Blood of My Blood
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We clear the first corridor fast—two down, both armed, neither quick enough. The hallway reeks of gun oil, old mold, and something worse—fear.
Turk covers my six while the rest of my soldiers fan out. Every corner is a risk. Every closed door could be him—or a trap.
“Clear left,” someone barks. “Movement ahead—south stairwell.”
My pulse kicks harder. That’s the basement. That’s where I’d stash something precious. Something I wasn’t ready to lose.
We descend, steps quick and silent. The stairwell spirals like a drain, and at the bottom, there’s a steel door. Reinforced. New locks. Fresh bolt plate.
Daniel.
I move to breach when Turk touches my shoulder. He doesn’t speak. Just nods to the small surveillance camera above the door.
They’re watching.
Let them.
I look into the lens. Cold. Unforgiving.
“I’m coming for him,” I whisper. “And when I do—you’ll wish you’d taken me out at the gallery.”
I raise my fist.
Signal to breach.
We go in hard.
The blast is deafening, the steel door torn from its hinges in a cloud of smoke and sparks. My men pour in like a black tide, sweeping room by room as I move with ruthless precision.
Two guards rush us, armed and yelling in clipped Sicilian. They don’t make it past the doorway. One takes a round to the chest. The other, I disarm with a blow to the jaw and finish with a bullet to the temple. Fast. Brutal. Necessary.
The walls scream with alarms now. But it’s too late. They’re trapped with me. And I’m not leaving empty-handed.
We sweep into a corridor lined with security doors—storage, holding, maybe worse. I kick one open and find torture tools laid out like surgical instruments. My blood runs cold.
"Clear," Turk calls from the next room. "But there's fresh blood on the floor. They moved him recently."
I run my hand over the table edge, clenching my jaw. "They prepped this room for pain."
Turk looks at me. "Not anymore."
Suddenly, a voice comes through our comms—one of the sharps. "Perimeter breach. Two vehicles just lit up the east fence. It’s not reinforcements."
"Gallo?" I growl.
My earpiece crackles again.
“Gallo’s gone,” Turk says grimly.
The world narrows.
I push open the narrow door, and there he is—Daniel, bound and bruised. My heart stutters. Without hesitation, I rush to untie him, my hands trembling.
The moment he's free, I pull him into my arms, holding him tighter than I probably should.
Our eyes lock.
His lips form my name. "Daddy."
And I swear, the world stops breathing.
My boy.
Giuliana's voice can be heard in my earpiece and she's crying. Daniel wraps his arms around me, clutching my leg like he’s making sure I’m real.
“I told you I’d find you,” I whisper.
"I knew you'd come. We made a pinky promise."
"He’s safe," I say into the comm, voice low but razor-sharp. I know Giuliana’s listening—watching from the safehouse. I want her to hear it. To feel it. To believe it.
“He’s safe, Giuliana.” Because I made our son a promise. And in my world— I don’t break promises. I bury anyone who tries to make me.”
"We’ll all be together soon," I vow. "I’m getting you out of here, Daniel."
I lift him, cradling him close.
I turn to Turk, eyes sharp, voice low. “Where’s Gallo I ask Turk.”
“What do you mean gone?” My voice isn’t a question—it’s a growl, sharp enough to cut bone.
“We cleared the holding cells. Blood, two bodies, no Gallo. He slipped out during the breach—must’ve had an inside man.”
Then I turn to Turk. Step in close. Real close.
“Find him.” My voice is low. Final. “I want every street, every rat hole, every goddamn inch of this city covered.” Turk nods, already moving, barking into the comms.
But I’m not done.
“When you find him,” I say coldly, “you put two in his knees, one in his spine. He’s leaving in a fucking body bag.”
The soldiers hear it. They feel it. That’s not just a command—it’s a sentence.
Gallo crossed a line.
And now?
I’m going to erase him.
I clench my teeth. "Double the guards. Hold the hallway.
Outside, more gunfire crackles like thunder. War has arrived.
And this time, it has a name: Moretti.
