Chapter 21
GIOVANNI
The hole left by the sniper’s bullet that tried to kill me hurts like the bejesus. But I’m still upright, I’m healing, and in my world that distinction matters.
The doctors insist on another week before I abandon the crutch, but they don’t understand that power doesn’t wait for bones to knit cleanly, and neither do enemies who believe injury makes a man hesitant.
I let them fuss, let Lucia glare at me when I push past their caution, and then I dress myself slowly and with intention, choosing a dark suit and a white shirt and no tie, because this is not a meeting of equals and I have no need to decorate myself for a man who arrives already kneeling in his soul.
Bellandi comes to me because he has run out of room to pretend otherwise.
I didn’t need to summon him. That, too, matters.
The offer is brutally simple. If he wants his daughter to live, he’ll surrender himself to Dragoni custody without spectacle or an entourage that can be mistaken for leverage.
He will come alone, or he will not come at all.
He comes.
Of course he does.
The estate is quiet when his car arrives, the gates opening with practised indifference, the guards positioned where they can be seen and where they cannot, because humiliation is most effective when it is undeniable but not announced.
I stand on the front steps with Lucia beside me, her presence neither shield nor provocation, simply a fact that cannot be ignored, and I watch the vehicle roll to a stop in the gravel as if this were any other afternoon.
Bellandi steps out slowly, his hands empty, his posture stiff with the effort of restraint, and I register the changes in him without commentary.
He’s lost weight. His hair is less carefully groomed. His eyes move too often, assessing exits, counting men, calculating whether the distance between us could still be closed with violence if desperation made him foolish.
He believes I’ll kill him.
That belief is useful.
“Giovanni,” he says, his voice steady enough to suggest courage, yet thin enough to betray fear beneath it.
“Salvatore,” I reply, because manners cost me nothing and unsettle men who expect brutality.
He inclines his head towards Lucia, not quite a bow, not quite a dismissal, and I see the calculation flicker across his face as he decides whether acknowledging my wife strengthens or weakens his position.
He chooses wrong, as he so often does.
“I see you keep her close,” he says carefully. “Even now.”
Lucia doesn’t react. She doesn’t need to.
I turn my attention fully to him, letting the silence stretch until he shifts his weight and regrets opening his mouth.
“You surrendered yourself,” I say at last, my tone conversational, almost mild. “Do not mistake that for permission to comment on my household.”
His jaw tightens. He exhales through his nose, then nods once.
“I came in good faith,” he says. “I came because you said there could be… discussions.”
There it is. The incomplete surrender. The hope that proximity equals negotiation. The belief that showing up earns him a voice.
I step forward, slow enough that the men behind me do not move, deliberate enough that Lucia remains exactly where she is, watching, learning, witnessing this moment for what it is.
“You came because your daughter is not where you can reach her,” I tell him. “You came because every path you had left led back to me. Do not dress that up as faith or compromise.”
His eyes flick to Lucia again, sharper this time, and I see the thought form fully before he speaks it.
“She has you distracted,” he says quietly. “You are making choices you would not have made before.”
Lucia’s breath changes beside me, just enough that I feel it, but she remains silent, and that restraint is noted by every man present.
I smile then, small and humourless. “She’s the reason you are still standing here,” I reply. “Choose your next words with care.”
He swallows. He recovers. He always thinks he can.
“I’m here,” he says, spreading his hands slightly. “Unarmed. Alone. I am offering myself in exchange for my daughter’s safety. That must count for something.”
“It counts,” I say. “It counts as proof that you understand you’ve already lost.”
The guards move then, perfectly clued in, because the moment has arrived.
Bellandi stiffens as hands close around his arms, frogmarching him through the very rooms he sauntered into mere weeks ago, believing himself to hold all the cards.
His shoulders dip enough to announce the point is made. He’s been stripped of dignity more effectively than cruelty ever could.
“This is unnecessary,” he snaps, the crack in his composure finally visible. “If you intend to kill me, do it here. Do not drag this out.”
Lucia speaks for the first time, her voice calm and clear and utterly unafraid.
“You’re not important enough for spectacle,” she says. “And you’re not valuable enough for mercy.”
