Chapter 12 A Firewall
A FIREWALL
Matteo
Gemini Tower’s lobby gleams like money that never sleeps. I saunter in, mask firmly in place despite the shit night of sleep I had. Minka at reception clocks me the second the doors hiss open, mouth shaping into the kind of smile that used to be my favorite sport.
“Mr. Rossi.” Her gaze drags over me slowly. “You look… busy.”
I remember the night on her sofa, her perfume and the after-hours laugh, but it flashes and dies. She’s one of the names on my list, one of the meaningless faces I used to call for a good time. Now, all I can see is copper hair and a sun-drenched beach. All I can taste is the word almost.
“Hold my calls, Minka.” I keep my eyes down and sign the log with a flourish I don’t feel.
“Always,” she purrs, a hand brushing mine. It lands on bone, not blood. I can see her batting her lashes at me, but I ignore it.
Mercifully, Ale appears from the elevator bank a second later, in all black and sharper than the marble lining the floor. He takes one look at my face and steers me toward the private lift.
“We should loop in our fathers,” he says under his breath. “Not just about La Spada Nera, but about the shooter on your ass. And Serena—”
“I know.” I jab the keycard, doors sliding shut. “Just not yet.”
His brows notch. “Why not?”
Because I don’t want them folding my femme fatale into a problem set and solving her. Not until I do. Because the second Nico and Marco Rossi taste blood, they’ll raze the city to salt.
“Call it instinct,” I whisper. “Give me forty-eight hours.”
“Matty…” He rubs his jaw, all leader and older brother at once. “You’re asking me to sit on a live grenade.”
“It won’t blow.” I meet his eyes. “Not if I’m holding it.”
He studies me, doesn’t like it, and nods anyway. “Forty-eight hours, cuz.”
I give him a sharp nod.
“You sure you’re okay?” He eyes me like only he can.
“I’m fine.”
I don’t speak another word until Papà’s executive assistant opens the doors to the boardroom a few minutes later.
It’s cut from the same block as a judge’s bench.
Floor-to-ceiling glass. Skyline like a trophy case.
Our fathers sit at either end of the table—Nico Rossi, my papà, in slate, cool as winter and Marco Rossi in navy, warmth that has edges.
Gemini and Valentino capos line the sides.
Antonio leans in a corner like a rumor with a pulse and Raf scrolls a tablet, bored on purpose.
The Ferraras have recently joined our ranks, and I must admit, they’re a good addition.
“Finally,” Uncle Marco grumbles. “We were about to start without you.”
“We almost did,” Papà answers, eyeing me. “Sit.”
I slide into my chair and jack in, a laptop, phone, and the quiet network that answers only to me. A wall screen blooms with a heat map of our infrastructure: ports, warehouses, shell companies and a constellation of legit enterprises that keep the rest clean.
Giorgio, the head of our digital security, a thin man with the soul of a safe, taps his pen. “We logged a spike at 02:13. Four separate probes. Same signature across nodes in TriBeCa, the Red Hook warehouse, and the Mayfair office in London. Brief. Surgical.”
“Proof-of-life, not smash and grab,” one of the other tech guys cuts in, arms crossed.
“La Spada Nera.” I say the name before the room can breathe. “It smells like them.”
Alessandro shifts beside me, his unease radiating from the sharp black suit.
A murmur rolls through the table. La Spada Nera, the Black Blade, was an up-and-coming crime syndicate until Alessandro nearly decimated their ranks a few months ago when he thought they shot at Rory.
Turns out, it was the Quinlans. We’ve all been waiting for the backlash, and now, it looks like it’s here.
Stefano, one of Marco’s men who tracks European chatter, lifts a shoulder. “We’ve had eyes on them since Christmas. Same discipline. Same patience. Their guy in Long Island went silent last week, which usually means he’s working. Or dead.”
“Have they infiltrated any of our routes?” Marco asks.
“Port manifests are clean,” Raf chimes in. “Customs flagged nothing unusual. Either they ghosted the inspectors or they weren’t after our freight.”
“Financials?” Papà.
“Clear. Our payment rails show no exfiltration,” Giorgio says. “If this was recon, they were mapping the corridors, not the vault.”
“They’re looking for doors,” Ale concludes. “And for who opens them.”
I should say something clever about zero-day exploits, about IMEI churn, about the burner handsets that ping around our properties like moths. Instead, the air tastes like wet concrete and gun oil. The alley presses in, the assassin’s blue eyes…
“Earth to Matteo.” Papà’s voice stays at normal volume, which is never good. “Are you here with us, figlio, or are you writing lines of code in your head again?” That ripple of amusement doesn’t quite touch his eyes.
“Here.” I sit up and snap the cursor to life.
I pull up packet captures and freeze the signature.
“It’s a three-stage feeler. External ping from a disposable VPS in Bucharest, pivoting to a Tor exit in Amsterdam, then a final handshake from a New Jersey residential block.
Probably a compromised router. They wanted us to see their shadow and not their face.
We’ll set honeypots on every path they touched and move the crown jewels to the cold vault.
Meanwhile I’ll seed a canary credential and let them steal it. ”
“And when they do?” Uncle Marco asks.
I allow myself a smile. “It points to a sandbox that looks like our London treasury. They’ll think they’ve got a lever, and we’ll have their hand.”
“Good,” my father says, satisfaction quick and tempered. Then he leans forward, elbows on mahogany. “But I asked another question. Can you handle it?”
The room narrows to a heartbeat. To copper hair. To a choice I haven’t made yet that’s already changed everything.
“I’m on it.” I’m impressed with the steadiness in my tone. “I’ll lock down the breach, salt the trail, and bring you a name.”
Ale watches me like he knows I’m holding two knives behind my back.
Marco and Nico exchange one of those ancient glances that built empires and buried enemies.
Antonio flicks me a look that says he’ll back my play, even if he doesn’t like it.
Raf yawns and texts his favorite pastry chef to bring cannoli for the debrief because my cousin’s boyfriend solves morale with sugar.
“Then go,” he orders. “And Matteo—”
“Yes, Papà?”
He holds the room with one finger. “Don’t let this become a pride exercise. If you need bodies, you take them. If you need to call your Uncle Dante to deal with La Spada, call him. I am not burying any bodies, especially my son’s, because you wanted to win pretty.”
The word son lands, heavy and warm. It should ground me. It doesn’t. It just makes the ache louder.
“Capito,” I reply.
I gather my tech, the ghosts in my chest, and stand. The meeting blurs into movement, chairs scraping, plans subdividing. There are ports to lock, routes to audit, and favors to pull. Ale falls in beside me at the door.
“Forty-eight hours,” he reminds softly. “Then the family gets the whole story.”
“Forty-eight,” I echo, already calculating traps for strangers and one for a girl with a gun who didn’t pull the trigger.
Minka is still at reception when we exit the elevator. She tilts her head, expectant. I give her a polite smile I don’t feel and keep moving. There’s a blade in the city with my name on it and a shadow that smells like sea salt and nineteen. The breach I can fix.
It’s the hunger I don’t know how to firewall.