Chapter 27 Luca
LUCA
Everything feels like chaos, Dante and Romeo going back and forth on what to do, what plan to execute. Alessandro has made his demands, and Dante isn’t having it. I want to go in after her. Romeo is a stickler that under no circumstances do we cave and hand me over, that there’s some other way.
"It's not a trap." Dante's voice cuts through the room, and everyone turns to look at him. He's standing at the head of the table, his hands flat on the surface, his expression unreadable. "Alessandro wants to negotiate. He wants us to know where she is. He wants us desperate and willing to deal."
"Then we go in now," I say. "Full assault. Overwhelming force. We get her out before—"
"Before what?" Dante's eyes are cold. "Before he kills her? He won't. Not yet. She's worth more to him alive than dead. She's leverage."
The word makes my stomach turn.
"We need allies," Romeo says, looking at Dante. "The Castellano family owes us for the thing in Queens last year. The DeLuca family still hasn't repaid the favor from the shipping dispute. We call them in, we can have fifty soldiers surrounding that warehouse within three hours."
Dante nods slowly. "Make the calls. I want every approach covered, every exit blocked. Snipers on the surrounding buildings. No one gets in or out without us knowing."
Romeo starts making calls, his voice low and urgent as he speaks to the other families. I should be helping, doing something useful, but all I can think about is Giulia.
She’s surrounded by men who want to hurt her, scared and alone, trying to protect our baby from something she can't control. She probably thinks I might not even come for her. The thought feels like a knife between my ribs.
I was so cruel to her. I punished her for the crime of loving me enough to risk everything. For wanting me so desperately that she created an entire identity just to be close to me. For being brave enough to take what she wanted in a world that told her she had no choices.
And I made her pay for it.
I told myself it was necessary, that she needed to understand the consequences of her deception. That I couldn't forgive her, couldn't trust her, couldn't let myself be vulnerable to someone who'd lied to me so completely.
What she did was wrong… but a part of me has always understood why she did it. I just never wanted to let myself admit it, because that would mean admitting that deep down, even if I’d known she was Giulia… maybe I would have done it anyway.
Maybe I wouldn’t have been strong enough to stop us.
And I love her. I don’t think I stopped loving her, even when I hated her.
And now she's in that warehouse, terrified and alone, and she thinks I hate her. She doesn't know that the thought of losing her is tearing me apart, that I would burn this entire city to the ground to get her back. If Alessandro hurts her, I will make him beg for death.
And if I don't get to her in time, she never will.
"Luca."
Romeo's voice cuts through my spiral. I look up to find him watching me with an expression I can't read. "The Castellanos are sending twenty soldiers. DeLucas are sending fifteen. We'll have the warehouse surrounded in two and a half hours, maybe three."
Three hours. The words echo in my head, and something cold settles in my chest.
Three hours is a lifetime when you're in a warehouse with a man who feels humiliated and wants revenge.
Three hours is enough time for Alessandro to get frustrated and decide that killing Giulia is worth more than whatever concessions he might get from Dante.
Three hours is enough time for her stress to spike, for the baby's heart rate to become dangerous, for something to go catastrophically wrong.
Three hours is too long.
My phone rings. Unknown number. I answer it on the first ring.
"Luca Moretti." Alessandro's voice is smooth and pleasant, like we're old friends catching up. "I hope you're having a productive evening."
Every muscle in my body goes rigid. Romeo's eyes snap to mine, and he immediately starts signaling to the tech team to trace the call.
"Where is she?" My voice is flat and deadly.
"Your wife? She's with me. Safe and sound. For now." There's a pause, and I can hear background noise—the echo of a large space, the murmur of voices. "She's very beautiful, Luca. I can see why you couldn't resist. Even pregnant, she's stunning."
The possessiveness in his voice makes me want to reach through the phone and rip his throat out. "If you hurt her—"
"You'll what? Kill me? I'm looking forward to seeing you try. But first, we're going to have a conversation about what it costs to disrespect the Marchesi family."
Dante is beside me now, his hand out for the phone. I put it on speaker instead.
"Alessandro." Dante's voice is calm, controlled. "Let's discuss this like reasonable men."
"Reasonable?" Alessandro laughs, and there's an edge to it that makes my skin crawl.
"There's nothing reasonable about what your family did to mine.
You rejected our alliance. You made it clear we weren't good enough for your precious daughter.
And then you killed twelve of our people in coordinated strikes while your daughter played the perfect wife at a charity gala. "
"Business," Dante says simply. "Nothing personal."
