Chapter 15 #2
I didn't take an army to Castellano's compound. I didn't need one.
I took Vince, Marcos, and fourteen men. We came through the front entrance at 11 p.m. like we owned the place, because in the underworld, ownership was determined by the willingness to kill for it.
Bruno Castellano was hosting a private dinner when we arrived. Fourteen guests, expensive wine, the illusion that his world was stable.
I shot him in the head before he could stand.
"Everyone else, on the ground. Now."
They moved quickly. Fear is a more efficient motivator than bullets.
Castellano's lieutenant—a man named Torres—tried to run. Vince caught him at the kitchen entrance and held him in place while I approached.
"You authorized a hit on my wife," I said quietly. "Who inside the Altieri organization put you up to it?"
Torres spit blood.
I drove my knife through his hand, pinning it to the marble counter. He screamed, thrashing, and I waited until he was coherent enough to answer questions again.
"Who?"
"I don't know the name. Just a voice on the phone. They said the marriage wouldn't last, that Julietta would be dead within a month, that we should move fast before she got too entrenched."
"When was this contact made?"
"Three days ago. The day before the wedding. Before any public announcement."
The day before. Someone had known about the marriage before I'd even said my vows. Before the world knew Julietta was mine.
I looked at Marcos. "Find out who in the Altieri organization had knowledge of the wedding timing. Everyone with access to that information."
"I'll pull communication logs, cross-reference meeting attendance, financial transfers—" Marcos was already mentally cataloging the investigation.
"What about him?" Vince gestured to Torres, still screaming, his hand pinned to the counter. His expression was flat, expectant. Ready.
I considered it. He'd tried to murder my wife. In the old days, I would have made an example of him, left his body where other cartels would find it, sent a message in blood and bone.
But I had something better now.
"Burn the compound. Leave him alive. Let him crawl out, let him spread the word about what happens when you come for my wife." I turned toward the door. "And send cleanup to every Castellano property. I want them dismantled by dawn."
She was waiting for me in the library.
I'd expected her in the bedroom, or the office, somewhere private. Instead, she was curled in the leather chair by the window, still wearing the ivory dress, still stained with another man's blood.
When I entered, she looked up.
"The Castellanos," she said quietly.
"Handled."
"Bruno is dead." Again, not a question—she knew me well enough to know how this ended. "What about the people at his compound? The ones at the dinner?"
"Handled."
She nodded slowly, processing the violence I'd unleashed in her name. I waited for fear, for revulsion, for her to finally see me as what I actually was—a man who solved problems with bullets and bodies.
Instead, she stood and crossed to me.
"There's someone inside your father's organization," I said. "Someone who gave the Castellanos our wedding details—the date, the venue, our security setup. Someone feeding them real-time intelligence."
"I know."
I blinked. "What?"
"I overheard my father on a call with his consigliere months ago—before you took me. He mentioned someone—a captain named Sal—who was 'handling the Julietta problem.' I didn't know what it meant at the time. I thought it was about the wedding, about keeping me compliant. But after today—"
"Sal Renavetti."
She nodded.
Sal had been Lorenzo's right hand for fifteen years. We'd invited him to the wedding because we had to—excluding Lorenzo's consigliere would have raised too many questions. He'd smiled at us, raised his glass, stood five feet from Julietta while secretly coordinating the hit that would kill her.
The rage that flared was somehow worse than before—more focused, more deadly.
But then Julietta took my hand.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"I'm going to end him. And everyone who moves with him."
"And then?"
I looked at her—this woman I'd married for leverage, this woman I'd kept like a prisoner, this woman who'd somehow become the only thing in my life that felt like breathing.
"Then I'm going to burn anyone else who even thinks about touching you."
She squeezed my hand.
"Good," she whispered.
I couldn't sleep.
At 3 a.m., I found myself in the darkened bedroom, watching her sleep. Her chest rose and fell steadily, her face soft in the darkness, unburdened by the weight of blood and choices and consequences.
She'd been nearly murdered today. And instead of cowering, instead of demanding I lock her away, she'd stood beside me. She'd moved with my men, trusted my protection, and then she'd come back to me like I hadn't just burned an entire criminal operation to ash.
This was the woman who could destroy me.
And I'd never felt safer in my entire life.
I reached out slowly and touched her hair, careful not to wake her. Tomorrow I would hunt down Sal Renavetti and extract every name, every plan, every threat to her life.
But tonight, I would sit here in the darkness and accept the truth I'd been running from since the moment I first saw her at that gala.
She wasn't a leverage point anymore. She wasn't a strategic asset or a way to destabilize her father's empire.
She was mine.
Not because I'd taken her. Not because I'd married her or protected her or spilled blood in her name.
But because she'd chosen it. And now I would spend the rest of my life making sure no one ever tried to take that choice away from her again.