Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Vittoria
Bruno sits in his wheelchair by the window, shoulders rigid, jaw set in that permanent scowl he's worn since waking up from the coma. He's forty but looks older now. Harder. Like someone carved him from granite and forgot to add the warmth.
Valentino stands near the bookshelf, arms crossed over his broad chest. Our cousin arrived three days ago, and he's spent more time in this room than anywhere else in the compound.
His features and distinguished gray at his temples make him look like he walked straight out of an old Italian film.
The kind where everyone dies at the end but looks beautiful doing it.
"You don't have to stay," Bruno growls at me without turning from the window.
I settle deeper into the armchair I've claimed. "Didn't ask for permission."
His fingers drum against the wheelchair arm. Tap, tap, tap. The rhythm of a man plotting something. "I don't want company."
"Then why is Valentino still here?"
Silence stretches between us. Valentino's dark eyes flick to Bruno, then back to me. He doesn't speak—just crosses himself in that automatic Catholic way of his, like he's asking God for patience.
The truth sits heavy in the room, unspoken. Bruno tolerates Valentino because our cousin doesn't treat him like he's broken. Doesn't offer help or pity or those careful glances the rest of us can't seem to control. Valentino just is. Solid. Present. Asking nothing.
The rest of us? We remind Bruno of everything he lost.
"Pietro sent you to check on me," Bruno says flatly. "Tell him I'm still breathing. That should satisfy his guilt."
"Pietro didn't send me."
Bruno finally turns his chair. The movement is sharp, he's gotten terrifyingly good at maneuvering that thing. His dark eyes pin me in place, cold and cruel in ways they never were before. "Then Mamma did. Wanting to make sure her poor broken son hasn't done anything drastic."
My chest tightens. "I came because I wanted to see you."
"Cazzate." Bullshit. He spits the word like a weapon. "No one wants to see me, sorellina. They want to see who I used to be. The golden boy. The heir. The one who was supposed to lead this family before—" His voice cuts off. The wheelchair arm creaks under his grip.
Valentino moves then. Not toward Bruno, but to the small bar cart against the wall. He pours two glasses of whiskey. Without a word, he sets one on the table beside Bruno's chair.
Bruno stares at it for a long moment. Then his hand closes around the glass.
"Grazie," he mutters.
Valentino nods once. Nothing more.
This is how they communicate. Valentino doesn't fill silence with reassurances. Doesn't tell Bruno things will get better. He just stays. Pours drinks. Sits in the corner cleaning his gun while Bruno rages at the walls.
It's more than the rest of us have managed.
"The security upgrades are done," I say, steering toward safer ground. "Your clearances are active, Val. Biometrics, access codes, everything."
Valentino's jaw twitches. He still hates the nickname, which is exactly why I use it. "Bene. And the perimeter sensors?"
"Installed yesterday. Motion-activated cameras on the north fence, thermal imaging on the east. Anyone approaches within two hundred meters, I'll know."
"Thermal imaging." Bruno's lip curls. "You're turning this place into a prison."
"I'm keeping us safe."
"From what?" He laughs, and the sound scrapes against my skin like broken glass. "The bullets already found me, Vittoria. Two years too late for your cameras."
I force myself not to flinch.
Valentino sets down his own glass with a sharp clink. "Basta." Enough. His voice carries the weight of old-world authority, the kind that comes from running security for our grandmother's Sicily estate. "She's protecting the family. That's what we do."
Bruno's eyes narrow. For a moment, I think he'll lash out at Valentino too. But something passes between them and Bruno looks away.
"Fine," he mutters. "Play with your cameras. Won't change anything."
I stand, smoothing my hands over my jeans to hide their trembling. "I'll leave you two to your brooding contest. Try not to out-miserable each other."
Bruno doesn't respond. Valentino catches my eye as I pass, his expression unreadable. But he gives me the slightest nod.
Keep trying, that nod says. He's still in there somewhere.
I wish I believed it.
The door clicks shut behind me, and I lean against the hallway wall, pressing my palms to my eyes. My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Dmitri.
Thinking about you, solnyshko. Dinner tomorrow?
I stare at the message.
My thumbs move before I can stop them.
You're always thinking about me. It's creepy.
His response comes immediately.
You like it.
The worst part?
He's not wrong.
My thumbs hover over the keyboard.
Not dinner.
I start walking toward my room, watching the three dots appear.
What do you want then?
I pause at my bedroom door, leaning against the frame.
What do I want? That's the question, isn't it?
I want to stop thinking about him every time I close my eyes.
Want to stop remembering the weight of his hand on my throat in that restaurant bathroom, the way his voice dropped when he called me solnyshko.
I want to see him somewhere that isn't his territory. Somewhere he can't control every variable.
Theater.
The response takes too long.
I count the seconds. Five. Ten. Fifteen. My grin widens.
I bet you've never stepped foot in a theater.
Inside my room, I kick off my shoes and collapse onto my bed. The sheets are cool against my back. My phone buzzes.
I'll take you to the opera if that's what you want.
I bark out a laugh. The image of Dmitri Baganov—six-foot-something of Bratva muscle in his suits, hands that have definitely broken bones—sitting through three hours of Greek tragedy is almost too good.
You? Sitting still for an entire opera? I'll believe it when I see it.
As long as you're there, I'll sit through anything.
My breath catches.
Damn him.
