Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Lorenzo
Four days. Four fucking days, and I still can’t close my eyes without seeing Bella in the garden. It has been festering in me since that afternoon, something raw and ugly I can’t quite name and refuse to examine too closely. I know myself well enough to know what happens when I let things fester.
I have sat across from men who would sooner put a bullet in my skull than shake my hand. I have lived this life with the ability to leave rooms and feel nothing. Not once have I carried anything with me the way I have carried that image in the garden.
So I did what I set out to do: I made a move.
I put the word out that I had information on Matteo.
The kind of information that makes men in this world sit up straight and pay attention.
As far as the Serrano’s are concerned, this is business.
An ordinary meeting, the kind where men like us exchange what we know and walk away with our hands clean and our consciences quieter than they have any right to be.
Word came back this morning that Arturo will not be coming himself, but his lapdog, Luca, will take his place.
Good. That’s exactly who I wanted to walk into this meeting.
What the Serrano’s don’t know is that the other families were never called.
No information is changing hands today. There is no exchange, no gesture of good faith between men who have never deserved it.
I will take my cousins’ whereabouts to the grave before I hand it to anyone. That was never why I made this call.
I called them here because I have a message of my own to send, and Luca Serrano is going to be the one to receive it.
Vito takes the turn, and the slaughterhouse comes into view, or what’s left of it. The ashes have already been carted away, and the ruin has been stripped back to something almost respectable, almost forgettable, if you don’t know what stood here before.
One wall is nothing but rubble now, a neat pile of broken brick and concrete, waiting for tomorrow’s crew to haul it away. The new plans are already drawn, ready and waiting. A fresh start rising from the bones of something that deserved to burn.
It’s the perfect place for a conversation about boundaries.
Many men have been taught a lesson in the shadow of what this place used to be, and today is no different. Luca Serrano is about to become the latest addition to that long and distinguished fucking list.
I sit in the back of the car with one arm stretched across the seat, easy and unhurried—the way a man sits when he has already won and is simply waiting for everyone else to catch up.
My other hand rests on my thigh, my hand lifted, fingers tapping once against the loaded gun beneath my jacket.
A single beat, like punctuation at the end of a sentence I have already written.
Behind us, two sedans follow close behind, six men in each. All armed. All already inside the plan I have built around Luca Serrano. They know what this is. They knew before they got in the car.
This is a trap. I have twelve armed men to make absolutely fucking sure the prick gets the fucking message.
That night, while Bella was sleeping, I slipped out from under the sheets because lying there in the dark next to her, with this thing rotting through me, was not doing either of us any favors. I am many things, but I am not a man who lets his wife watch him come apart at the seams.
I pulled up the feed in my office. Poured two fingers of scotch but did not touch it.
Bella stood her ground. I will give her that.
Even through the security feed at two in the morning, I could see it in her, that particular brand of stubbornness.
She didn’t give Luca a single fucking inch.
She stood there like a woman who had spent a lifetime being underestimated by men who should have known better and had decided she was done making it easy for them.
And when Luca put his hand on her jaw, I stopped being a reasonable man entirely.
That’s what turned my blood to something closer to fire than anything else. He put his hands on my wife, his sister, and threatened her. She stood there and gave him nothing, protecting me with every ounce of herself.
Rafe stepped between them, and even then, even with six feet of loyal bastard standing in the way, I could see it on Luca’s face.
The threat didn’t leave with him. It stayed on her skin, in the set of her jaw, in the way she held herself—like a woman quietly cataloging damage she had no intention of showing anyone.
Thirty-seven seconds of footage. That’s all it took for Luca Serrano to buy himself the kind of lesson that doesn’t wash off. He just doesn’t know it yet, but he will. Very fucking soon.
Vito eases the car through the front gates, and before he even cuts the engine, my gaze has already swept every corner of the parking lot. One black SUV. Two sedans. That is all.
The first drag of a smile pulls at my mouth, and I let it sit there, the way you let a good scotch breathe before you ruin someone’s evening.
