Chapter Twenty-Six
Gualtiero
Ella storms off to her room the moment we get home. She hasn’t said a word to me since we left my office at the club.
I let her go.
I pushed too far tonight. I know it. But the way she looked at me… the defiance… it snapped something already stretched thin.
When I saw that guy touch her, everything else disappeared. He’s lucky I stopped when I did. He’ll recover with time.
I walk into my office and pour a glass of bourbon, the burn grounding me as I sit down and open my laptop. The camera feed from Ella’s room comes up instantly.
She isn’t in bed.
I switch to the bathroom.
My chest tightens when I see her sitting on the shower floor, arms wrapped around herself, water pouring over her. She looks devastated.
For a moment, I don’t move.
I want to go to her and pull her out of there. Wrap her up. Hold her. Fix what I broke.
But she wouldn’t let me. Not after tonight.
Her walls are reinforced now. It will take time to bring them down again. But I’m not worried. What we have will hold.
The front gate feed flashes on my screen, cutting through my thoughts.
“Si?”
“Your brother is on the way up.”
About time.
I end the call and pour a drink for him. I’ve been waiting for Mateo to get back from Rome. He took longer than expected. It usually means bad news.
We discuss sensitive matters only in person. With more than one mole likely in play, we have to be even more careful.
Molinaro is getting too close to my men. His actions are too precise, too clean, which means someone is feeding him the information.
Who? And how are they covering their tracks this well?
I glance once more at the bathroom feed, my gut tightening before I shut it off.
I hate seeing her like this.
Footsteps sound in the hallway just as I close the laptop, cutting the thought short. I don’t dwell on it. I make decisions and deal with the consequences.
Mateo walks in without knocking, his eyes landing on the glass in my hand.
“I expected to find you upstairs,” he says, dropping onto the couch. “Not holed up in here. I thought I’d have to drag you from Ella’s bed to have this conversation.”
“She’s not exactly cooperative.”
He huffs out a laugh as I hand him his bourbon. “You’re not even married yet, and she’s already giving you trouble?”
“She’s testing limits.”
“And?”
I take a slow sip of bourbon.
“She’ll learn.”
His expression shifts, amusement fading.
“She’d better learn fast never to challenge you. Especially in public,” he says. “I heard what happened at the club.”
News travels fast in our circle, any weakness ready to be exploited.
“I handled it.”
He holds my gaze.
“You can’t tolerate defiance from anyone. Especially not from your woman.”
I raise an eyebrow. He doesn’t get to lecture me.
“I said I handled it.”
I swirl the amber liquid in my glass, watching it catch the light. Rubbing my neck, I roll it from side to side to loosen the tension.
Teo leans back, waiting for me to speak again. He reads me well enough to know there’s more.
“It’s created a new problem,” I admit, taking another sip. “Ella is afraid of me now. I don’t want that.”
My brother studies me, his arm draped along the back of the couch.
“You did what you had to do,” he says. “It’s unlikely she’ll do it again now.”
“I didn’t intend to take it that far.”
“No,” he agrees. “But it had to happen for her to learn.”
I say nothing.
“Fear isn’t the worst thing,” he continues. “It keeps people in line.”
It does. And I need her compliant, but I also want her to choose me.
“She’ll come around,” he adds after a beat. “Give her something to focus on. I’m sure you’ll come up with some genius way to get back into her good graces.”
I consider that.
Yes, I need something to shift her attention and pull her back toward me.
I tap my fingers against the glass.
What’s guaranteed to bring a smile to Ella’s face?
An idea lands in my mind, and I reach for my phone, already deciding.
Mateo smirks. “There it is. The famous De Marco solution.”
I ignore him, typing out a short message.
“Why did you let the guy live?” Teo asks, getting up to refill his glass.
I don’t look up.
“Because sometimes it’s useful to have someone tell the story.”
Mateo nods slowly.
“Fair call.”
I set the phone aside.
I don’t tell him the rest. That if I had killed him, and Ella found out, she would shut down completely. And that’s something I can’t afford.
“Why did you take her along? She would have been better off here. It would have avoided the trouble.”
“Leaving her here… my gut didn’t like it.”
Both Teo and I trust our gut implicitly. It’s kept us alive so far.
“Not knowing who’s betraying us, I need to keep her where I can see her. We can’t trust anyone at the moment.”
I lean my head back and stare at the ceiling, exhaling slowly.
“Teo, I can’t explain it. When it comes to Ella, I can’t take any chances. I’ve waited so long for her to come into my life. What better way for Molinaro to wipe me out than to take her from me?”
My brother is silent for a moment, and I lift my head to look at him.
“I get it. You know I do. I want my One to finally show up too, and when she does, I’m sure I’ll be just as protective of her.” He pauses again. “But you realize, Molinaro will try to get to her… to hit you where it will hurt most.”
“Yeah, I know,” I sigh, wishing the old times were back, when wives and children were off limits. “That’s why we have to take him out. Him and his whole family. Once and for all.”
I get up and pace the length of the room, bourbon in hand, the burn doing nothing to take the edge off.
“He’s amping up his efforts. We picked up Sylvestro this morning. Santino dragged him into the warehouse, kicking and screaming.”
