Chapter 33 Luca #2
“You gave the order to kill Natalia because they took Santino, and you wanted Kozlov to feel the same thing. I get it. But you were wrong about one thing. Anton Kozlov doesn’t love his daughter.
She’s not his Santino. She’s a line item in a business deal.
You could have killed her and he would have been angry about the lost alliance, not the lost child.
It wouldn’t have touched him the way Santino’s death touched you. ”
Nobody speaks. I can hear the ice shifting in his untouched drink across the room.
“You sanctioned killing a woman who never touched this family because you were grieving and you wanted blood, and I’m telling you there’s a better way to make the Bratva answer for what they did.
A way that doesn’t require murdering the one person willing to hand us the keys to Anton’s entire operation. ”
The silence is a living thing. My legs want to move. Pace, shift, anything. I lock my knees and stay planted.
My stomach drops hard.
Lorenzo doesn’t move at first. Then he turns his head, slowly, just enough to look at me over his shoulder.
It’s not a full look. It doesn’t need to be.
I’ve seen men go white under less.
“Be careful, Luca.”
My mouth is dry, but I hold his gaze. “I am.”
He turns to face me fully then, expression flat enough to freeze a room.
“No,” he says. “You’re young enough to think understanding a man’s pain gives you the right to explain it back to him.”
That lands like a slap. Because he isn’t shouting. If he shouted, I could push back. This is worse.
“Do you know what grief does, Luca?” His voice loses its hard edge.
I say nothing.
“It strips a man down to instinct.” His voice is the same, controlled, measured. But there’s a texture underneath it I’ve never heard before. Something worn thin. “And instinct, in our world, is rarely merciful.”
There’s no apology in it. No softness. But something in the room shifts anyway.
He isn’t looking at me now. He’s looking somewhere through me, through the walls, maybe all the way back to the night Santino died.
“For a while,” Lorenzo says, “all I wanted was blood. I didn’t especially care whose, so long as Kozlov understood the cost of touching my family.”
That’s the closest thing to an admission I have ever heard from his mouth. It costs him. I can see it in the hard set of his shoulders, the way each word seems chosen against his own instincts.
I swallow thickly.
The mask slides into place again, but not perfectly. Not all the way.
“That does not mean your judgment is beyond question,” he says.
“Didn’t say it was.”
I don’t push further.
From the wall, Paolo speaks for the first time. “The Restrepo connection is real, Lorenzo.” His voice is even, unhurried. “I’ve heard the name in the same circles. If Anton’s moving toward an alliance, an intercepted shipment could fracture it before it’s built. The logic is sound.”
My father looks at me, and the expression on his face isn’t anger anymore. It isn’t warmth, either. It’s something closer to recalibration. Like a man looking at a tool he’d underestimated and realizing, reluctantly, that it’s the right one for the job.
“What does she need from us?” he asks.
“Ease the pressure. Pull back enough that Kozlov brings her home. He sent her to the Outer Banks because he wanted her out of the way before the deal finalizes. If it cools down, he’ll want her back for the wedding.
And once she’s inside that house, she can get us details on the shipment. Route, timeline, who’s handling it.”
Lorenzo watches me for another long beat. Then he nods. Once.
“I’ll ease the pressure.” He moves toward his chair, and the shift in his posture is subtle but unmistakable.
“Not because I enjoy being manipulated by my youngest son’s hormones.
Not because I suddenly trust Anton Kozlov’s daughter.
And certainly not because I approve of the way any of this unfolded. ”
Fair enough.
“We ease off enough to make Kozlov think the temperature has dropped.”
Relief hits hard and mean. It leaves me almost dizzy.
Walking to the table, Dario sets his glass down. “You’re serious.”
“I’m making a tactical adjustment,” my father says coolly. “Try to keep up.”
Paolo’s mouth twitches.
Lorenzo looks back at me. “In return, I want something real. Not your instincts. Not her tears. Not the glow of young love.” His tone turns razor-thin. “Something concrete from inside that house. A date. A location. A name attached to the shipment. Anything I can move on. And I want it soon.”
I nod once. “You’ll get it.”
His expression says he is not remotely interested in my confidence. “You are attached to this now, Luca. Entirely. If this goes sideways, if she plays you, if Kozlov turns this into a trap, it will be your failure to account for.”
There was a time that word would have slid under my skin and stayed there.
Now it just sounds like the truth.
“Understood,” I say.
He studies me for another long second. Then, very slightly, he inclines his head.
That settles it.
He sits. Picks up his espresso. Takes a sip like the last twenty minutes didn’t happen.
“You’ve changed,” he says without looking up.
I wait for the rest of it. The qualifier, the warning, the part where he tells me that’s not a good thing. It doesn’t come.
I don’t know what to do with that. So I take it with me and leave.
Dario catches my eye on the way out. He doesn’t look pissed anymore. He doesn’t say anything. Just holds the look for a second longer than necessary.
Back out on the casino floor, I pull out my phone. The text is simple. It’s done. He’s easing off.
My thumb hovers.
Because once that pressure lifts, there’s nothing stopping Kozlov from calling Natalia home.
I won the argument.
But I can’t shake the feeling that I just helped deliver her to the wolf myself.