Chapter 22 NICO
NICO
The warehouse looms ahead of me, silent and dark against the gray water of the docks.
Warehouse seventeen.
I step out of the car alone.
Leone and the others are already in position somewhere beyond the perimeter, exactly where I ordered them to be. Watching. Waiting.
But Pavlov doesn’t know that.
As far as he’s concerned, Niccolò Neri has come to die alone.
I walk toward the entrance slowly, hands visible at my sides.
Two Russians wait outside. One of them approaches me, gun drawn.
“Hands up.”
I raise them without protest.
He pats me down roughly, searching for weapons. My jacket. My waistband. My boots.
I let him. If this were just about me, I would have brought half an arsenal. But this is about Izzy and Noah. So I came exactly the way Pavlov demanded.
Unarmed.
“Move,” the man says.
He gestures toward the door.
I start forward, then I hear it.
A scream. It’s high and thin.
Noah.
Another shout follows.
Izzy.
Something inside me snaps.
The man patting me down never even sees the punch coming.
My elbow drives into his throat. He drops instantly, choking. I grab the gun from his hand before he hits the ground and fire once into the second guard.
The shot echoes across the docks.
Then I kick the warehouse door open.
The scene inside freezes for half a second.
Vladimir Pavlov—with a knife to Izzy’s throat.
My vision goes red.
“Hands off my queen, you piece of shit.”
“You should have come unarmed,” he says coolly.
“I did,” I answer. “Your men are just too weak to take a punch.”
The room stands still. Izzy’s eyes meet mine across the space between us.
There’s fear there. Of course there is. But something else too—something stubborn and steady that has nothing to do with fear.
Trust.
My chest tightens.
For one terrible second another image flashes through my mind.
My mother. The night she died.
Her body between me and the gunman, the smell of smoke in the air, the crack of the shot that changed everything. I was ten years old and powerless to stop it.
Not again.
Not my queen.
“Easy,” Pavlov murmurs behind her, almost gently. His knife presses closer to her throat. “Stay still, Isabella. Or else your son will have to watch you die.”
The words make my stomach turn.
Izzy’s breathing is uneven, but she doesn’t look away from me.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
The words hit harder than any bullet.
“Don’t,” I say quietly. My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “Don’t apologize.”
Her lips tremble. “Noah—”
“I’ll keep you safe,” I tell her. “I’ll keep you both safe.”
The promise leaves my mouth before I can think about it.
But I mean it.
Every word.
Something shifts in her expression when she hears it. A tiny spark of the same fierce courage that made her survive seven years alone with our son.
Pavlov keeps talking behind her, unaware of the silent conversation passing between us.
“You see?” he says. “This is why kings lose wars. Queens make them weak.” He grins, wicked and savage. “The night I killed your mother was the night your father fell.”
I still.
The night I killed your mother.
For decades, I’ve been told the other families had taken my mother from me.
The greedy men of the previous generation, the ones who always wanted more territory, more money, more power.
But part of me always suspected someone else.
Another force, one that set us all against each other just to swoop in after the carnage to take our city from us.
It’s part of the reason why I brokered the truce in the first place—the feeling that the enemy was never among our ranks to begin with.
That it was somebody else, hiding in the shadows.
I never knew who.
Now? I do.
My grip tightens on the gun. I feel it bright and red, the fury that threatens to overcome me. To make me lose my cool, make me reckless and rash. Like my father in his grief.
I force it down.
The pain of losing my mother will never go away. Never completely.
But Izzy is still here. My son is still here.
And I’d die before I let my anger be the reason I lose them both.
Pavlov must see the shift in me. So does Izzy. She stands a little straighter, mouth half-open, as if wondering what I’ll do next.
“You’re wrong,” I say. “Our queens aren’t weaknesses. They’re the only thing worth protecting.” My gaze shifts to Izzy and softens. For a long second, nothing exists but us. “They’re what makes us strong.”
I see it then—a decision forming in her eyes.
“How sweet,” Vladimir Pavlov mocks us. “Too bad you won’t be able to protect your queen. Again.”
Izzy’s shoulders tense under Pavlov’s arm. It’s subtle. A breath; a shift of her jaw.
She turns her head just enough and then bites down hard on Pavlov’s hand.
He howls and jerks back instinctively.
Izzy drops.
I fire.
The bullet whips past his shoulder and slams into the metal wall behind him.
He retreats instantly, grabbing Noah and dragging him toward the back of the room. One of his guards jumps in front of him.
I pull Izzy behind me and fire again.
The guard drops.
Now it’s just Pavlov.
And Noah.
“Noah!” I shout.
He hears me. He starts running immediately, towards me, towards his mother—
The knife appears in Pavlov’s hand so fast I almost miss the motion.
The blade presses against Noah’s throat.
Everything stops.
For one second the world narrows to that thin line of steel against my son’s skin.
Despair opens under my feet.
Then I see it.
Izzy. Behind me. Her hands low at her side, holding…
A gun?
Yes. It could be nothing else. She must have taken it from one of the men when everything exploded.
Pavlov hasn’t noticed yet.
She trades a hard look with me, something close to a plea. Trust me, it says.
And I do.
I force my voice steady. “Easy,” I say quietly.
“Easy?” Pavlov repeats, disbelieving, but I’m not talking to him. I’m talking to my queen, who has never fired a gun before.
Izzy’s eyes flick to mine. She knows my words are for her.
