin crawls.
"Don't." I straighten. My gaze is flat, dead. The kind of look I give a man before I sign his death warrant. "I know what you're thinking. All of you."
Vittoria shifts in her chair. "We just want to make sure you're thinking clearly—"
"Clearly?" A bitter laugh tears from my throat. "She's gone. Taken by that Irish bastard who already tried to kill her once. You want me to think clearly about that?"
Nico sets his tablet on the table. The soft click is the only sound in the room. "Blame won't bring her back. We need strategy."
"Strategy." The word is grit and dust in my mouth. "Fine. Here's the strategy. We mobilize every soldier we have. We find where Declan's holding her. And we burn everything in our path until she's back."
"That's not a strategy, that's suicide." Nico's logical tone cuts through my fury. "The Irish have the numbers in Chicago. If we go to war—"
"Then we go to war."
"Pietro." Vittoria stands, approaching me as if I’m a wounded animal that might bite. "We all want Nora back. But getting yourself killed won't save her."
"Meeting's over." I pull away from my sister. "Liam, double the compound security. No one gets in or out without my authorization."
I stride from the room before anyone can protest further. My office door slams behind me hard enough to rattle the frames on the walls.
The security monitors glow blue in the darkness. I drop into my chair, ignoring the spike of pain from my shoulder, and pull up the footage from this morning. Before everything went to hell.
There. The timestamp reads 11:47 AM. Nora enters my office with a stack of files.
"You have the Ferretti meeting at two," she says in the recording, her voice carrying that hint of Boston accent she can never quite hide.
Past-me barely looks up from his computer. "Cancel it."
"You've canceled twice already."
"Then they'll understand a third time."
She rounds the desk, and the camera catches her profile. "Pietro."
Just my name, but the way she says it makes past-me finally look at her. Really look.
"You can't keep avoiding them."
"Watch me."
That little eye roll she does when I'm being difficult. "The mighty Don Sartori, afraid of a business meeting?"
"Afraid?" Past-me stands, closing the distance between them. "I'm not afraid of anything."
"Liar."
The word hangs between them, charged with meaning. Then past-me kisses her, quick and possessive, before pulling back.
"Fine. Keep the meeting."
Her smile could light up the entire South Side. "Was that so hard?"
"You have no idea."
The footage continues but I rewind. Play it again. That kiss.
Before I let her sacrifice herself.
The door opens. No knock. Only Giulia. She sets a tray on the desk. Soup. Bread. The same food she brought me after Pablo’s funeral.
"Eat." Her voice is iron.
"Not hungry."
"I didn't ask." Her hand lands on my good shoulder, a small, solid weight in the chaos. "I said, you eat."
On the monitor, the kiss plays on repeat.
"She's strong," Giulia’s voice is soft, the tone she used when I was a boy. "Stronger than you give her credit for. She'll survive until you reach her."
The words I've been avoiding claw their way up my throat. "What if she doesn't want to be reached?"
Giulia's grip tightens. "What?"
"What if going back to him—" I can't finish. The possibility that Nora might choose him, might remember who she was before me, it's acid in my veins.
"Stop." Giulia grips my face between her palms, forcing me to meet her eyes. "That girl is in love with you. I see it every time she looks at you, Pietro. Don't insult that by doubting it now."
"You don't understand. She gave herself up. Walked right to him."
"To save you," Giulia says. "Not because she wanted to leave, but because she couldn't bear to watch people die."
A knock interrupts us. Nico enters without waiting for permission, Lorenzo and Vittoria behind him.
"We need more information," Nico says without preamble. "What exactly happened between Declan and Nora? You said she ran from Boston, but we need details."
I turn from the monitors. Every bone in my body is a stone, dragging me toward the floor. Only the rage keeps me upright.
"He was her fiancé." The words feel like glass shards in my throat. I push them out. "Three years. Then she found out he was a rat. Feeding information to the Murphys about her own father."
"And?" Lorenzo prompts, his voice quiet.
"And she confronted him." I stalk to the window, unable to stay still. "So he tried to kill her. She got away, but her father... he blamed her. Called her a disgrace for bringing a traitor into the fold. So she ran."
