Chapter 49
Carter’s phone rings, and the whole office goes still. Not quiet. Still. There’s a difference. Quiet means no one is talking. Still means every man in the room has stopped breathing for the same reason.
Matteo.
The auction clock on Dom’s laptop hit zero eight minutes ago.
Eight fucking minutes of nothing. Eight minutes of Dom trying to pull anything useful from the site without tipping off the wrong people.
Eight minutes of Landon watching money routes like one of those numbers might tell us whether Olivia is still breathing.
Eight minutes of Logan standing behind the desk with his jaw locked and his eyes on me more than the screens, like he knows how close every second brings me to forgetting why I agreed to stay controlled.
Carter looks at the screen. Then at Logan. Logan gives one short nod. Carter answers and puts it on speaker. No one speaks first.
A soft crackle fills the room.
Then Matteo Vittorio’s voice comes through, smooth and controlled, like he’s calling from a dinner reservation instead of the edge of hell. “It’s done.” Two words.
That’s all.
They hit the room like a bullet that hasn’t reached flesh yet.
Carter’s hand tightens around the phone. “You won?”
“I said it’s done,” Matteo replies. “The bid was accepted. Funds transferred. Confirmation received.”
My vision narrows. Funds transferred. Bid accepted. Confirmation received. Business words. Clean words. Words that make me want to put my fist through the desk again because every one of them means the same thing.
Olivia was sold.
The room doesn’t relax. No relief comes. Not from me. Not from anyone. Because sold does not mean safe. Sold does not mean home. Sold means the system processed her. Sold means some fucker behind a screen took payment for my woman like she was an item on a manifest.
My hand curls against my thigh. Not enough to shake. Enough to feel bone under skin.
Logan steps closer to the desk. “Where?”
Matteo pauses. Not long. Long enough to remind every man in this room he is giving information because he chooses to. “Inventory will be delivered to my residence tomorrow at ten p.m.”
Inventory.
The word changes the air.
Cain mutters, “Motherfucker.”
Blaze’s head drops for half a second, his hands braced against his hips, like he’s trying not to explode through his own skin.
Joker smiles. It’s the kind of smile that belongs nowhere near sane men.
I don’t move. I don’t speak. I take the information and set it where it goes.
Tomorrow. Ten p.m. Matteo’s residence.
A delivery. A transfer. A chance. A new battlefield.
Logan’s answer is immediate. “We’ll be there at nine.” Not a request. Not a suggestion. Command. That’s Logan. President. Father. Husband. Brother. He hears a location and builds force around it. It’s instinct. It’s what we do.
I’m already ahead of him in my head. Vehicles staged out of sight. Front perimeter. Rear entry. Snipers if the property allows it. Intercept the van before it reaches the gate. Kill the men. Cut her out. Burn whatever comes behind them.
“No,” Matteo says. One clean word.
The office turns hostile in the space of a breath.
Shadow’s head lifts.
Hammer’s eyes cut to the phone.
Blaze looks like he’s about to say something stupid enough to get us all in trouble.
Logan stills. “No?”
“No,” Matteo repeats, calmer than he should be. “You will not be at my home at nine. You will not be near my gates. You will not be visible from any route leading into my property.”
Carter’s voice sharpens. “You don’t give orders to this club.”
“If you want her alive, I do.”
Silence. Hard.
Every man in the room feels that one.
I step closer to the desk. Logan’s eyes flick to me, warning. I ignore him and look at the phone like Matteo can see me through it. “You explain that.”
A faint breath comes over the speaker. Almost amusement. Almost approval. “The collars,” Matteo says. “You saw one, yes?”
My jaw tightens. Olivia’s throat. Metal. The thought lands like a blade dragged over bone.
“Yes,” Dom answers, his voice tighter than before.
Matteo’s tone turns clinical. “They are not props. They are designed for control during presentation, transport, and delivery. Internal blades are pressure-triggered, remotely armed, and monitored through proximity routines. Some are simple. Some are not. This operation uses the kind that punishes irregularity.”
Blaze says, “Irregularity?”
“Unexpected stops. Route deviation. Signal disruption. Panic movement. Visible threat. Anything that suggests the transfer is compromised.”
The room goes colder.
Matteo continues. “You show up early, you don’t get a fight. You get a body.”
Something in me goes completely still. Not calm. Deadly.
He keeps talking, and every word forces my instincts into a smaller, sharper cage.
“You charge the transport, a handler presses a button. You shoot the wrong man before the collar is disarmed, a handler presses a button. You block the route, they believe the buyer set them up, and they press a button.”
I don’t breathe. No one does.
“They built this,” Matteo says, “so men like you cannot simply run in and break furniture until the problem goes away.”
