Chapter 2 #2
Before I can spiral further into contingency plans, I need to handle what's in front of me.
Elena.
I find her in the kitchen with Signora Martha, face smeared with chocolate from cookies she definitely wasn't supposed to have before lunch. The sight of her—so small, so oblivious to the dangers circling our family—clenches something in my chest.
"Papa!" She holds up a misshapen cookie. "I made you a heart! It has seven chocolate chips. I counted!"
"It's beautiful, principessa."
"It's for Bella-ballina but she's not here so you can have it." Her face clouds. "When is she coming back? She promised she'd teach me the spinny dance."
I crouch down to her level, taking the cookie. "Soon. She had to visit her mama."
"Her mama lives far away?"
"Very far." In more ways than one. "But Bella-ballina is very brave. She'll be home before you know it."
Elena considers this with the gravity only an almost-four-year-old can muster. "Okay. But tell her to hurry." She picks at a chocolate chip, then brightens. "Oh! I forgot to tell you. I made a new friend yesterday!"
Something cold prickles at the back of my neck. "What friend, principessa?"
"The new garden man. The old one." She says it casually, still focused on her cookie. "He was fixing the roses by the wall. He had a big camera like yours, Papa. He said he was taking pictures of the flowers for his work."
My hand tightens on the cookie. "What else did he say?"
"He asked my name. And how old I am." She beams, proud. "And if I like counting things. I told him I count EVERYTHING. He laughed. He said I was very smart. He said he'd make me a doll like the ones he makes for the other kids."
Name. Age. Habits.
"What did he look like?"
Elena scrunches her face, thinking hard. "Old. Really old. He had white hair and big spots on his hands. Brown ones." She holds up her own small hand, pointing to her knuckles. "Here and here. And he walked funny—like this."
She slides off her stool and demonstrates, dragging her left foot in an exaggerated shuffle.
My blood turns to ice.
I know that limp.
Enzo Caruso. Seventy-six years old. A tailor on Via Maggio for over fifty years until his son got tangled up with the wrong people—owed money to a crew from Naples who didn't believe in second chances.
They came for the old man instead. Beat him so badly his hip never set right.
Left him bleeding on the floor of his shop surrounded by the communion dresses he'd spent weeks stitching for the church.
I paid the son's debts. Moved Enzo to a ground-floor apartment where he wouldn't have to manage stairs. Made sure the Neapolitans understood that the Carusos were under The Beast's protection now. Not many would cross that.
That was four years ago. Enzo still sews. His hands shake and his eyes aren't what they used to be, but he makes dolls for the children on the compound—little fabric creatures with embroidered faces and traditional Sicilian dresses. The staff kids fight over them.
And someone used him to get to my daughter.
"He wore the same green clothes as the other garden people," Elena continues, oblivious to the way my world is tilting. "And he had dirt on his hands, so I knew he was real."
"Did anyone else see him, principessa? DiMarco?"
"I don't think so. I was playing by myself while Signora Martha made lunch." Elena finally looks up at me, and something in my face makes her smile falter. "Was I not supposed to talk to him, Papa? He seemed nice. He waved goodbye when he left."
Nice. He seemed nice.
"You did nothing wrong." I kiss her forehead, forcing my voice steady even as rage and something worse—something like grief—churns in my gut. "But if you ever see someone new in the garden, I want you to come tell me or Signora Martha right away. Before you talk to them. Can you do that?"
"Okay." She's already reaching for another cookie, the conversation forgotten. "Can I have one more? I'll count the chips again. I want to see if this one has seven too."
"One more."
She scampers back to the counter, and I rise slowly, catching Signora Martha's eye. Her face has gone pale. She heard everything. This is one man we wouldn't check especially if he said he came to help in the garden.
I step into the hallway and pull out my phone.
"DiMarco. I need two men at Enzo Caruso's apartment. The tailor—Via Maggio, ground floor unit in the back." I keep my voice flat, even as something hot and vicious coils in my chest. "Bring him in. Quietly. Don't hurt him."
A pause. DiMarco knows who Enzo is. Everyone does. "Boss, he's seventy-six. His hip—"
"I know exactly who he is and what condition he's in. Someone got to him. I need to know who and how." I close my eyes, see Elena's small hands mimicking that shuffle. "He's a pawn. Not a player. Treat him gently."
I hang up and stand there in the dim hallway, fists clenched at my sides.
They didn't pick Enzo at random.
They picked him because I helped him. Because he's old and kind and grateful. Because they knew—they knew—that I can't touch him without becoming exactly the monster everyone already believes I am.
Someone gave him a camera and a uniform. Probably told him some story he was too trusting to question. That they needed photos of the property for a magazine. That they were old friends of the family. That it would be a nice surprise.
And Enzo, who has never been anything but gentle, who still threads a needle with shaking hands to make children smile, walked onto my property and handed my enemies everything they needed to take mine.
This isn't random. Whoever did this knows me. Knows my territory. Knows my people and exactly how to weaponize my own mercy against me.
We see your soft spots. And we'll use every one of them to gut you.
