The Traitor Inside
────────
My heart pounds with every step—raw, aching, furious.
The box is gone.
I wake up Daniel and tell him to stay put.
I am dressed and out the door, with guards following me towards the war room.
I don’t knock when I reach the door. I don’t have to.
I throw it open, and Luca’s already halfway out of his chair, his eyes narrowing the second he sees my face.
“Guiliana?”
Then I see it sitting on his desk, its contents spread out like a crime scene—ledgers, notes, snapshots of betrayal in black and white.
He’s going through it with Turk putting it in chronological order.
“We need to talk. Now.”
His jaw tightens. He sees it in my eyes—this isn’t about fear anymore. It’s about the truth.
"Everyone out," he says, voice cold steel.
No one questions him. The room empties in under ten seconds, the door clicking shut behind the last man. Then it’s just us.
“I think Vittorio knew what was coming,” I whisper. “I think he was keeping this as leverage. And he made me his failsafe.”
Luca leans back, one hand dragging down his face.
Then he says it.
“Someone inside the family killed my brother. And this—” he gestures to the box, is the evidence.”
I nod. “And they’re moving faster than we are.”
His eyes darken. “Not anymore.”
Luca’s eyes narrow as he flips through the ledger again, faster now. Like he’s memorized every page. Every name. Every debt. His voice is low, but lethal.
“Turk and I are going through every piece of paper and putting it in a chronological order we can understand.”
He snaps the book shut with a crack that echoes like a gunshot through the war room.
Then he looks at me—eyes dark, haunted, and resolved.
“I need you to go and stay with Daniel. No more shadows, no more slipping away in the dark. From this moment on, you don’t move without protection.”
I don’t argue. Not this time.
“Luca…” I reach for him. “What if it’s someone who’s been close this whole time? Someone who’s still inside?”
He nods once. Grim. “That’s why we smoke them out. One by one.”
A heavy silence passes between us.
“I’m going to find out who used my brother’s blood to climb the ladder,” he says. “And when I do…” His jaw flexes, voice dropping to a growl. “They don’t get a trial.”
“Luca,” I whisper, already moving before I think better of it.
I reach for him, and when my fingers graze his arm, he turns.
His mouth is on mine in a second. No hesitation. No mercy.
He kisses me like this might be our last moments together. His hands find my waist, yanking me flush against him, and I gasp as my back hits his desk.
“I can’t protect you if I’m thinking about how you taste,” he growls, dragging his mouth along my jaw. “But fuck, Giuliana… I can’t stop.”
He lifts me without effort, pinning me between him and the desk, every inch of him hard and angry and desperate. His hands are everywhere—clutching, caressing, commanding.
“I need you,” he breathes.
My legs wrap around his hips, instinct taking over. We collide again, mouths frantic, breath ragged. Every brush of his lips against mine is a vow of promises kept. Every thrust of his tongue is an apology for the time we lost.
I grab his face, force him to look at me. “I can’t lose you again Luca. I don’t care what you have to do to protect us.”
I stand up straight, breathless, aching, lips swollen.
But this time, I know what’s at stake.
As I exit the war room, Luca’s men are walking past me almost running back to the table.
The hallway feels colder than it should, lined with ghosts and secrets.
All I can think of is protecting Daniel and praying this ends soon.
—---
Sal is already matching dates, photos and transactions when I close the door. Soon he’ll be checking the surveillance tapes. Guard rotations. Looking for names that shouldn’t be there.
“It’s not the outer perimeter we need to worry about,” Sal mutters, tapping one of the rotation logs. “It’s who was scheduled inside. Close access. Someone on the inside fed them our movement.”
I lean in, scanning the list. My eyes stop on a name.
Gaetano Fiori.
He was loyal. Trained by my brother. But his name was on the gallery surveillance rotation two weeks ago—and again the night Giuliana was followed.
“Where is he now?”
“Disappeared. Two nights ago. Said he was checking in on a lead.”
I slam my fist into the table, papers scattering like ash. “Find him. I want his phone, his family, his fucking shoelaces tracked.”
Turk nods, jaw tight.