Joker’s voice is quiet. “Shame.”
Matteo ignores him.
Logan’s jaw works once. “You can disarm it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“They will hand me the remote once delivery is complete.”
I want to rip the phone in half. Instead, I stand still. Because Olivia needs me useful. Because if that collar is real the way he says it is, then every instinct I have could kill her. That is the cruelest part. Not the waiting. Not the debt.
This.
Knowing the thing I do best is the one thing I cannot do.
Matteo’s voice settles into something colder. “You don’t charge this. You follow it.”
Logan doesn’t answer immediately. He’s thinking past rage.
Matteo continues, “My tech, Alessandro, will be linked with Dom before the transfer. Real-time information. Signals. Cameras. Tracking overlays. If the system opens a door, Alessandro will see it, and your man will see it with him.”
Dom leans closer. “I’ll need secure access.”
“You’ll have it.”
“I don’t run blind on another man’s feed.”
“Then don’t. Run parallel. Alessandro will share what he sees. You verify what you can. I expect nothing less.”
Dom’s expression shifts a fraction. Not trust. Professional recognition.
“Who will have eyes on the van?” Carter asks.
Matteo’s voice changes slightly at the name. Not softer. More certain. “My enforcer, Nico. He will tail the transport after the drop.”
I glance at Logan.
He hears it too.
After.
Not before.
“Nico maintains distance,” Matteo says. “He follows once the girls are inside my home and the transport believes the transaction is complete. No interference until the collar is removed and the delivery team leaves my property.”
“We can tail too,” Shadow says.
“No,” Matteo answers.
Shadow’s face doesn’t change, but the room tightens.
Matteo goes on. “Your men ride like bikers even when you put them in vans. You look for threats by becoming one. That has uses. This is not one of them.”
Blaze mutters, “I hate that he’s not wrong.”
Hammer grunts.
Matteo says, “This isn’t a bar fight. This is a system. Act like it.” The insult should set the room off. It doesn’t. Because it’s too close to true. We are good at war. This is war too. But a different kind before the blood starts.
Logan looks at Dom. “You can work with his tech?”
Dom’s mouth tightens. “If he’s as good as Matteo thinks he is.”
“He is,” Matteo says.
Dom snorts once. “Humble crew you run.”
“Humble men die poor.”
Joker smiles again. “I really might like him.”
“You shouldn’t,” Carter says.
“Probably not.”
Matteo keeps control of the line like he owns the room. “My home is not a war zone.” There it is. The boundary.
Logan’s eyes darken.
Mine do too.
Matteo continues before anyone speaks. “Olivia will be safe here. The delivery team will be left alive long enough to lead us somewhere more useful. After that, what you do away from my gates is between you, your God, and your ammunition.”
Olivia will be safe there.
I hate that sentence. Not because I doubt he can make it true. Because it means another man’s house becomes the place she breathes before mine. Because my hands will not be the ones removing that collar. Because I have to trust a mobster’s walls before I can get to her.
My body rejects it. Every instinct says no. My mind says if I fuck this up, she dies. That wins. Barely.
Logan says, “You don’t want a war zone on your property, keep your people out of our way once she’s clear.”
Matteo’s voice turns amused again. “Pearce, if my people are in your way, you are standing in the wrong place.”
Cain mutters, “Christ.”
Carter leans in. “Matteo.”
A pause.
Then Matteo says, “Once she is secure and the delivery team exits, Nico will follow. Alessandro will coordinate with Dom. You will receive directions in real time. You will move when told, not before. You will maintain distance until the transport stops. Then you may be yourselves.”
Joker’s grin widens.
Hammer says, “Finally.”
Logan’s gaze sweeps the room. Every man here hates it. Every man here understands it. That is the worst kind of agreement. The kind you can’t avoid. “We do it your way,” Logan says. The words cost him. They would cost any president.
Matteo knows it. “Smart.”
“Don’t mistake necessity for obedience,” Logan says.
“I never do.”
Carter looks at the phone. “What do you need from us before then?”
“Restraint.”
Blaze laughs once, sharp and humorless. “We’re fucked.”
“No,” Matteo says. “You are motivated. There is a difference.”
I look at the laptop screen.
Olivia’s lot page has changed.
Sold.
Not bought. Not won. Sold. My vision cuts into hard lines.
Logan watches me from the corner of his eye. “You good?” he asks.
No.
But my answer doesn’t matter. I stare at the word until it turns into something else. Not helplessness. Not failure. Coordinates waiting to happen. Access purchased. Door opening. A route forming. Kill instinct pushes against my ribs. I press it down. Timing. Targeting. Control.