On the drive back to the safe house, with Daniel curled against my chest like a heartbeat I never knew I was missing, I can’t let him go.
Not because he’s fragile—though right now, he is.
But because if I do, I might fall apart.
I’ve bled for this life. Killed for it. Buried my softness so deep that even I forgot what it felt like to love something more than power.
Until now.
The warmth of his small body against mine is a weight I didn’t know I needed. A tether to something real.
Something of mine. His breath evens out. He trusts me. That blind, aching trust cuts deeper than any blade ever could.
And that’s what terrifies me.
Because now that I have him—I can’t lose him.
Which is why my mind keeps circling back to the one thing that doesn’t add up. The one fracture in all this blood-soaked symmetry:
What does Giuliana know… that even she doesn’t know?
Why did Vittorio—my father—protect her instead of eliminating the threat?
Why did Gallo keep her alive for all these years, even when it would've been easier to make her vanish?
Why did the Families let her go when they've burned people for less?
What was buried in that gallery, in her past… in her?
What secret did they think she carried—so dangerous, so damning—that it was safer for everyone if she forgot it?
And if she remembers?
If she says the wrong thing to the wrong person?
This war we're in now… will look like a mercy.
I tighten my hold on Daniel. My voice is a vow, silent against the night.
“For this to be over… I have to get to the bottom of it.”
And God help anyone who stands in my way.
The safe house gates slide shut behind us with a mechanical groan, sealing us inside a fortress that suddenly feels too quiet. Too clean. The silence after bloodshed is always the loudest.
Leo meets us at the entrance. His eyes flick to Daniel in my arms—then to the blood on my sleeve. He doesn’t ask questions. Just nods and steps aside.
Inside, Giuliana’s waiting.
The moment she sees us, she runs. Her hands tremble as she cups Daniel’s face, brushing away dried blood and dirt. Her voice breaks with his name, cracking from the weight of emotion as she drops to her knees and pulls him tight against her. “Oh my God… Daniel.”
Tears spill from her eyes, and Daniel clings to her with the desperation of a child who’s seen too much. His little hands grab fistfuls of her blouse, like if he holds on hard enough, she’ll never disappear again. “Mommy,” he breathes out, voice shaky and soft. “You came.”
“I told you I would,” she whispers, pressing kisses to his forehead, his cheeks, his hair. Her fingers tremble as she checks for bruises, for cuts, for anything that might’ve hurt him. “I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.”
I can’t look away.
Because this—this is what they tried to take from me.
From us.
She glances up at me, and for a second, everything pauses. The weight of the moment, the sheer devastation of what could’ve happened, crashes over us like a wave. Her eyes—full of love and pain and gratitude—lock onto mine.
“Thank you,” she mouths.
Daniel clutches both of us now, like he’s afraid we’ll vanish if he lets go. Giuliana reaches for my hand and wraps it in hers, drawing me closer into the moment. Our little boy nestled between us, our past bleeding into our present.
And for the first time, it doesn’t feel impossible.
It feels like hope.
Like a family.
She turns into me crying, and we find each other’s mouths—desperate, searching, hungry. The kiss isn’t gentle. It’s raw and unfiltered, born from fear and longing and the overwhelming relief of still being alive.
Her lips taste like salt and tears and something I’ve been starving for since the day she left.
My hands bury in her hair as she gasps against my mouth, and I grip her tight—like if I let go, the universe might find a way to rip her from me again. Her body melts into mine, soft curves pressed to hard lines, and my heart pounds with the need to claim what’s always been mine.
There’s more to come. A fire building. A reckoning between us. But right now, this—this stolen breath of heat—is ours.
She pulls away slowly, brushing Daniel’s curls from his face. “I’m going to clean him up,” she says softly, kissing the top of his head. “And I’m staying with him tonight. Until he’s asleep. He needs to know he’s safe.”
I nod, watching her lead our son down the hall, her body curved protectively around his. And even in the flickering shadows of the safe house, it’s the clearest picture of family I’ve ever seen.
But it’s a picture painted in blood and unfinished business.