Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Adrian
This is not exactly the way I wanted to meet Luca Conti for the first time.
Not that there was ever going to be a good version of it. Men like Luca Conti are not the sort you casually shake hands with over coffee and a tray of pastries.
But if I’d had a choice, I would have preferred something that didn’t involve blood soaking through my shirt, and his youngest daughter alternating between white-faced with fear and white-faced with fury.
The SUV rolls through the gates of Luca’s house just after midnight.
Caterina is in the backseat with Olivia, furious that I made her sit back there while I drove with a gunshot wound.
Olivia is next to her, wisely silent. She does, however, have her phone in her hand, and I assume, is still working because, apparently, almost getting killed and then riding away from a casino shooting does not earn a night off.
Or maybe that’s just how they survive. Keep moving. Keep sorting the next thing. Don’t think too long about the stairwell and the bodies cooling in it.
The pressure dressing Caterina improvised in the conference room is doing its job well enough to keep me from painting the inside of the SUV red, but every bump in the drive sends a deep, hot throb through my side.
Through and through is better than lodged.
Better than organ damage. Better than a dozen other outcomes I’ve seen up close.
Still hurts like hell.
I keep my hand braced over the bandage anyway and look out the windshield as the house comes into view.
I’ve seen it before from my own research from last year, but seeing it like this is different. The place is lit up at the front, all stone and glass and expensive, but there is nothing calm about it tonight. Cars already line the circular drive.
And I know my own people are the ones standing guard here tonight.
Not family men.
Mine.
That matters to me.
The silhouettes at the perimeter shift just enough when they recognize the SUV, hands near weapons, eyes scanning the drive, the tree line, the approach. Good posture. Good spacing.
Just as I expect from them.
But I know that what's comforting to me must feel strange for them because the men who would usually close ranks around this house tonight are elsewhere.
Either taking care of the problem at the casino or not trusted enough to be here.
I bring the SUV to a stop at the base of the steps, and before the engine is even fully dead, two of my best appear before it, and I know two more flank it.
I kill the engine and take one quick look in the mirror.
Caterina is already unbuckling herself before I can say a word. Olivia has one hand braced against the seat, the other still holding her phone, her face pale but composed.
Neither woman looks like she belongs in the back of an armored SUV after a shooting. That’s the ugly thing about violence. It doesn’t care who it comes after.
The doors on my car don't open unless I unlock them personally. I open my own door, and one of my men, Andrew, appears at my side.
“Boss.”
His gaze drops immediately to the blood on my shirt, then flicks past me to the backseat.
“Everyone accounted for?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I get out slowly enough not to tear something worse inside my side, and the pain flashes hot enough to make my jaw lock for a second. One of the men notices. Of course he does. He doesn’t comment on it. Good man.
I tilt my chin toward the women in the back and hand my keys over. He nods and steps back to take care of escorting them to the front door.
Caterina is out the moment the door is open, back to furious, despite being barefoot and with a blanket around her shoulders. Olivia steps out after her more carefully, one of my men immediately shifting closer without crowding her.
Andrew falls in on Caterina’s right, and another of my men takes Olivia’s left, both of them close enough to cover, far enough not to crowd. The other two tighten the perimeter and keep their eyes out while the women are escorted up the steps and straight to the front door.
I follow a few steps behind, slower because of the wound, one hand braced over the bandage, eyes moving over the yard, roofline, lit windows, tree line, and approach while the escort takes them all the way inside.
Only once Andrew has them at the door does he knock and identify us. Then, and only then, does the lock disengage from inside.
Not one of my people.
That tells me they didn’t want my people inside the house. Fine. That’s their call. The perimeter is covered, the approach is covered, and if anyone tries this property tonight, they’re going to have a much worse time than the idiots at the casino did.
Vito’s eyes go first to Caterina, then Olivia, then me.
The moment they land on the blood soaking through my shirt, his expression goes flat in an anger I recognize instantly.
“Inside,” he says.
No greeting. No wasted breath.
Caterina brushes past him first, still running on adrenaline and fury both. Olivia follows more carefully. I step in last, and the second the door shuts behind us, the house feels different from the drive—warmer, brighter, full of people and tension layered so thick it’s almost another climate.
I recognize Luca Conti immediately. And would have even without a picture.
Power like that doesn’t need an introduction.
He’s not the biggest man in the room. Not the loudest either. He doesn’t bark orders or rush forward or fill the space with noise. He just appears, and the whole center of gravity of the scene shifts toward him.
Dark eyes. A face cut from authority and age and something colder underneath it. He takes one look at Caterina, one look at the blanket around her shoulders, one look at me bracing a hand against my side, and the air around him changes.
He goes straight to Caterina.
One hand comes up to her face, then her shoulder, quick and fierce, checking with his eyes and his hands at the same time that she is upright, breathing, whole.
He murmurs something in Italian, the words low and fierce, a father’s prayer against every dark thing that almost touched his daughter tonight.
Then he pulls her into a hard embrace.
Not graceful. Not restrained. Fierce enough that even from across the foyer, I can see it for what it is.
Relief.
Caterina goes stiff for half a second, still too wound up to sink into it, then her hands come up and clutch at his jacket.
“I’m fine,” she says, her voice shaking for the first time all night, the fury and the adrenaline finally cracking enough to let the fear through. “I’m fine, Papà.”
Elena is at Olivia’s side, one hand on her arm, the other reaching instinctively toward her stomach as if she needs to confirm for herself that both mother and baby are here and breathing.
Luca’s gaze shifts to Olivia. “And you, tesoro?”
Olivia lifts her chin. “A little shaken. I wasn’t anywhere near it.”
There's a whole group of other people standing behind them, waiting their turn.
Vibrating with questions, I can practically feel it. But they hold their tongues.
Until Teresa finally makes her way to the front and sees me.
Her eyes go straight to the blood on my shirt, and all the color drains out of her face.
“Oh my God, Adrian.”
Then she closes the distance fast, already reaching for me.
“It’s all right,” I say, already anticipating.
But she’s having none of that.
“No, it’s not,” she says incredulously. “Get in here.”
Then she just takes matters into her own hands and hooks her hand around my forearm and starts dragging me farther into the foyer like I’m still sixteen and scraped my knee instead of thirty-eight and bleeding through from a bullet wound.
I let her get away with exactly three steps before I brace my feet.
“Teresa.”
She stops, looks back at me, and for one second, I get the full force of furious cousin, not cool professional.
“You got shot.”
“So they keep reminding me.”
“That is not funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
Behind us, somebody makes a sound that might be a laugh and knows better than to let it become one.
Teresa ignores all of them. “You are not standing in the middle of the foyer pretending this is a minor inconvenience.”
“It’s not a minor inconvenience,” I say. “It’s a gunshot wound. I’m still vertical. Priorities.”
Her eyes narrow. “You don’t get to say ‘priorities’ to me like I’m one of your employees.”
“No,” I say. “But I do need to brief my employees.”
She puts her hands on her hips and narrows her eyes at me.
“I may not be a trained military officer or bodyguard or mafia man or whatever, but I'm willing to bet with that bullet hole in you, I could probably kick your ass.”
Behind me, I hear a laugh that I just know is Vito.
“All right, none of that,” another voice cuts in.
Elena.
“You.” She points at me. “You get one minute to brief your people. Then you come right back in and let me fix you up. Everybody else, inside. Shoo.”
Everyone else starts moving back to the living room, and Elena turns to me and holds up one finger. “One minute. I mean it. Or I let Teresa loose on you. Got it?”
Every smart man has to know when he’s been outgunned.
“Yes, ma’am.”