Bellandi turns his head towards her sharply, shock and fury colliding in his expression, and I see him understand something vital and terrible all at once.
My wife isn’t here as a taunt or as leverage. She’s here as witness.
I watch it land. Watch him turn a shade paler. “What is your intention then? To turn me into one of your servants?” A caustic laugh leaves his throat. “You’ll be disappointed then.”
“I agree. You’re useless to me as a servant.
But I have plans for you. For now, you’ll be held on Dragoni land,” I tell him as the men guide him out one set of French doors and towards the outbuilding at the edge of the property, a structure older than the house itself, solid and discreet and surrounded by guards who do not speak unless spoken to.
“You will be fed. You will be guarded. You will not be harmed unless you force my hand.”
“And my daughter,” he demands. “You promised—”
“I promised nothing,” I cut in. “I offered you the chance to arrive breathing and stay breathing. That remains true.”
His shoulders sag even lower as the humiliation settles fully into his bones as he is led away, a man who misjudged the field and paid for it.
Lucia doesn’t look away as the door closes behind him.
When it’s done, when the estate returns to its careful quiet, I turn to her, and she meets my gaze without flinching, something steady and resolute burning behind her eyes.
“You didn’t enjoy that,” I observe.
“No,” she replies. “But I understood it.”
I nod once, satisfied. “That’s enough,” I say. “That is everything.”
I take her hand then, kiss her pale hands.
And as we turn back towards the house I know this chapter is closed, even as the next one waits, sharper and colder and far more intimate than what we have just done.
Salvatore Bellandi surrendered himself believing it would save his daughter.
What he doesn’t yet understand is that surrender is only the beginning.
Giovanni
I don’t tell Isabella where we are going until the jet is already in the air.
That omission is intentional.
She sits at the back of the cabin, her posture rigid, her hands folded too neatly in her lap, her eyes darting between the windows and the men positioned at discreet intervals along the aisle.
Her overinflated ego led her to believe she was good at reading rooms, at understanding when she’s admired and when she’s tolerated, but even this is new territory for her, and it shows in the way her breath shortens every time the aircraft shifts.
Lucia doesn’t look at her, pretends it’s just she and I as she peruses her tablet and sips her champagne.
That, more than anything else, unsettles our captor.
I watch it happen without comment, watching the slow erosion of confidence in a woman who has always believed herself untouchable because women fell over themselves to be in her orbit, and men wanted her, because men bargained with her existence as if it were currency, because she was raised to believe that proximity to power was the same thing as possession of it.
She has learned nothing.
When the jet descends over Sicily, her composure cracks for the first time.
“Why have you brought me here? This is unnecessary,” she says sharply, her voice pitched for authority rather than fear. “You cannot—”
“I can,” I interrupt calmly. “And I have.”
She turns towards Lucia then, seeking something, anything, that looks like mercy or hesitation, but my wife remains still, her gaze fixed on the landscape unfolding beyond the window, her profile composed in a way that tells me she understands exactly what is happening.
Sicily’s not a threat to a Dragoni who knows the game. It’s a lesson in crafty, often life or death, negotiations. One I intend us both to win.
We land on a private strip outside Palermo, the air heavy with heat and history, and Isabella stiffens when she sees who’s waiting for us on the tarmac.
The man steps forward with an ease that speaks of long-held authority, his suit immaculate, his expression pleasant in the way men learn when they have never needed to ask twice.
Don Matteo Ruscetta.
Head of the Ruscetta Consortium. A man with enough blood in his past to stain the Mediterranean twice over. He looks hard and cruel, a physical representation of the ruthless life he’s chosen.
The man Salvatore Bellandi has been courting as an ally. And the man Isabella has been promised to.
Her face drains of colour as recognition hits, her mouth opening slightly before she snaps it shut again, pride warring with dawning comprehension.
“Giovanni,” Ruscetta says warmly, clasping my hand with genuine enthusiasm. “You honour me.”
“Grazie, but I value clarity more,” I reply. “And I prefer to conduct business where it cannot be misunderstood.”
