1. Amara #3
"Alessio," the man says, his voice warm and welcoming. "You’re late for dinner. Matteo was complaining that his braciole would go cold."
"I got held up, Turi," Alessio says, his tone softening in a way that surprises me.
The man—Turi—turns his gaze to me, and a wide, genuine smile spreads across his face.
"And who is this lovely creature? You didn't tell us you were bringing a guest."
"This is Amara," Alessio says, his hand finding the small of my back and steering me into the house. "She’s staying with us."
Turi’s eyes twinkle with curiosity and something that looks suspiciously like approval.
"Well then, Amara. Any guest Alessio brings through these doors gets fed before she gets questioned."
He reaches out and takes my hand, his grip warm and steady. For a second, a lump forms in my throat. I haven’t been welcomed like this in a long time. Not since Curtis was alive.
"Thank you," I say, my voice a little rough.
"Come, come," Turi says, ushering us further into the foyer. "Everyone is in the dining room. Let’s get you fed before the boys eat everything."
As we walk through the house, I’m struck by how... normal it feels. There are family photos on the walls, rugs on the floors, the sound of laughter and clinking silverware echoing down the hall. It’s not the cold, clinical fortress I expected. It’s a home.
But as I glance at Alessio, I see the way his eyes are constantly moving, the way he’s cataloging every exit, every person we pass. He’s not at home. He’s on guard.
And as we reach the doorway to the dining room, I see why.
There are at least a dozen people sitting around a long oak table, all of them looking up as we enter. The brothers. The cousins. The wives. They are the Costas, the family that has ruled Chicago for decades. And they are all staring at me.
"Finally!" a man at the head of the table bellows. He has the same Costa eyes as Alessio, but his are harder, his presence more commanding. Dominic, the Don. "Alessio, sit down before I give your portion to Enzo."
Alessio doesn't move. He just keeps his hand on my back, his thumb rubbing small, possessive circles through the fabric of my shirt.
"Dominic," Alessio says, his voice carrying through the room and silencing the chatter. "This is Amara Osei. She’s under my protection."
The room goes dead silent. The names "Osei" and "protection" carry a weight here that even I can feel. Dominic narrows his eyes, his gaze moving from Alessio to me and back again.
"Under your protection?" Dominic asks, his voice dangerously low. "Since when do you take on projects, Alessio?"
"Since she found a piece of Vane’s trail none of us had," Alessio says.
The silence deepens. I feel the shift in the room, the way the tension ramps until it’s a physical pressure against my skin. These men don't just know who I am. They know why I’m here.
"Well then," Dominic says, his face breaking into a slow, sharp-edged grin. "I suppose we should find her a chair. We have a lot to talk about."
Alessio leads me to the table, pulling out a chair for me right next to his. As I sit down, I feel the eyes of every person in the room on me. Some look curious. Some look suspicious. But Turi, sitting across from me, just winks.
I look at the food on my plate, the rich smells of garlic and tomato sauce filling my senses. I’m hungry, but my stomach is in knots. I’m in the heart of the beast, sitting with men every federal file warned me never to trust.
And yet, as Alessio sits down next to me, his thigh brushing against mine, I don’t feel like a victim. I don’t feel like prey.
I feel like a partner.
"Eat," Alessio whispers, his hand finding mine under the table.
He doesn't let go. His fingers lace with mine, his grip firm and grounding. He’s not just holding my hand. He’s telling me that he’s here. That he’s not going anywhere.
And after ten years, I take a bite.
The dinner is a blur of voices and laughter, a chaos of family dynamics that I can’t even begin to untangle.
I listen as they argue about sports, about business, about whose turn it is to walk the perimeter before dawn.
It’s a strange, surreal experience, sitting in the middle of a family dinner that feels one wrong word away from becoming a war council.
But through it all, my focus keeps drifting back to Alessio. He doesn't say much. He just eats, his eyes occasionally scanning the room, his hand never leaving mine. He’s the anchor in this storm, the quiet force that keeps everything from spinning out of control.