I return to the kitchen doorway. Elena is arranging chocolate chips into groups of seven, her small face serious with concentration. Signora Martha watches her with worried eyes.
"Pack bags," I tell Martha quietly. "Enough for two weeks."
"The vineyard?"
"The one in Piedmont. The shell company property." I lower my voice further. "No one knows about it. Not even my own men. Franco's cousin will run security. Six guards, vetted personally."
"And you, signore?"
"I stay. Coordinate." I watch my daughter count, recount, count again. "And when I find out who did this, I handle it."
Martha touches my arm—a rare gesture from a woman who's weathered decades of storms with this family. "Bring her home, Antonio. That little girl needs her Bella-ballina."
"I know." I watch Elena through the doorway, carefully arranging chocolate chips into groups of seven. "I know."
Three hours later, DiMarco calls.
"He's terrified, boss. Shaking so hard we had to give him brandy before he could speak.
" A heavy exhale. "Someone approached him at the Saturday market.
A woman. Young, brunette, American accent.
She knew his name. Knew about the Naples situation.
Told him you'd be pleased he was helping with a small favor. "
American.
My mind immediately goes to Luciano. Isabella's father has been too quiet since I took her from him. Too cooperative. A man like that doesn't just accept defeat—he regroups.
But Luciano is supposed to be contained. Watched. And more importantly, he's still bound by the French alliance and they would gut him if he moved against me without their blessing. The French matriarch may be playing for the long game, but we're too valuable to their Mediterranean operations.
Unless the alliance is fracturing.
"Boss? You still there?"
"What else did she say?"
"Told him it was a favor for the Beast's family.
A real estate matter—photos of historic properties for some architectural magazine.
Paid him two hundred euros, gave him the uniform and camera, told him exactly where to stand and what to shoot.
" DiMarco pauses. "He thought he was repaying his debt to you. He had no idea."
Of course he didn't.
They didn't just use an old man I'd helped. They used my own name to do it. Made Enzo think he was being loyal when he was handing them my daughter on a platter.
I run through the possibilities.
Luciano, moving without French approval. Risky, but he's never been patient. The car bomb in Greece could be his work too—loud, theatrical, his signature style. But would he really move on two fronts at once? Attack Isabella abroad while surveilling Elena here?
The French themselves, then. They have been regrouping since her heir died and trying to expand aggressively. Maybe they've decided the Greeks are more valuable allies than I am. Maybe Luciano offered them something I can't match.
Or Henrik Müller. We heard he's in jail. Solitary confinment. But even men like him can control things while they rot in prison.
But an American woman doesn't fit Henrik's profile. His people are German, Austrian, Dutch. Northern European efficiency, not American boldness.
Which leaves the smaller players. The ones who were at that auction, watching Isabella sell for millions while they couldn't even afford a real bid.
Men like Kozlov. Santos. That French-Canadian whose name I can never remember.
Jackals, all of them—too weak to challenge me directly, but hungry enough to take scraps from whoever's table is offering.
Someone is using them. Feeding them intelligence, resources, access. Pointing them at me while staying safely in the shadows.
"What do you want me to do with him?" DiMarco asks.
I think about Enzo's trembling hands. The dolls he makes for the compound children, each one stitched with care despite his failing eyesight. The way the kitchen staff's kids cluster around him when he visits, begging to see what he's working on.
"Send him home. Put a man on his building. For protection, not surveillance." I stare at the ceiling, jaw tight. "Make sure he understands I'm not angry with him. This wasn't his fault."
"And the woman?"
"Find her. Every camera between the market and the old quarter.
Every street vendor who might have seen which direction she went.
Someone talked to her. Someone gave her information about Enzo, about me, about how to get onto my property without raising alarms." I pause.
"When you find her, don't move. Just watch. She'll lead us somewhere bigger."
"Could take time, boss. American tourists aren't exactly rare around here."
"She's not a tourist. She's a professional who chose an accent that would make people assume she's harmless." I think about it. "Check the rental agencies too. Cars, scooters, apartments. She's staying somewhere. Operating out of somewhere. Find it."
I hang up and stand in the silence of my study.
Four fronts now. Isabella in Greece, walking into whatever trap her mother has set. Elena here, photographed by an old man who thought he was doing me a favor. And somewhere in the shadows, someone smart enough to use my own mercy as a weapon.
They think they've figured me out. Dangled an innocent man in front of me, knowing I'd either destroy him and prove I'm a monster, or spare him and reveal my weakness.
They're half right.
I won't hurt Enzo Caruso. I won't become the thing Isabella's father is—a man who burns down anyone in his path, guilty or not, useful or not.
But I'm not weak either.
I'm selective.
And when I trace that American woman back to whoever's holding her leash—when I find the person who thought they could use an old man's loyalty to threaten my child or used her, too—I'll show them exactly what the Beast does to people who actually deserve it.
The gods will fly.
I stare at those words on my screen, still no closer to understanding them. But I'm starting to suspect they're not about gods falling at all.
They're about something rising.