“I think someone taught him how to disappear. And I think that someone is still inside my house.”
Because now it’s more than betrayal. It’s blood.
Sal and Leo start working on tracing Gaetano’s whereabouts. Turk radio’s the team to put the word on the street that Gaetano is a wanted man.
Two hours later Turk gets a lead. “One of our soldiers found Gaetano holed up in a burned-out apartment in North Las Vegas, the kind of place people forget exists. No lights. No neighbors.”
He pauses.
“Just enough rot to swallow a man whole.”
Tonight, it's where Gaetano Fiori will answer for his sins.
“Turk let our men know we’re going to get answers. We leave in five.”
I have just enough time to armor up, and tell Guiliana I am heading out with a warning to stay put.
Turk kicks in the door. Splinters fly. I move first, gun drawn, heart hammering.
Gaetano doesn’t run.
“You took your time,” he says, voice dry.
I step in slowly. “Didn’t want to rush your funeral.”
His eyes flick to my gun, then to Turk’s. “You want answers?" I say, voice low and shaky. "I ask myself how did I get this jammed up —but I had no choice.” “I’ll tell you everything, if you leave my family alone and let me take the fall.”
I raise the barrel to his forehead. “It doesn’t work that way for rats.”
His lips twitch. “It wasn’t supposed to go this far. I was just feeding information. Rotations. Patterns. I never meant for Daniel to be taken.”
“You fucking lied to my face,” I growl. “You watched Giuliana get hunted and that she had the box didn’t you?”
He doesn’t answer.
I slam him against the wall. “Who are you working for?”
“Not who,” he chokes out. “What.”
That makes me pause.
Gaetano coughs, blood now at the edge of his mouth. “It’s a network. One your father built. And your brother tried to shut down without the New York family's knowledge.”
I freeze.
He smiles. “And you? You’re just the last piece in a game that was set before you were even made boss.”
The silence that follows Gaetano’s confession is deafening.
My gun stays trained on him, but my trigger finger twitches from restraint, not doubt. My men’s breathing behind me is steady—but tight. We all heard the truth, and now there’s no putting it back in the cage.
“You killed my brother,” I say flatly.
Gaetano’s head drops, but it’s not shame—it’s calculation. He’s already thinking three moves ahead, like the snake he’s always been. “It wasn’t personal, Luca. It was survival.”
“You made it personal.”
He lifts his gaze—smug, even now. “And yet, here you are the newly appointed Boss of the Moretti Empire.”
The rage comes slow, like oil heating under fire, but once it hits, it’s scorching. I close the space between us and slam him into the wall, gun to his temple.
His smirk fades.
“I gave you loyalty,”
“And you gave me lies.”
“You put Guiliana in the crosshairs. You risked my son’s life.”
“I protected the family,” Gaetano hisses. “From her. From you.”
I cock the gun. “You don’t get to define loyalty anymore.”
Before I can decide what happens next, my phone vibrates.
One message. One name. One more betrayal.
I step back, eyes never leaving Gaetano’s face as I read the text.
The sender: Giuliana.
The message: You were right. Vittorio’s files mention a name he circled. One still on your payroll. One close. Too close.
Sal.
The name hits like a sledgehammer to the chest.
And just like that, Gaetano isn’t the only traitor in the room.
Turk looks at me as the echo of the gunshot clings to the walls like smoke, even though I’ve already holstered my weapon.
Gaetano’s body slumps to the floor, crumpling on the worn, dirty carpet as blood pools beneath his temple.
No one says a word.
Sal stood at the door, jaw clenched, eyes unreadable.
Gateano had been like a cousin to me. Trusted. Family.
And he sold us out.
“Burn the body, No funeral. No trace. If his family asks—we say he ran.”
Sal gives a tight nod and turns his back, thinking he’s safe.
Thinking the spotlight’s off him now. That the bullet I put in Gaetano wiped his slate clean.
But I’ve learned better than to trust silence—and right now, my instincts are louder than ever.
His footsteps fade down the hall, but I don’t move.
Because in my world, the ones who walk away calm are usually the ones holding the sharpest knives.
Thinking I won’t do what needs to be done.