He hesitates a moment before he nods, understanding that I’m not here to fuck around. That prevarication or ambivalence will be met with force.
Lucia steps forward beside me then, beautiful and poised, and fuck, she’s spectacular.
Every inch the Donna she tried, twice, to run from.
I watch Ruscetta clock her immediately, the subtle shift in his posture marking the moment he recalibrates his assumptions.
“And this,” he says slowly, “must be your wife.”
“My Donna,” I confirm.
Lucia meets his gaze with cool politeness, offering a nod that neither submits nor challenges, and something like approval flickers in his eyes before he turns his attention back to Isabella, who now looks as though the ground has shifted beneath her feet.
“You’re allying with them?” she snaps, anger overtaking fear. “How disappointing. My father trusted you to handle this discreetly.”
Ruscetta studies her for a long moment, almost dispassionately, then looks back at me.
“So,” he says mildly. “This is the complication.”
I shrug. “Or,” I reply, “it’s the leverage you could capitalise on since your former partner miscalculated.”
We drive for ten minutes, then arrive at a near-impregnable villa overlooking the sea, its walls thick with centuries of decisions that ended badly for men who believed themselves irreplaceable.
Isabella walks between two of my men, her head high, her spine rigid, but the illusion is cracking now, fractures spreading with every step.
Wine is poured. Seats are taken. The atmosphere is civil, controlled, lethal in its politeness.
“I understand,” Ruscetta says eventually, folding his hands on the table, “that Bellandi believed marrying his daughter into my family would secure him protection.”
“He believed many things,” I reply. “Most of them incorrect. Unless you wish to enlighten me otherwise. Are his assumptions correct?”
“Perhaps. But not… immutable.”
Isabella’s fingers curl into her skirt.
“You cannot decide my future like this,” she says, turning towards Lucia with sudden venom. “I demand to know where my father is. Why you’ve brought me here. We weren’t supposed to—”
A sharp look from Ruscetta silences her.
Lucia turns then, finally granting her attention, and her voice is quiet enough that Isabella has to lean forward to hear it.
“Know when to give up, girl,” she says evenly, then a smile plays at her lips. “Before someone decides to absent you permanently.”
She pales, then her lips clamp together at the taunting reminder of the words she spoke to Lucia three weeks ago.
Silence follows.
Ruscetta exhales slowly, considering, and then nods once.
“You see,” he says to Isabella, “this is why your father is desperate to have you offloaded. You’re no longer an asset. You are a liability.”
Her breath stutters.
“What is it you want?” she demands, looking between us. “Money? Territory? Control?”
“Yes,” I say calmly. “In that order. But don’t fool yourself into believing you aid a great deal in my acquisition of it. You’re but a small cog. A replaceable cog.”
She’s sputtering when I turn back to Ruscetta. I lay it out then, cleanly and without adornment.
“You can proceed with the marriage if you wish, but Bellandi will be cut out entirely. His name will carry no weight, his influence will end where my patience does, and in exchange for alignment with Dragoni interests, your operations will expand under my protection rather than against it. Chicago will remain mine. New York will remain mine. Sicily will prosper because I allow it to, and you will prosper along with it. And her,” I indicate Isabella, “you will keep in Sicily. Permanently.”
Ruscetta listens without interruption, his gaze never leaving mine, and when I finish he smiles, slow and appreciative.
“Salvatore Bellandi,” he says thoughtfully, “has made a habit of backing the wrong horse.” He extends his hand. “I accept.”
Isabella makes a sound then, sharp and furious and utterly helpless. “You cannot,” she says. “You cannot just trade me like this.”
Lucia stands, smooth and unhurried, and moves closer until they’re face to face.
“You were traded long before today,” she says quietly. “The only difference is that now you know it.”
We leave her there, seated between men who no longer see her as power, only as consequence.
On the flight back, Lucia is silent, her gaze distant, processing the weight of what has been done in her name and with her presence, and I watch her with something that borders on reverence.
She has crossed a line but not into darkness.
Into clarity.
“This does not end it,” she says finally, without looking at me.
“No,” I agree. “It ends the illusion.”
Her hand finds mine, steady and warm.
“Then let us finish it,” she says.