CHAPTER 9
Marcello leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled, watching a city that never slept - and never lied.
Not if you knew where to look.
He hadn't spoken to Luca again since their little conversation in the lounge. He didn't need to. Luca's silence spoke volumes.
There was something there.
Something carefully hidden.
And that made Marcello curious - a dangerous thing for a man like him to be.
He had people watching. Not Luca directly - not yet. That would be too loud, too obvious. No, he started at the edges. Subtle movements. Small questions whispered in the right places.
Someone new had appeared in Luca's orbit.
A name had surfaced more than once.
Grayson Hale.
Marcello didn't flinch when he heard it - only leaned forward, pulling up a quiet file from a long-abandoned folder. The man wasn't unknown. Ex-military. Clean record. A ghost in the right ways. Someone Marcello had hired in the past - quiet ops, quick cleanups. Efficient. Discreet.
But not loyal.
Not to him.
Now Grayson worked for Luca.
A teacher, supposedly. Hired privately, without family sanction. And stationed somewhere... quiet.
Marcello's lips curved into a faint smirk. "Interesting."
He stood, pacing toward the bar, though he didn't pour a drink. Just let his fingers rest against the crystal.
He wasn't ready to act. Not yet.
But he'd plant seeds.
See where they grew.
"Let Grayson be," he murmured to himself. "For now."
He turned back toward the desk and tapped the silver coin on the surface once, twice.
The warehouse smelled like sweat, gun powder, blood, and fear.
Luca stood beneath the single flickering light, sleeves rolled to his elbows, his shirt untouched by the blood on the floor.
The man in the chair groaned bound, bruised, and barely conscious. A small-time runner who got too curious. Looked too long at a manifest he wasn't meant to see.
Luca didn't flinch as one of his men finished talking. The details were clear: the runner had started asking around. Not about shipments. About people.
About a location.
A quiet property one Luca had never tied directly to the family.
His safehouse.
Mia's safehouse.
He stepped forward. His voice was calm, low.
"Who told you about the house?"
The man coughed, shaking his head. "I-I didn't know it mattered-"
Wrong answer.
Luca moved without raising his voice, without theatrics. Just a single, sharp punch precise, controlled. A reminder.
He crouched to the man's eye level, cold and unblinking. "You don't get to not know in this business. Curiosity gets people killed."
The man whimpered.
Luca stood again, turning away, already bored. "Make sure he forgets everything. If he can't forget, make sure he stops remembering altogether."
His men understood.
Luca lit a cigarette, not because he smoked, but because the pause gave him time to think. Control the tremor just under his skin.
Someone had spoken, Someone higher.
He'd been too careful for a slip like this. Which meant one thing: someone was probing. Quietly. Testing.
Marcello?
Maybe. He trusted him but he didn't want to risk Mia coming into his world, He knew Marcello wanted to rile him up by leaking out an information probably because he thought he was betraying him, he already knew the Don was suspicious about him except that Marcello didn't know the real reason
Luca exhaled smoke and ash.
He had to move faster. Quietly.
Keep Mia untouched, unseen.
He pulled out his phone and texted Grayson.
Tighten her perimeter. No changes, no questions. Double the blind spots.
A pause.
Then another message.
If anyone even looks twice, I want to know before they blink.
He deleted the thread immediately after.
Then he turned back to his men.
Luca Vitello was back in control.
And nothing not even the Don would touch his precious sister.Luca leaned against the cold brick wall outside the warehouse, the city's distant hum a faint backdrop to the storm inside his mind. The night air was sharp, but he barely noticed.
Everything in him screamed to protect Mia his princess from a world that wanted to pull her under. Yet here, in the shadows where deals were made and blood was spilled, he had to be someone else.
Someone harder.
He crushed the cigarette beneath his boot and pulled his coat tighter.
Every move he made was calculated each decision a thread holding together a fragile, dangerous balance.
He couldn't let anyone see the cracks. Not Marcello, not his men, not even himself.
Because if the Don found out what he was hiding... what she meant to him there'd be no mercy.
He pulled out his phone again, reading the silent messages from Grayson. The perimeter was tightening. Cameras repositioned. Routes altered.
Still, Luca felt the weight settling heavier like a blade pressing against his throat.
He wiped a hand across his face, hiding the exhaustion.
But then, his thoughts shifted. To Mia, alone in her quiet world, sketching shadows into light.
She's my reason, and nd for her, he would burn everything down.