The fucking idiots walked straight into it.
They didn’t sweep the place or send a man ahead, as a family worth its salt should before stepping onto someone else’s turf.
But that’s what happens when you spend too many years slithering through the dark, collecting secrets like currency and hoarding information until you start believing that knowing everything makes you untouchable.
Knowledge is not armor. It’s a blindfold. And blind men have a habit of walking straight into things they never should have.
Behind us, the two sedans roll in and park, engines cutting out one after the other, doors opening with the kind of cold, unhurried discipline that separates my men from every other crew in this city. Twelve men who have been ready for this since before the sun came up.
I button my jacket over the gun, straighten my cuffs, then step out into the morning.
Across the lot, Luca Serrano climbs out of his vehicle and clocks it immediately. Every man. Every position. The math of it landing on his face, in real time.
To his credit, he doesn’t miss a beat. He rolls his shoulders back and moves forward with the arrogance of someone who has never in his life been made to feel small. A grin cuts across his mouth.
“Sharing information exclusively with the Serranos.” He lets that sit, lets it breathe. “Touching, really, given that we are family now.”
I say nothing.
He keeps walking anyway, because men raised by monsters never learned the difference between confidence and stupidity. Three of his guys fan out behind him. Four more hold their positions near the vehicle, hands loose, watching.
My men spread wider. The lot rearranges itself without a word spoken.
I let him close the distance before speaking.
“You were at my house,” I say, keeping my voice even. “You put your hands on my wife.”
Something shifts behind his eyes, just for a second.
“She is my sister,” he says, as easy as breathing. “I can visit whenever I like. She is used to men coming and going.”
He talks about his own sister as if she were something men pass around, and he’s merely keeping track of the rotation. The casual filth of it, the ease with which it leaves his mouth, hits me, and every single cell in my body turns to gasoline.
I step forward. One step. That’s enough.
Luca glances at my men and has the audacity to look amused.
“Relax.” His gaze slides back to mine. “You are not the first man to think he found something worth keeping in her, Lorenzo. She has a gift for that. Always has. Making men feel like they are holding something precious.”
The smile that follows is slow, poisonous, and meant to wound. “The truth is, she has been warming beds since before you ever laid eyes on her. You just happened to be the one who put a ring on it.”
The temperature across the lot drops by ten degrees.
“You are talking about my fucking wife,” I say quietly. “She is a De Luca now.”
Luca’s mouth twists into something that is almost, but not quite, a smile. “And yet she is still a Serrano. She will always be a Serrano. That doesn’t change just because you put a ring on her.”
“No.”
I reach out and take him by the throat before the word leaves my mouth, fingers closing around his throat with the kind of pressure that makes a man suddenly very aware of how many things in his body require air to function.
Black rage moves through me like a tide, and I don’t hide a single drop of it. I let it settle on my face, let him read every last fucking word of it up close.
His men surge forward, but mine are already there, outnumbering his.
“I’m only going to say this once.” I keep my voice low, quiet enough that the men at the edges have to lean into the silence to catch it, because the most dangerous things I have ever said have always been the ones I didn’t need to raise my voice to say.
“You will never touch Isabella again. You will never fucking call her, summon her, corner her, threaten her, or use her as a channel to get to me. Neither will your father.”
Luca looks up at me from inside my grip, throat working against my fingers, and has the audacity to smile.
“And if we do?”
“Then I will fucking kill you.”
His smile doesn’t even falter. He just rolls it into a contemptuous laugh, as if he finds the whole thing mildly entertaining. “You think you can dictate terms to the Serranos when the De Luca’s are in ruin? You really have let her make you sentimental, Lorenzo.”
I let the silence sit for a moment, long enough to become its own kind of threat.
“The De Luca’s in ruin,” I say slowly, my fingers tightening around his throat a fraction, just enough to make the point. I lean in close enough that there is nothing between us but bad intentions. “Luca, look the fuck around you.”
His hand reaches for the gun at his back, but mine is already moving, faster, and already pressed to his skull before his fingers have even closed around the grip.