Twenty-three
Chiara
The jet cabin is already lit and waiting as I move down the aisle with my bag still in my hand.
“We’ll be wheels up in five,” Jim says from the front, his hand braced on the bulkhead as he watches me pass.
I sit down in the middle of the small plane and lean back, pressing my palm briefly against the armrest before I pull the belt across my lap and click it into place.
The leather is still warm from the cabin heat.
Ciro drops into the seat beside me. “That went well.”
“They expected me to just do as my father says.” I flatten my hand briefly against my thigh before folding it back over the belt.
“They expected you to sign,” he says, tilting his head slightly as he watches me. “You didn’t even look at their document.”
“I gave them a position,” I reply, shifting my hand a fraction closer to his without looking at him.
“You cornered them,” he says, tapping the face of his watch lightly against the armrest. “The second Marci pointed out they moved forward without your consent, she knew they’d back down. If they pushed it, every one of them could lose their license.”
“I’m exhausted.” I slide my hand fully into his and tightened my grip once.
He doesn’t pull away. His fingers close around mine.
“When do you think you’ll hear from your father?”
“All they have is Marci’s card. So she’ll hear first. That way we keep control.”
“You’re not worried?” he asks.
I exhale slowly, letting my head fall back against the seat again as the plane begins to move.
“They won’t accept it.” I trace the line of his thumb once with mine.
“Palo won’t sign it because it puts him at a disadvantage.
No future head of a family is going to let his wife hold enough control to make him look weak. ”
“And when he doesn’t,” Ciro says, turning his wrist so our hands settle more securely between us, “what happens next?”
I don’t answer right away.
The engines deepen, the cabin shifting as we taxi, the noise filling the space between us.
“They react,” I say finally, tightening my grip once before letting it settle. “My father won’t. But the others—my brothers, Palo’s family, and all the others will.”
“This isn’t one of those situations where everyone takes their own balls home because it’s over,” he says.
“No.” My thumb pressing once against his hand as the engines surge. “Now, we see what they do.”
The force of takeoff pushes me back into the seat, my grip tightening instinctively as the ground drops away beneath us.
“You didn’t give them anything to work with,” he says, his voice cutting through the noise as he turns slightly toward me.
That was our plan. We break the agreement, and maybe then I’ll be free. His thumb moves once across the back of my hand, slow, deliberate, before settling again.
The cabin steadies as we level off, the noise dropping into a low, constant hum.
I keep my hand in his and don’t let go.
“Get some sleep,” he says, shifting slightly so his shoulder supports mine without forcing it.
“Thank you.” I adjust my grip once before letting my head rest back fully against the seat.
His hand stays where it is.
The meeting keeps replaying in my head anyway. Massimo’s hand flattening against the table. The split second he tried to charge me. The moment my father’s lawyers realized they were in trouble.
“Don’t start pulling it all apart in your head,” Ciro says quietly.
“I’m not,” I lie. I don’t want him to see me as weak and needy. Ciro least of all.
“You are.” I look him in the eye. “You were incredible in there. So hot.”
How is it that he seems to know exactly what I need to hear?
Sleep takes me quickly, not gentle or gradual, just enough to pull everything under, and I wake as the wheels touch the ground.
When Marci turns her phone on, I expect her to tell me they’ve called several times, but there’s nothing. It’s almost anticlimactic.
“Maybe Palo’s family just walked away?” Ciro suggests.
I snort. “These aren’t people who give up when someone pushes back. They push back harder.”
“They’ll start looking for you,” Ciro’s gaze settles on me. “They need this more than you do.”
“I just got a message from my team in Chicago,” Jim says. “Your father arrived about an hour ago at his law firm. He hasn’t come out yet, but Massimo has left the building and gone home. We think he’s packing to come this way. We are tracking his phone.”
“Then we go about our business as usual,” Marci replies. “I need to get back up to Sacramento. When they call, I’ll either answer their questions or forward the call to you.”
“Thank you,” I say with true gratitude.
Jim’s team drives us back to Ciro’s home. It’s a gray day here in San Francisco, but the air still smells fresher.
“What did you tell the office?” he asks as we sit in traffic on the highway into the City.
“I told them I was finishing a project for another client.” I set my phone down between us. “Something I’d already cleared with you and human resources when I started.”
Jim turns as we arrive. “We’ve got eyes on your father and brother. We’ll keep you posted. We also have eyes on your street, and we’ve added someone to help Katie and Victor.”
“Sounds good.”
They pull into the garage, and we’re dropped off.
