Elio
I find Alessio back in the main common area after I finally force myself away from Isabella’s door.
Every step away from that reinforced room is another reminder that she is close enough to reach and still locked away because of the circumstances that have led our paths to collide in the first place. Yet despite all of that, leaving her in there feels like tearing skin from bone.
My brother leans against the wall over by the camera feeds again, arms crossed over his chest, wearing that predatory calm mask like usual. He watches me for a silent moment, his face betraying nothing as my eyes drift up to the feeds to take in the outside perimeter again.
“You disabled the cameras. Care to explain why?” he finally asks.
I don’t answer him and instead bypass him altogether.
My feet carry me down the hallway toward the back room. The last thing I am in the mood for is my brother’s inquisition.
No answer I give will satisfy him and save me from a lecture, that I know for certain. There is nothing I can say that will not eventually become the rope tied around my neck courtesy of Alessio’s own unforgiving hands.
So why bother trying to explain myself?
He follows me down the hallway, silent at my back.
It bothers me more than if he were to shout at me because I know exactly what he is doing. Alessio has always been most dangerous when quiet.
Our father has always used biting comments when he wanted obedience, but my brother learned early on that the absence of that always makes men fill it with their own anxious chatter. Now with each step behind me, I can feel him measuring the tightness of my shoulders and my stride.
Before I get the chance to cross the threshold into the back room, a hand wraps around my arm and yanks me back.
“Elio,” my brother says.
I shove him off. “Don’t.”
He ignores it and grabs me again, this time nearly slamming me against the wall before I twist enough to catch the impact with my shoulder instead of my spine.
The framed security schematics rattle beside my head.
Somewhere beyond us, voices hush in the back room, only picking up after another moment of silence when they think better of moving any farther.
“Then answer me,” Alessio says.
His face is close now, eyes dark and cold, the polished mask cracking just enough for the violence underneath to breathe.
“I have nothing to say,” I growl through my teeth.
His grip tightens on my shirt near the collar. “That is the problem.”
I stare at him.
For one second, we are not underboss and Don’s heir—two grown men standing inside a safehouse surrounded by soldiers and guns and a woman whose existence could detonate half our alliances.
We are boys again, two sons raised under the same roof, taught the same lessons with wildly different outcomes.
“Move,” I tell him, shoving at him again.
“No.”
My hands curl at my sides. “This is not the time to be monitoring me. We both have better things to do.”
“I want to know whether my brother is still capable of thinking with the correct organ.” His voice drops, his hand tightening around the fabric of my shirt.
“You need to get it together. Whatever spell she has you under, it needs to break. We can’t afford for you to get distracted just because some woman you were interested in nearly a decade ago has suddenly reappeared. ”
I laugh, the sound cold. “I’m not distracted. I told you I’d get you the information, but she has nothing. She turned Bianchi down and has had no further contact with him.”
“And you believe a whore like her?” he challenges.
I move before I fully register the motion. My forearm drives into his chest and shoves him back hard enough that he hits the opposite wall with a loud thud. He absorbs the impact with a grunt, the noise turning strained the longer I hold him there.
I look at the man who shares my blood and feel nothing brotherly or tender pulsing through me at the moment, only danger.
There is suddenly a black, very familiar understanding that loyalty in this family has always come with a cost.
What you are willing to lose because of it must be weighed accordingly against all that will eventually be gained.
“Careful,” he murmurs. “That temper has always made you sloppy.”
The urge to hit him is sudden and savage, enough to whiten the edges of my vision with an anger that makes my teeth clench.
I hate him for catching every small piece of weakness within me and turning it around to use against me.
Moreover, I hate myself for even showing it. I know better than to give my brother an easy avenue to torture me.
He sighs at me. “She’s playing you, Elio. Feeding information to Davide while you’re busy imagining playing house with her and that boy.”
I release him with a shove. “She has no access to the outside world. How would she be in communication with Bianchi from inside here? The safehouse is sealed. You know that.”
“What I know,” he says, straightening up slowly, his back still pressed against the wall, “is that you’re letting her get under your skin again the same way she did before Amos died.
Before I had to force you to choose our family over pussy.
With Davide still breathing, we can’t have an unvetted Russo living under our roof.
I will kill them both before she turns you into a damn traitor. ”
Revulsion coils in my gut.
The thought of standing over their bodies, of being the one to order it, let alone being the one forced to carry it out, makes bile rise in my throat.
I have ended men without hesitation, tortured them for less than what Isabella is being accused of.
I have burned entire territories to ash when our syndicate has demanded it.
But the idea of her eyes growing lifeless beneath my watch, of her son’s blood on my hands…
“That is not happening,” I snap. “Killing them serves no purpose except to satisfy your delusional paranoia.”
Alessio’s eyes narrow. “Clearly, you’re still too blinded by her cunt to see the real issues at hand.
We should have killed her the night Amos fell like I suggested.
She should never have been allowed to survive long enough to become Davide’s asset.
Or apparently, a living reminder of how close you came to betraying everything our family has built. ”
Something inside me snaps and I lunge.
My fist connects with Alessio’s jaw with a sickening crack.
He slams against the wall behind him again for a brief moment before coming back swinging, years of shared training turning our fight into a brutal, mirrored battle.
I drive my knee into his ribs, and he slams an elbow into my temple, both of us quickly colliding with the floor.
While we are evenly matched in every way, tonight I fight with something Alessio has never had. The feral need to protect what is mine.
I land another heavy blow to his mouth, splitting the skin. “You touch her or that boy and I will kill you myself.”
Alessio laughs through bloodied teeth, a manic edge bleeding into his voice. “You would choose her over me? Pathetic. She already has you on your knees begging.”
The sound of our violence echoes down the hallway, drawing the attention from every man within the vicinity.
The ones who pour out of the back room wisely stay just inside the doorway, leaving us to finish what we started on our own.
The fight only ends when our father’s voice booms from the doorway.
“Enough!” He is flanked by two of our senior capos, his face carved with disappointment.
Hands pull us apart within seconds, both of our blood coating the floor as we’re dragged in opposite directions. Alessio spits more of it at my feet, his eyes gleaming with barely contained anger.
I shrug off the hands holding me and swipe at my mouth, feeling blood trickling from the corner of it.
Father’s gaze moves between us slowly. “Violence between us solves nothing. Whatever has gotten into you two, solve it. Or else you will both be getting shipped back home and stripped of your duties.”
The threat hangs in the air.
I meet his gaze without flinching, but inside, something fundamental has shifted. For the first time in my life, loyalty to my family’s name has started to feel like chains instead of armor.
There had been a time long ago when I had asked myself if burning the ties to my own blood would be worth the woman I wanted.
Back then, I had never allowed myself to figure out that answer. Now that the choice is being presented to me yet again, I am left with the knife at my throat.