Chapter Twenty-Four
Luis
The training grounds are louder than usual, the sound of bodies hitting mats echoing through the gym alongside shouted instructions and the constant hum of competition.
I barely focus on any of it.
Matteo and Luca are across from me, moving through drills with the kind of precision that only comes from years of training together. Leonardo stands nearby, quieter as always, correcting one of Nathaniel’s knife disarms with visible annoyance every time Nathaniel gets it wrong.
I drag a hand across the back of my neck, my attention shifting automatically towards the other side of the gym.
Carlo is there with Sabrina and her group.
Lillian sits on one of the benches nearby, arms crossed, her expression blank as though she couldn't care less about what's happening around her.
Mario stands beside her, calm and unreadable as always, while Asher is completely invested in the fight, shouting commentary that probably isn't helpful but is clearly entertaining him.
Sabrina is sparring with Elias.
And she's winning.
Easily.
That's the thing that stands out first. Not just the fact that she's beating him, but how unaffected she looks while doing it. Her face is completely blank, her movements controlled and precise, as though she isn't putting any real effort into hurting him.
Elias, on the other hand, looks furious.
Probably because the bruise spreading across the side of his face is still dark from where she punched him at dinner two days ago.
Elias crossed a line that should never have been crossed in the first place.
A sharp impact cuts through the gym, snapping my attention back to the mat. Sabrina sweeps Elias onto the floor hard enough that the sound echoes across the room. Nearby conversations stop immediately. More heads turn, and within seconds, people begin moving towards them.
“What the hell happened now?” Luca mutters, already heading towards the growing crowd.
Matteo and Leonardo move after him without hesitation, and I follow before I consciously decide to. Nathaniel and Tristan fall into step beside me as we push through the crowd gathering around the sparring mats.
Voices overlap around us, curiosity spreading quickly now that this has clearly become more than training.
By the time we reach the front, Elias is already on the floor, and Sabrina is on top of him. She's straddling his waist, pinning him to the mat with practised ease, her breathing steady and controlled in a way that immediately catches my attention.
Too controlled.
Elias manages to get one arm free and tries to push himself up, but she drives a fist into his face before he can rise.
The crack echoes through the gym, sharp enough to silence the room.
Elias falls back against the mat.
No one moves.
Sabrina remains exactly where she is, staring down at him for a moment before leaning forward and saying something quietly enough that only he can hear. I can't make out the words from where I'm standing, but whatever she says changes something instantly.
Shock flashes across Elias's face so suddenly it almost looks like fear.
Real fear.
Sabrina straightens calmly, brushes her hair back as though none of this matters and walks away without looking back once.
For a moment, no one moves after she leaves. The silence hangs over the gym as everyone tries to process what they just watched.
Elias stays on the floor longer than he should, stunned.
His hand slowly presses against his jaw, his expression caught somewhere between pain and disbelief, but it's the look in his eyes that catches my attention most. Whatever she whispered to him got under his skin in a way the punch alone never could have.
Luca lets out a low whistle beside me. “Well,” he mutters, “that definitely escalated.”
“No shit,” Leonardo says flatly.
Matteo doesn't say anything at all. His eyes remain fixed on Sabrina as she crosses the gym, completely unaffected by the dozens of people staring at her.
She doesn't react to the whispers beginning around the room or acknowledge the attention.
She doesn't look back at Elias once, as though he stopped mattering the second she hit him.
Honestly, after what happened two days ago, none of us are surprised she snapped.
Even now, thinking about Dario sitting there in silence after Elias went after him makes something sharp settle in my chest again.
The kid's four years old, and somehow Elias still thought humiliating him was acceptable.
Asher is the first one to move towards Sabrina, grinning like he just watched live entertainment designed specifically for him. Mario follows at a calmer pace, while Lillian pushes herself off the bench without a word.
Carlo gets there before the rest of them. He steps directly into Sabrina's path and says something too low for me to hear. She answers without slowing down, her expression unreadable, but Carlo watches her walk away a second longer than necessary.
“Should we be concerned?” Tristan asks lightly beside me, though his attention stays on Elias.
Nathaniel folds his arms across his chest. “If he's smart, he'll stop talking.”
“He won't,” Luca says immediately.
“No,” Matteo agrees flatly. “He won't.”
Across the gym, Elias finally pushes himself upright, slower this time. His eyes scan the room once before landing briefly on Sabrina's retreating figure.
Then he looks away immediately.
That catches my attention more than anything else.
Yesterday, he looked furious.
Now he just looks unsettled.
Leonardo notices it too. “What the hell did she say to him?”
I can't stop thinking about the expression on Elias's face when she leaned down to whisper in his ear. Like she'd said something he recognised.