“Steady,” I murmur. “Take a deep breath. Think about what you’re doing. Make the right choice.”
Pavlov laughs softly. “You’re finally afraid,” he says. “The Don of the Bronx begging for his son’s life. That’s new.”
He still thinks I’m talking to him.
Good.
“You see?” he continues. “All I had to do was separate the king from his army.”
His voice grows louder now, triumphant.
“My father understood it forty years ago. Kill the queen. Start the war. Let the Italians slaughter each other.”
My jaw tightens.
“He had me pull the trigger myself,” Pavlov says. “Your mother. My first kill.”
Rage coils through my chest like fire.
“But then you ruined everything,” he continues. “Your little truce. Your peace.”
He presses the knife slightly closer to Noah’s throat.
“So all I had to do was bring you here alone.”
“You’re wrong,” I say.
He smiles faintly.
“Oh?”
“I’m not alone.”
His brow furrows.
“I have a queen.”
My eyes flick to Izzy.
Now.
Izzy fires.
The bullet slams into the wall inches to the right from Pavlov’s head.
The sound explodes through the warehouse.
Pavlov recoils instinctively, disoriented. He may not have gotten hit, but the explosion was right next to his ear, and his balance suffers for it.
That’s all Noah needs.
He jerks free and runs.
“Mom!”
Izzy catches him immediately, pulling him into her arms. “Baby!” She kisses his forehead, tears streaming freely. “I’m so sorry, oh my God, are you okay—”
While Izzy takes care of Noah, I fire twice.
Both bullets shatter Pavlov’s knees.
He collapses to the concrete with a scream.
I press a button on my phone. Speak a single word into it. “Now.”
The doors burst open behind me.
Luca.
Riccardo.
Matteo.
Giovanni.
Their men flood the warehouse in seconds, guns raised. All their right arms except Lorenzo are there: Alberto, Valerio, Bruno—and of course, Leone.
Pavlov stares at them in disbelief.
“No,” he whispers.
I step toward him slowly.
“You wanted a war,” I say. Blood spreads beneath his legs. “You’ll never have it.”
The other Dons close in around us.
“This city isn’t divided anymore,” I continue. “Five families. Five boroughs.”
“One house,” Luca says quietly behind me.
“One mission,” Matteo adds.
“Protect what’s ours,” Riccardo finishes.
I stop in front of Pavlov.
“And right now,” Giovanni says softly, “you’re standing in our house.”
Pavlov’s composure finally cracks.
“Please,” he says hoarsely. “Neri—”
Leone glances at me. “You want the honors?”
Pavlov’s voice breaks. “Wait—”
I look back at Noah.
“Close your eyes,” I tell him.
Izzy pulls him against her and covers his ears.
She nods.
I turn back to Vladimir Pavlov.
“For my mother,” I say. “For my queen. And for my son.”
I shoot him between the eyes.
The second Vladimir’s body hits the ground, everything else in the warehouse fades away.
The other Dons are still moving. Their men sweep the room, securing exits, checking corners. Voices rise and fall around me. But I barely hear any of it.
I see only them.
Izzy.
Noah.
My family.
I cross the distance between us quickly. By the time I reach them, my hands are shaking. Not from adrenaline, not from rage—something deeper. Something I haven’t felt in years.
Only Izzy notices.
Her eyes soften immediately.
“Hey,” she says quietly.
I cup her face before I even think about it, turning her gently toward the light. There’s a bruise forming along her cheek and a split at the corner of her lip. My jaw tightens as my thumbs brush carefully over her skin.
“Did he hurt you anywhere else?” I ask.
“I’m okay,” she says quickly.
I study her for another second anyway, checking the back of her head where she was hit earlier, making sure she’s steady on her feet.
“Can you walk?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
For a moment we just stand there, close enough to feel each other breathing again, both of us realizing how close this came to ending very differently.
“I thought—” she begins, but the words catch in her throat.
“I know,” I say softly.
Before she can say anything more, a small body slams into my side.
“Dad!”
The word hits me like a blow.
I barely have time to react before Noah throws himself into my arms. Instinct takes over; I drop the gun and lift him easily, holding him tight against my chest.
He clings to me like he’s afraid I might disappear.
“You came,” he says into my shoulder.
“Of course I came,” I murmur.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, eyes still red from crying. “I knew you would.”
I brush his hair back from his forehead.
“You scared the hell out of me,” I admit.
“They scared me too,” he says, voice small again.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly.
He frowns a little at that. “Why?”
“Because I should have protected you.”
He thinks about it with the serious concentration only kids have, then shakes his head.
“You did.”
The simplicity of the answer lands somewhere deep in my chest.
Izzy is watching us, one hand pressed to her mouth. When I look up, tears are running down her cheeks.
“You okay?” I ask her.
She nods, even as her voice trembles. “I thought I was going to lose him.”
“You didn’t.”
“And I thought I was going to lose you too.”
I step closer without thinking, still holding Noah. “You won’t,” I tell her quietly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She looks at me for a long moment, like she’s deciding whether she’s allowed to believe that. Then she steps forward and wraps her arms around both of us.
Noah squeezes my neck again. “Dad?”
“Yes?”
“You shot the bad guy.”
“I did.”
He nods solemnly. “Good.”
Despite everything, a breath of laughter almost escapes me. I press a kiss into the top of his head and pull Izzy closer with my free arm.
For the first time since this nightmare started, the tightness in my chest finally loosens.
I breathe.