"Everything is personal." The pleasant tone is gone now, replaced by something harder. "You want your daughter back? Do you want your grandchild to be born? Then you're going to give me what I'm owed. And above all else, you’re going to send Luca Moretti to me."
The line goes dead. For a moment, no one moves or speaks. Then Dante turns to his tech team. "Did we get a location?"
"Confirmed. Same warehouse the informant identified. He's not even trying to hide."
"Because he doesn't need to," Romeo says grimly. "He’s counting on the idea that we can't assault the place without risking Giulia. He's got her as a shield."
"There is no other way." My voice sounds distant, disconnected. "He wants me. That's the price."
"Fuck that." Romeo steps between Dante and me. "We're not sacrificing you. We'll get the allies in position, we'll coordinate the assault, we'll extract her before—"
"Before what?" I cut him off. "Before Alessandro gets impatient and decides she's worth more dead than alive? Before something goes wrong with the baby because she's terrified and stressed and surrounded by men who want to hurt her?"
"We have a plan—"
"The plan takes three hours. Three hours is too long. He's unstable, Romeo. You heard him. He wants revenge, and every minute we make him wait increases the chance he does something we can't come back from."
"So what are you suggesting?" Dante's voice is quiet.
I look at the warehouse layout our hackers have pulled up.
It has four main entrances—all of which will be heavily guarded.
But there's a maintenance entrance on the north side, partially hidden by an old loading dock.
It's small and probably locked, definitely not designed for assault entry. But it could work.
"I'm suggesting we don't wait." I look up at Romeo. "You, me, and three of our best. We go in now, fast and quiet, and hit them before they're expecting it."
"That's suicide." Romeo's voice is flat. "We'll be outnumbered at least three to one, probably more. No backup, no exit strategy."
"But we'll be there in thirty minutes instead of three hours." I meet his eyes. "And that might be the difference between Giulia living or dying."
The silence stretches out. Then Romeo nods sharply. "I'm in."
"No." Dante's voice cuts through the room. "I'm not authorizing this. You'll both be killed, and Giulia will still be—"
"I'm not asking for authorization." I'm already moving toward the weapons cache, Romeo beside me. "I'm telling you what I'm doing. You can shoot me after, if we survive."
"Luca—"
"She's my wife!” I pivot, my words raw and angry. "She's carrying my child. And she's in that warehouse right now, thinking I hate her, thinking I might not even come for her. So I'm going. With or without your permission."
Dante stares at me for a long moment, and I can see him weighing options. “Fine,” he says harshly. “I’ll pick three men to go with you. And Luca?" He waits until I meet his eyes. "Bring my daughter home."
"I will. Or I'll die trying."
—
It takes fifteen minutes to gear up and brief the team.
The men don’t hesitate when Romeo explains the situation. They're all veterans—men who've fought beside us for years and know what they're walking into. They check their weapons and gear up, their faces grim and determined. Romeo pulls me aside while the others are loading into the vehicles.
"Savannah's at home," he says quietly. "I left her a note and told her I love her. Told her that if something happens, she should know I died doing what I had to do."
The words hit me hard. Romeo saying goodbye to his wife makes this real in a way the tactical planning didn't, makes it sink in that we might not come back from this. That the odds are very much against us.
"You don't have to do this. This is my fight. My wife. My—"
"She's my sister." Romeo's voice is firm. "And you're my brother. So yeah, I do have to do this." He claps me on the shoulder, then moves toward the vehicles.
I stand there for a moment, the weight of everything pressing down on me.
I think about Giulia this morning, and how she told me to be safe.
I think about the ginger tea I left on the counter every morning.
Such a small thing, such an inadequate gesture.
But it was all I could offer when I was still too afraid to admit I was softening, that the walls I'd built were crumbling.
I think about the night she started cramping, the terror that consumed me when I found her in the bathroom, pale and scared and bleeding.
The way I carried her to the car, the way I held her hand in the hospital, the way I couldn't leave her side even though I told myself it was just obligation.
I think about the ultrasound and that rapid flutter of sound that was our baby's heartbeat, the way something inside me shifted when I heard it.
The way I almost told her that everything was going to be okay, that we were going to figure this out together.
I think about all the things I never said to her.
I forgive her. I love her. And I desperately need a chance to make this all right.
If I die tonight—and the odds are very much against us surviving this—Giulia will never know any of it. She'll think I died still angry, still unable to see past the deception to the desperate, brave, terrified girl underneath.
Which means there's only one outcome available to me: I have to survive. I have to get to her.
And I will make sure she knows that I love her.