Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Bruno
The gym is empty.
I grip the parallel bars and my arms shake. My jaw aches from clenching. Every muscle in my body screams for release—for violence, for destruction, for something to break beneath my hands.
Nico's words echo in my skull like gunshots.
I pull myself up from the wheelchair. My legs tremble beneath me. Weak. Useless. Dead weight that refuses to obey.
And those aren't the same thing.
"Fuck." The word tears from my throat.
I stand. One second. Two. Three.
My right leg buckles.
I catch myself on the bars, arms straining, breath coming in ragged gasps. Sweat drips down my temples. My heart pounds against my ribs like it's trying to escape.
Four seconds. Five.
My left leg gives out.
I crash back into the wheelchair, the impact jarring my spine. Pain shoots through my lower back.
Nico is right.
The thought burns like acid.
He's right, and I hate him for it. Hate myself more for knowing it's true.
I don't want to lead. I want to prove I'm still the man I was. I want to prove that the bullet didn't destroy everything. That I'm not broken beyond repair.
But I am.
I am broken.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
I ignore it.
It buzzes again. And again.
"What?" I snarl into the receiver.
"Sir." Liam's voice is calm. Professional. Steady as always. "We found him."
I go still.
"Romano?"
"Yes, sir. He was trying to get back to Chicago. One of our contacts spotted him at a bus station in Indiana. He's in custody now."
My grip tightens on the phone. "Where is he?"
"En route. ETA forty minutes."
I close my eyes. Breathe.
I need answers.
"Bring him to Lorenzo's restaurant." The words come out cold. Controlled. "The private room in the back."
"Understood. Should I inform Pietro?"
"No." I open my eyes. "This is my problem. I'll handle it."
A pause. "Sir, with respect—"
"Did I stutter, Liam?"
Another pause. Longer this time.
"No, sir. I'll have him there within the hour."
"Good." I hang up before he can say anything else.
My hands are shaking.
Eraldo Romano ran. He ditched his security detail, abandoned his phones, and tried to disappear. The question is why. What spooked him? What made him think running was better than facing whatever consequences awaited him in New York?
I need to know.
More importantly, I need to know where he went. Who he talked to. What he told them.
Because if Eraldo Romano has been running his mouth about the Sartori family then we have a much bigger problem than a gambling addict with impulse control issues.
I wheel myself toward the door.
Voices.
I stop.
The living room is ahead. The door is open. And I can hear Antonella's voice, soft and warm, mixed with another voice I don't recognize.
Younger. Higher. Excited.
Gianna.
I should l go straight to the garage and head to Lorenzo's restaurant. Should deal with Eraldo and figure out what the hell is going on before I face anyone else.
But my hands are already moving. Wheeling me forward. Toward the sound of Antonella's voice.
I stop in the doorway.
Antonella stands near the windows. She's wearing a soft green sweater that matches her eyes and jeans that hug her curves. Her face is animated, alive, as she talks to the girl beside her.
Gianna Romano.
I study her.
She's small. Taller than Antonella by several inches, with the same dark hair their father has. Her features are softer, rounder, still holding the last traces of baby fat in her cheeks. She looks young. Too young. Despite being nineteen, she could pass for fifteen or sixteen.
Where Antonella carries herself with quiet strength, Gianna bounces on her heels like a child. Her hands move constantly as she talks, gesturing wildly, her voice rising and falling with dramatic emphasis.
"—and then Oliver said the funniest thing, you should have heard him, Nella, I almost died laughing—"
"Gianna." Antonella's voice is patient. Fond. "Breathe."
"I am breathing! I'm just excited!" Gianna grabs Antonella's hands. "I missed you so much. The house is so quiet without you. Claudio barely talks, and Papa—"
She stops.
Her expression shifts. The excitement drains away, replaced by something darker. Older.
"Papa still isn't answering his phone." Gianna's voice drops.
"Gianna." My voice cuts through the room.
Both women spin toward me.
Antonella's eyes widen.
Gianna stares at me with open curiosity. Her gaze drops to my wheelchair, then back to my face. No pity in her expression. No fear either. Just... interest.
"You're Bruno." She says it like a statement, not a question.
"I am."
"Antonella's husband."
"Yes."
Gianna tilts her head. Studies me the way a child might study a new toy.
"You're older than I remember from the wedding."
"Gianna!" Antonella's voice is sharp.
"What? He is!" Gianna shrugs. "I thought he'd be, like, thirty. He's got gray in his hair."
I feel my jaw tighten.