I go upstairs and change into a pair of yoga pants and a hoodie and go in search of Ciro. He’s in his home office. He’s on the phone, and it sounds like it’s one of his brothers. He motions for me to sit down, so I sit on the small couch and put my phone on the table.
“She’s here, so I need to go. I’ll look at that once things settle down a minute.”
He looks at me and shrugs as whoever he’s talking to keeps going. It takes a few minutes, and he gets off the phone.
“Your brother’s moving around. He went to see Alyssa.”
I sit forward. “Is she okay?”
He nods. “They think your family wanted to know if she knew anything.”
“She has nothing to tell them, so they’ll try another way,” I say. “Email’s the next move.”
Suddenly, the phone vibrates against the table and I reach for it before the second pulse.
“Don’t screen it,” Ciro says, his hand stilling on the table. “If it’s Marci, it matters.”
“I know,” I say, lifting the phone and pressing it to my ear as I turn slightly toward the window.
“Hi, I have your father on the other line,” Marci says on the line, her voice steady, clipped.
“Put him through,” I say, bracing my fingers against the edge of the table.
“Do you want me to stay on the phone?”
“Sure.”
I set the phone down, put it on speaker for Ciro, and after a short pause, we’re connected.
“You’ve already cost yourself the alliance,” my father says.
I press my palm flat against the table, grounding the movement before it spreads.
“Palo won’t sign.” I turn my shoulder slightly away from Ciro. “That was the point.”
“That’s not the problem,” he replies.
I slide my fingers along the edge of the table and then still them.
“Then what is,” I say.
“You’ve destabilized the structure that held the O’Malley’s in place,” he says. “Without us, they don’t control that business like they should.”
“You can just agree without me. I told you a long time ago, that Palo was not someone I could ever trust.” I look across the bay at Sausalito. “They need you and sending them my prenup was a concession.”
“We got leverage by partnering,” he says. “Which you just handed away.”
I tighten my grip on the table, the edge pressing into my palm.
“You handed me to Palo,” I say. “You wrote that contract.”
“I wrote an agreement that secured position,” he replies. “You rewrote it to satisfy yourself.”
“To protect myself,” I press my thumb along the seam of the table.
“You’re lucky he isn’t signing it,” he quips. “You left yourself very vulnerable.”
I don’t answer that. “Palo walks,” I say, redirecting as I lift my chin toward the glass. “This ends.”
“And what about Palo?” my father asks, cutting across me. “You think he walks away cleanly?”
“That’s not my concern,” I say, tapping the edge of the table once.
“It is now,” he replies. “You made yourself the variable.”
I look away from the phone.
“They react,” he corrects. “And when they do, the O’Malleys start taking business we agreed no one touched.”
I glance toward Ciro and then back to the window.
“That’s still not my problem,” I say.
“You still carry the name,” he says. “That makes it yours.”
I press my palm harder into the table, stopping the movement in my hand.
“You don’t get to pull me back into this,” I say.
“I don’t need to,” he replies. “You never left.”
I stand and move to the window.
“Where are you?” he asks.
I watch the cars cross to Treasure Island on the Bay Bridge. “Safe,” I say.
“With him?” he asks.
I don’t look at Ciro. “Yes.”
A pause stretches across the line. “Ciro understands what you’ve done?”
“He does,” I say.
Silence tightens. “You were safer here in Chicago,” he adds. “You’ll learn what you traded.”
The line clicks dead.
I look at my phone’s black screen before I slide it back, flexing my fingers once as I draw a breath through my nose.
Ciro turns his wrist against the table, his gaze moving from the phone to me.
Jim steps into the doorway, one hand braced against the frame as he looks between us.
“We’ve got movement,” he says, lifting his phone slightly. “Your brother’s airborne. Private jet out of Chicago. Wheels up thirty minutes ago.”
I don’t move. I keep my hand where it is, flat against the table.
“Of course, he is,” I say.
Jim doesn’t leave. “There’s more,” he adds, shifting his weight. “We just confirmed Palo landed an hour ago. He’s already in the city.”
I slide my hand off the table and then set it back down, controlled.
“Where?” I ask.
“Moving,” Jim says. “We’ve got eyes, but he’s not sitting still.”
I press my palm flat against the table and stand.
“Now, they’re not pretending,” I say.
Jim stays in the doorway. “Do you want us to move you?”
I look at Ciro. That’s really a question for him.
He shakes his head once. “No.”
I head upstairs and let the silence stretch, waiting to see which one of them decides to cross it first.