"Christ." Vittoria sinks into a chair. "No wonder she doesn't trust easily."
"But that means Declan has history with her," Nico continues, always thinking three steps ahead. "Personal history. He might not just want her for leverage."
The implication hangs in the air, thick and suffocating. Before I can respond—before I can put my fist through another wall—my phone buzzes.
"Finn?"
"I heard what happened." Finn O'Sullivan's voice carries urgency through the speaker. "Is it true? Declan has Nora?"
"How did you—"
"I still have contacts. Listen, Pietro. Connor wants to help bring down Declan. He was looking for him but it was like chasing a ghost. No one knew where he was or what he was planning. He has left the Murphy's too."
"He will use her against Connor," I say, the pieces clicking together. "Revenge on both families now that he knows she was with us."
"Exactly. The question is whether he keeps her in Chicago or takes her back to Boston."
"If he moves her..." The thought of Nora being dragged across state lines, further from my reach, makes my trigger finger itch.
"I'm coming there," Finn says. It’s not a question. "Don't argue. She's my blood, even if Connor won't claim her. I'm going to help get her back."
Part of me wants to refuse. Finn O'Sullivan in my territory, in my compound—it goes against every instinct. But he helped Nora escape. He's the reason she found her way to me.
"You need someone to pick you up?"
"I can manage."
The line goes dead.
"Finn's coming here?" Vittoria’s voice is a high, thin wire.
"To help." I pocket the phone. "Murphy and Declan aren't working together. That's our advantage."
"Or Declan's more dangerous because he's got nothing to lose," Nico counters.
While we wait for Finn, my family sprawls around the conference room table, mapping out scenarios. Liam coordinates with our soldiers, gathering intelligence on Declan's known locations. The table fills with maps, photographs, shipping manifests—anything that might give us an edge.
"He'll keep her close," I say, studying the Murphy family's known properties. "Declan's possessive. He won't trust anyone else with her."
"Unless he wants to hurt her." Vittoria's quiet words make my blood freeze. "You said he tried to kill her before."
"That was to keep her quiet. This is different. She's leverage now."
"Leverage for what?" Nico leans back in his chair, thinking out loud. "If Connor's not backing him, what's Declan's endgame?"
"Maybe..." Lorenzo’s jaw tightens. I can see the gears turning, see him choosing his next words like they're weapons. "Maybe it's not about leverage."
"Meaning?"
"They were together for three years. Engaged." Lorenzo meets my gaze steadily. "Maybe Declan wants her back. Not as a hostage, but as—"
The crystal tumbler explodes against the wall before I realize I've thrown it. Whiskey drips down the wallpaper like amber blood.
"Don't."
Pietro, we have to consider all possibilities—"
"He tried to KILL her." I'm on my feet, hands planted on the table, leaning into Lorenzo's space. "He betrayed her, used her, put his hands around her throat and tried to end her life. And you think he wants her back?"
"Men like Declan don't see it that way." Nico's logical voice cuts through my rage. "They see possession. She was his, she left, now he has her again."
Red floods my vision. The thought of Declan touching her, trying to make her his again—
Another glass shatters. Then another. I'm destroying the bar cart, one crystal piece at a time, and my family watches in silence.
"Pietro." Giulia's voice cuts through the destruction. "Breaking things won't bring her back."
"I'll burn the whole city down if I have to." The words come out quiet, certain. "Every block, every building, until she's back where she belongs."
"And she'd hate you for it," Giulia says. "Nora sacrificed herself to save lives, not to start a war."
"Then we do this smartly." I straighten, glass crunching under my feet. "We find her. We get her back. And then I end Declan’s miserable existence with my own two hands."
Lorenzo nods. "Now you're thinking like a Don."
"I'm thinking like a man who's going to get his woman back." I move to the window, staring out at the compound grounds where just yesterday Nora walked beside me. "Whatever it takes. However long it takes. She comes home."
The determination settles into my bones like cement. Nora thinks she saved me by sacrificing herself. She's wrong.
She gave me something to fight for. Something to live for.
And I'll drown this city in blood to bring her home.