Antonella steps forward, positioning herself between us. "Bruno, this is my sister Gianna. Gianna, please try not to insult my husband within the first thirty seconds of meeting him."
"I wasn't insulting him." Gianna's eyes stay on mine. "Gray hair is distinguished. That's what Oliver says, anyway."
A laugh escapes me.
"Distinguished." I repeat the word, testing it. "That's one way to put it."
Gianna recovers quickly. "See? He's not offended."
"That doesn't mean you should—"
"It's fine." I wave a hand, cutting Antonella off. "She's not wrong. I am old."
The memory surfaces unbidden. Vittoria at eighteen, sitting across from me at Sunday dinner, her nose wrinkled in disgust as she complained about one of her professors.
"He's ancient, Bruno. Like, forty-something. Practically ready for a coffin."
I'd laughed then too. Told her she'd understand when she got older. She'd rolled her eyes and insisted she would never be that decrepit.
Now she's married to a Russian who's as old as I am.
Strange, how that works.
Every child in the world races toward adulthood. They count the days until their next birthday, desperate to add another year. They lie about their age, rounding up instead of down. They dream of being grown, of being taken seriously, of escaping the prison of childhood.
And then they arrive.
They reach the age they once thought ancient. They look in the mirror and see gray hair, lines around their eyes, a body that doesn't move the way it used to. They realize that forty isn't the end of life—it's barely the middle.
But by then, it's too late.
The years they wished away are gone. The childhood they couldn't wait to escape becomes a memory they'd give anything to reclaim.
I spent my youth preparing to lead if needed. Training. Learning. I never had time to be young. Never had the luxury of wishing my years away because every moment was already claimed.
And now I'm forty.
Sitting in a wheelchair.
Watching my wife's sister call me old.
"Bruno?"
Antonella's voice pulls me back.
She's watching me with those green eyes. Concern flickers in their depths. She noticed me drifting.
"I need to go out." I straighten in my chair. "A few hours. Business."
"Okay." She nods once. "Be careful."
Two words. Simple. Direct.
They hit me harder than they should.
My brothers care. I know they do. But they show it differently. They show it by testing me, challenging me, pushing me to prove I'm still capable. They show it by treating me like a problem to be solved rather than a person to be protected.
Antonella just... asks me to be careful.
Like it's the most natural thing in the world.
"I will."
Gianna watches the exchange with obvious interest. Her eyes dart between us, taking in every detail. She's young, but she's not stupid. She sees something in the way Antonella looks at me. Something in the way I look back.
"Are you going to do something dangerous?" Gianna asks.
"Gianna." Antonella's voice carries a warning.
I wheel back laughing. I like Gianna. She has spirit.
Antonella
I watch Bruno wheel away toward the garage, his shoulders set with tension. Whatever business he's handling, it's serious.
"He's intense." Gianna's voice pulls me back. "Like, really intense."
"He is."
"But you like him."
I turn to face my sister.
"What makes you say that?"
"The way you looked at him just now." Gianna shrugs. "Like you were worried."
I don't have an answer for that.
Because she's right.
"Come on." I take Gianna's hand. "Let me show you around."
We walk through the compound together. I point out the dining room where the family gathers for meals, the kitchen where Giulia rules with an iron fist, the gardens I've started visiting in the mornings when the air is still cool.
Gianna absorbs everything with wide eyes. She touches the expensive artwork on the walls, runs her fingers along the marble countertops, stares at the crystal chandeliers like they might be made of actual diamonds.
"This place is insane," she whispers. "Like, actually insane. How do you not get lost?"
"I got lost three times in the first week."
"Seriously?"
"Ended up in the wine cellar once. Took me twenty minutes to find my way back."
Gianna laughs. The sound is bright and familiar, and something in my chest loosens. I've missed this. Missed her.
"There's a library," I tell her. "You'd love it. Floor-to-ceiling books, comfortable chairs, these huge windows that look out over the gardens."
"Show me."
We turn down the hallway that leads to the east wing. The library is at the end, behind heavy wooden doors that always feel like they're guarding something precious.
I push the doors open.
And stop.
A woman stands in the middle of the room.
She's small, with her hair pulled back in a messy bun and circles under her eyes that speak of sleepless nights. Her skin is pale, almost gray, and she's wearing what looks like pajamas under an oversized cardigan.
But when she sees me, her face transforms.
"Antonella." Her voice is rough, tired, but warm. "Oh thank God, a human being."
"Nora." I step forward. "I didn't know you were—"