“Molinaro’s main hacker? How stupid of Molinaro to let him out of his compound alone.”
“He wasn’t alone. His watchdogs didn’t know anything useful, though.”
“They never do,” Teo says drily. “Did Sylvestro talk? Is this why you had the emergency meeting at the club tonight?”
“With the right incentive, he gave us everything. But that wasn’t the reason for tonight’s meeting.”
Teo looks confused. “Why then?”
“Sylvestro confirmed what I already suspected. Molinaro isn’t just interfering anymore with our business on the ground, he’s designing his own platform to compete with our black-market financial products. If he succeeds, he’ll have better reach, faster growth, and cleaner execution.”
With Papa’s death seven years ago, I took over De Marco Corp and dragged it out of the old ways.
Violence still has its place. But money moves faster.
I built something better. A network, assembling hackers, financial specialists, people who know how to move money without leaving a trace.
Now we take dirty cash and make it disappear into legitimate markets. Clean. Untouchable. Profitable.
It’s the most successful operation this family has ever run.
“Fuck.”
“Precisely.”
“How have we had no intel on this? You sure Sylvestro wasn’t making it up?”
“He was in no state to make things up.”
I stop my pacing at the window, staring out into the darkness.
“How close are they to finishing it?”
I turn back into the room, jaw tight.
“According to the late Sylvestro, they’re done and are in testing mode.”
Mateo looks up, puffing air into his cheeks and letting it out slowly.
“Their next task was to get access to our client list.” It’s extensive. We spent years building it.
“Good luck with that,” Teo chuckles.
When I don’t join in and just stare at him, he sobers.
“What happened?”
“I had Uberto investigate Sylvestro’s claims right away. I met with him before lunch, and he assured me there’s been no breach of our systems and that nobody could access them.”
I turn back to the window, looking out.
“Four hours later, all hell broke loose. Uberto rang, panicked. He’d found large parts of our system had been cloned including the account details of most of our clients.”
Mateo’s grip tightens around his glass until his knuckles turn white. He stands, joining me by the window.
“Fuck. How did they get access?”
I drag a hand through my hair, forcing myself to damp down the anger still simmering in my veins.
“Uberto’s still trying to work that out and assess the damage,” I say. “Insider job most likely. We don’t know the full extent yet.”
Mateo exhales under his breath, the reason for the emergency meeting now clear to him.
“And Molinaro? Has he made contact yet to gloat?”
“No, he’s waiting.”
“For what?”
“For the right moment to use it.”
That’s what I would do, and at least in that regard, we are the same.
The silence stretches for a second. Then Teo leans forward, resting his forearms against the wall.
“So we’re no closer to knowing who our master mole is, who undoubtedly had everything to do with the breach.”
I shake my head.
“And the lower-level leaks?” he asks.
“Dead.”
His eyes sharpen.
“All of them?”
“Every lead we’ve followed ends the same way,” I say. “Cleaned up before we get there.”
Teo mutters a curse.
“What about your leads in Rome?” I ask.
“Same thing. Dead on arrival.” He tips his head back with a quiet exhale. “That leaves someone higher up.”
“Yes.”
Someone close. Closer than I like.
I hold his gaze.
“And when I find him,” I say quietly, “he won’t die quickly.”
My brother gives a slow nod.
I turn away again, my thoughts already moving ahead.
“We have one angle left. A message came through earlier. One of Molinaro’s IT men wants to talk.”
“More like sell information.” Mateo straightens and moves back to the couch.
“Or trade us back what’s ours. I’m meeting with him tomorrow.”
“And you believe him?” he asks, sitting back down, massaging his temples. “Could be a trap.”
I set my glass on the tray. “Yes. But when we dug into him, he’s got a mountain of debt he’s trying to hide. He’s desperate and might see this as his chance for a big payday. We can’t ignore it.”
“Who knows about it?”
“Only you, me, Uberto and Santino. They’re coming with me.”
Teo nods once, absorbing that.
I pace past him, rubbing my jaw, working the tension out of it.
“Everything we’ve built in the last few years is on the line. I will not let Molinaro destroy that.”
Mateo finishes his drink and stands.
“Stay sharp tomorrow,” he says, buttoning up his jacket. “If this guy is as desperate as you think, he’ll be dangerous.”
“They’re all dangerous.”
“Some more than others.”
I finally turn, meeting his gaze.
“I’ll handle it.”
“I know you will.”
He pauses at the door, one hand on the handle.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Hold the fort tomorrow. We’re going completely offline.”
“Of course.”
I hesitate, then add, “And stay here. Keep an eye on Ella for me. I can’t be worrying about her, wondering if she’s safe.”
He inclines his head. “You’ve got my word. Nothing will happen to her.”
He leaves without another word, the door clicking shut behind him.
I stand there for a moment, the weight of everything pressing in.
Molinaro. The mole. The meeting tomorrow.
And her.
Always her.
My fingers curl into fists.
I pick up my glass again, then set it back down. I don’t need more alcohol.
What I need is control.
And right now, I’m losing it in too many places at once.
That ends tomorrow.
One way or another.