Whatever it was, he never told anyone.
***
The meeting takes place beneath the fight club.
Even underground, New York never really goes quiet.
The bass from the music upstairs vibrates faintly through the ceiling, mixing with the distant roar of crowds gathered around the cages above us.
The city is still alive up there – loud, restless and completely unaware of what's happening beneath their feet.
Down here, everything is different – closed off, controlled and designed for things people don't want traced back to them. The lower level of the club has always been used for deals, alliances and threats disguised as conversations. The kind of meetings capable of starting wars before sunrise.
Every mafia family is there.
The Italians sit together on one side of the long table while we take the opposite. The Greeks, French, Irish and Mexicans fill the remaining spaces, tension settling naturally between everyone despite the alliance currently holding things together.
No one here trusts completely.
Not even allies.
The room quiets the second the side door opens.
Morana walks in without hesitation, completely covered. A black bodysuit clings to her frame, the hood pulled over her head while fingerless gloves cover most of her hands. A mask hides the lower half of her face so thoroughly that the only visible part of her is her eyes.
Black.
Actually black.
Immediately, I know they're contacts. No one's eyes naturally look like that.
When I was younger, I used to think they could. I remember asking my father once why mine weren't black after watching some ridiculous television show where every villain had dark eyes. He laughed, sat me on his lap and explained genetics to me like I was old enough to fully understand it.
You got your mother's eyes.
At the time, I hated that answer because I wanted to look exactly like him.
Now people say I do.
Same build. Same features.
Just not the eyes.
Morana takes a seat at the far end of the table like she owns the room, despite technically belonging to none of the families sitting inside it.
No one questions it.
That alone says enough.
Rafael leans back slightly in his chair, his attention fixed entirely on her. “So why did you call this meeting?”
Morana folds her gloved hands together on the table before speaking.
“Andreas,” she says calmly, turning slightly towards my father, “you still have the warehouse in Queens, don't you?”
My father watches her carefully before nodding once. “We do. Why?”
“Well,” she says smoothly, “I just happened to find out that the Russians are planning to attack that warehouse next week. That's why we're here.”
The atmosphere sharpens immediately.
“How did you find out?” I ask, narrowing my eyes slightly.
Her gaze shifts towards me instantly.
Then she smirks.
“Well, pretty boy–”
Beside me, Matteo makes a choking sound that suspiciously sounds like laughter.
My jaw clenches automatically at the nickname.
Morana notices.
“You see,” she continues calmly, “I have my ways of gathering information. I have a team, and they just happened to uncover this little piece of intel for us.”
“And who exactly is this team?” I press. “How do we know they're reliable?”
The room quiets slightly after that.
Morana leans back in her chair, completely unbothered by being questioned. “I know they're reliable,” she says evenly. “You don't need to question me.”
And somehow, no one does.
Not even my father.
That alone says more about her position in this world than anything else tonight.
“Next week,” Morana continues, “Friday night. Midnight sharp. That's when the Russians are planning the attack.”
Her gaze slowly sweeps across the table, meeting each of ours one by one.
“But we won't be sitting around waiting for them.”
Something about the way she says it settles heavily in the room. Cold. Certain.
“We'll be there first,” she says. “And we'll take them out before they even get the chance to try.”
Silence follows briefly before my father finally exhales sharply. “And you're sure about this intel?”
Morana arches one brow slightly. “Would I be telling you this if I wasn't?”
My father runs a hand through his hair before nodding once. “Fair point. What's the plan, then?”
A smirk tugs faintly at the edge of Morana's mouth beneath the mask.
“We set a trap.”
Now she has everyone's full attention.
“They think you're walking into an ambush,” she continues calmly, “but we turn the tables on them.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “And how exactly do we do that?”
“First,” she says, “we make the warehouse look vulnerable. No extra security. Nothing that suggests we know they're coming. We let them walk in believing they've already won.”
Dante nods once from further down the table. “Then what?”
Morana leans forward slightly, black eyes dark beneath the low lighting.
“Then we shut the doors behind them.”
The room goes completely still.
“Once they're inside,” she continues, “we cut off every escape route. Snipers on the rooftops. Armed men in the shadows. We let them realise that they're the ones trapped.”
Rafael grins immediately. “I like it.”
Of course he does.
My father still looks unconvinced. “And what if they bring reinforcements? What if they know it's a trap?”
Morana shrugs lightly. “Then we adapt. We'll have backup in place in case they try anything unexpected.”
She pauses, her black eyes flicking across the room again.
“But trust me,” she says calmly, “by the time they realise what's happening, it'll already be over for them.”