I roll onto my stomach, pressing my face into the pillow. What the hell does this man do to me? One minute he's threatening to murder anyone who looks at me, the next he's promising to endure opera just to spend time with me.
I grab my phone again, desperate for distraction.
You're a sweety pie.
I hit send before I can overthink it. The words are deliberately ridiculous—the kind of thing you'd say to a golden retriever, not a man like him.
His response is immediate.
Take that back.
I press my hand over my mouth to muffle my laughter.
Nope. You're officially a sweety pie. It's documented now.
Vittoria.
Just my name. But I can hear the growl behind it. Can picture his jaw clenching, fingers tightening around his phone hard enough to crack the screen.
I giggle into my pillow.
Goodnight, sweety pie.
You'll pay for that.
Promises, promises.
I turn off my phone before he can respond, still laughing.
Dmitri
Sweety pie.
She knows exactly what she's doing. That little provocation, wrapped up in innocent text bubbles, designed to make my blood boil. Vittoria Sartori thinks she can poke the bear and walk away unscathed.
I'll show you what sweety pie does to mouthy little princesses.
I'm already composing my response when my phone vibrates with an incoming call.
The caller ID reads: Nurse Katya.
My stomach drops through the floor.
"Mr. Baganov." Her voice is calm. Too calm. The kind of professional steadiness they train into medical staff. "Your father is experiencing some difficulties this evening. Doctor is on his way."
"What kind of difficulties?" I'm already moving, shoving back from my desk. Papers scatter. I don't care.
"His breathing has become labored. Blood pressure is dropping. The doctor thinks—"
"I'm coming."
I don't wait for her response. The phone's still in my hand as I tear through the club's back hallway, shouldering past a server carrying a tray of glasses. They shatter behind me. Someone curses.
Not now. Please, not yet.
The prayer feels foreign on my tongue. I stopped believing in God when I was sixteen, kneeling in blood on a warehouse floor. But now those words claw up my throat anyway.
I hit Aleksander's number as I burst through the rear exit.
"Brother." His voice is easy, relaxed. He doesn't know yet.
"Get everyone to the house." My voice comes out rough, scraped raw. "Now."
Silence. Then: "How bad?"
"Bad enough. Karolina, Natalia, everyone. Call them."
"I'm on it."
The line goes dead. I trust Aleksander to handle it.
My driver appears with the car before I reach the curb. He must have seen me running on the security feed. Good man. I'll remember that later.
"The estate," I bark, sliding into the back seat. "Fast."
The engine roars. Tires squeal against asphalt.
My father is dying.
I've known this for months.
But knowing and feeling are different beasts entirely.
The bedroom door stands open.
Papa lies in the center of the massive bed, dwarfed by pillows and monitors. His eyes are closed. His chest doesn't move.
For three seconds, I can't breathe.
I'm too late.
Then his fingers twitch against the white sheets, and the pressure in my chest releases so fast I have to grip the doorframe.
"Mr. Baganov." Dr. Petrov appears at my elbow, his hand closing around my arm. "A word, please."
I don't want to leave. I want to sit beside my father, to hold his hand the way I haven't since I was eight years old and he taught me that Baganov men don't cry. But the doctor's grip is insistent, and I let him pull me into the hallway.
The door clicks shut behind us.
"How long?" My voice comes out flat. Steady. The voice I use when I'm ordering executions.
Dr. Petrov's face tells me everything before he speaks. "A week. Perhaps less."
The words land somewhere distant, like they belong to someone else's life. I've known this was coming for months. Prepared for it. Made lists, contingency plans, spoken with lawyers and captains.
None of that matters now.
"Earlier," the doctor continues, his accent thickening the way mine does when I'm tired, "he became very distressed. Crying. Calling out for someone." He pauses. "A woman's name. Yelena."
Mama.
I don't react. My face stays stone, my shoulders squared, my hands loose at my sides. This is what he taught me. Never show weakness. Never let them see you bleed.
"I've increased his morphine," Dr. Petrov says. "He should be comfortable through the night. Your siblings—"
"Are on their way."
He nods, sympathy softening his expression. I hate it. I hate that he looks at me like I'm about to break, like I'm some fragile thing that needs handling.
I'm the next pakhan. I don't break.
"Call me if anything changes." I turn away before he can offer more useless comfort.
The balcony off the upstairs sitting room faces east, toward the city lights of Chicago. I push through the French doors into the cold night air, my lungs burning as I inhale.
My hands are shaking.
I notice this with detached curiosity, like I'm observing someone else's body. The tremors start at my fingertips and work their way up, subtle but undeniable.
The lighter flame wavers in the wind. I cup my hand around it, and the first drag of smoke fills my lungs like coming home to a place I hate.
He was crying. Calling for Mama.
In thirty-eight years, I've never seen my father cry.
But tonight, alone in the dark, he wept for his dead wife.
For one insane moment, I want to call Vittoria. I want to hear her voice, sharp and challenging, cutting through this darkness like she cuts through everything else. I want her here, even though she shouldn't be, even though this isn't her burden to carry.
I want to not be alone.
The cigarette burns down to my fingers. I let it, welcoming the small pain, the reminder that I'm still here, still breathing, still the son who has to hold everything together when it falls apart.
Behind me, car doors slam.
My family is here.
I take one more breath of cold air, stub out the cigarette on the stone railing, and compose my face into the mask Papa taught me to wear.
Time to be the pakhan.