After dinner the crowd thins. The women take the children up, but the brothers don’t reach for cigars—Dominic sends two to sweep the perimeter and puts one of them on tracing the SUV, and only then does the house exhale. Turi stays to clear the table.
"We debrief her in the study first," Alessio says, standing and drawing me up with him. "Then I’ll show her where she sleeps."
"Don't stay up too late," Turi says with a grin. "We have a big day tomorrow."
Alessio doesn't respond. He just leads me out of the dining room and up the grand staircase. The second floor is quieter, the hallways lined with doors and thick carpeting. We walk to the very end of the hall, to a door that looks heavier than the others.
He opens it and leads me inside.
It’s not a guest room. It’s a suite. A large bedroom with a king-sized bed, a sitting area with leather chairs, and a wall of bookshelves. There’s a door that leads to a bathroom and another that looks like it leads to a walk-in closet.
"This is my room," Alessio says, closing the door and thumbing the biometric bolt. "Reinforced, wired to my feed, one door from the medical bay. No one gets in but me. You don’t have to like it. You just have to be alive in the morning."
I turn to face him, my heart skipping a beat.
"Your room? You said you were showing me to my room."
"In this house, there is no safer place for you than with me," he says, stepping toward me. He doesn't stop until he’s inches away, his presence overwhelming the space. "The Bellantis know you’re here. The compound’s already on lockdown—guards doubled, Vincenzo pulling every camera off that SUV. Until we know how deep they can reach, you don’t leave my sight. "
"I'm perfectly capable of locking a door, Alessio," I say, my voice shaky.
"Not against the people who are coming for you," he says, his hands coming up to frame my face. His thumbs stroke my cheekbones, his touch so tender it makes my chest ache. "You’ve spent ten years running, Amara. You’ve spent ten years being the only person looking out for you. But that ends tonight."
He leans down, his forehead resting against mine.
"I've been looking for you for a long time," he whispers. "I didn't know your name, I didn't know your face, but I knew you were out there. The one person who could help me finish this. And now that I have you, I’m never letting you go."
The intensity of his words, the raw, feral honesty in his voice, it’s more than I can handle. I should push him away. I should tell him he’s crazy, that we just met, that this isn't how things work.
But as I look into his eyes, I see the same grief, the same obsession, the same need that has been driving me for a decade. We are two sides of the same coin, two hunters who finally found each other in the dark.
"I have some of the codes," I say, my voice barely audible. "Enough to prove the contract on Curtis wasn’t isolated. Not enough to finish it alone."
Alessio’s eyes go black, his grip on my face tightening just a fraction.
"And I have the accounts they touched," he says. "Not all of them. Enough to know where to cut next, Amara."
He pulls away then, his hands dropping to his sides. He crosses to a wall panel, presses his thumb to a plate that shouldn’t exist, and slides out an encrypted drive and a single scorched page—one salvaged sheet from a burned field notebook. Not a ledger. A wound with a serial number.
The ledger.
He walks back to me and holds it out.
"This is it," he says. "Everything I’ve gathered in eleven years. Every secret, every lie, every betrayal."
I reach out and touch the leather, the surface cool and worn. This is what I’ve been looking for. This is the piece that makes the puzzle complete.
"Why show me this?" I ask, looking up at him. "You don’t even know me."
He doesn’t hand it over. He turns the drive in his fingers, then sets one page in front of me. One page. No more.
"I know enough," he says, his voice low and dangerous. "I know that you loved your brother enough to spend your life hunting his killer. I know that you’re brave enough to break into my clinic in the middle of the night. And I know you’re the only person outside this family who has bled for this trail the way I have. "
He steps closer, his hand coming up to cup the back of my neck.
"We’re going to find him, Amara. We’re going to burn every wall he built to hide behind. And then, when it’s all over, we’re going to figure out what happens next."