14. Alessio
ALESSIO
Steel grinds against concrete beyond the loading bay, and the sound carries through the open gate, a tectonic groan from the hollowed-out carcass of the warehouse. The air tastes of old oil, wet dust, and the sharp, metallic tang of an ambush. My pulse doesn’t kick.
It shouldn't. I’ve spent my life cutting into the heart of this city; I know how to stay still while the world bleeds out. Beside me, Amara is a shadow, lean and focused. She stares at the security panel, her brow furrowed, her fingers hovering over the keypad.
The gate didn't open because I forced it. It opened because Turi’s protocol recognized a Costa access signature.
The realization is a jagged piece of glass sliding into my gut.
The amber light on the console blinks in a rhythmic stutter.
Data packets scroll across the screen, mocking me.
The code is a fingerprint. Turi’s fingerprint.
I’ve spent eleven years studying the architecture of our family’s security, learning every curve and sharp edge.
This isn't Vane’s work. It’s not the Bellantis' crude brutality.
Turi’s touch is everywhere—in the warehouse cameras, the bypass, the mirrored protocols stolen from the compound. Even our safety was built with his fingerprints on it.
The man who taught me how to hide just opened the door to the slaughterhouse where my father’s life ended twenty years ago. And he just did it again.
"Alessio?" Amara’s voice is a low thread of concern, cutting through the roar in my head.
She reaches out, her hand hovering near my arm but not touching.
“The gates... they didn't just unlock. The protocols were suspended by a delayed command from inside the compound. Someone gave us the keys before we even left.”
If I look at her, the dam will burst. My brothers fan out into the darkness, silhouettes flickering against the dim emergency lights.
Dominic is at the front, his posture a declaration of war, eyes searching for a phantom in the rafters.
He doesn't know. None of them know that the man responsible is currently locked in the sub-level holding room back home.
"We need to move," I rasp, the words feeling like swallowed gravel. "Now. Back to the cars."
"We’re here, Alessio," Dominic growls, his voice echoing off the corrugated steel. "Vane is inside. We finish this tonight."
"It’s a trap, Dom," I say, my voice rising. This warehouse is a grave. It was a grave for my father, and it’s been waiting two decades to swallow the rest of us. "The gates were opened for us. This isn't a breach. It’s an invitation. We’re walking into a kill box."
Dominic freezes. He trusts my instincts, but the hunger for Vane’s blood is a physical thing in the air. He wants the end of this war. We all do. But I'm the only one who can see the wire we’re about to trip.
“Amara, SUV.” I step into her space, my body a shield, forcing her back toward the entrance. “Get the bridge online and tell Vincenzo the gate opened itself. If I say run, you drive.”
She doesn't waste breath arguing. She reads the kill box in my eyes and the shake in my hands, and she already knows her work is safer from the SUV. She turns and runs, her boots slapping against the concrete. I don't breathe again until the heavy thud of the armored door rings out.
"What did you see?" Dante asks, stepping out of the shadows.
“Turi’s access opened the gate,” I say. “We withdraw now and talk at the compound.”
I don't give them the rest. I can't. Not here.
Saying his name out loud, here, in a kill box, breaks us before the Bellantis can.
The question isn't whether to tell them. It's how, without detonating the family. We are in the middle of a war with the Bellantis, and the foundation we’re standing on is made of Turi’s deception.
If I pull the thread now, the whole thing collapses while the enemy holds the match.
I have to carry it. I have to be the silent cage for one more night.
The withdrawal is all clipped orders and Dominic’s jaw working.
He wants Vane’s blood and I’ve just pulled him off it with half a reason.
Dante covers our six. Matteo watches me like he’s counting the things I’m not saying.
We move back into the night, the South Side air thick with the smell of failure.
The drive back is radio traffic and clipped questions—Vincenzo tracing the remote command, Dominic demanding to know how the gate knew us—and my one-word answers stretching the silence thin.
Amara is already on her tablet, one hand braced against my thigh as she traces the command that opened the gate.
She’s the only anchor in this car, and she’s working while she holds me steady. Even if I have to cut through every lie in this house to do it.
When we reach the gates of the compound, the stone walls look like the bars of a cage. Every security camera and motion sensor suddenly looks like a place his access could have touched
I help Amara out of the car, my grip on her arm too tight, too desperate. I lead her through the foyer, past the portraits of our fallen parents. The irony nearly chokes me. We’re honoring the dead in a house protected by the man who first opened the door.
"Alessio, you’re spiraling," Amara says softly as we reach the hallway.
She stops, forcing me to look at her. Her eyes are wide, searching my face.
She doesn't look surprised. She’s spent too long looking at the cold reality of people to believe in loyalty.
“You recognized the logic in that warehouse.
You knew who opened those gates. It wasn't Vane. So why are you still carrying it alone when the brothers just walked into his trap?”
"Not now, Amara," I say, my voice cracking. "I just need... I need a minute."
I leave her there and head toward the basement. Toward the holding room where we are keeping him.
The air grows colder as I descend. The hum of the compound’s generators vibrates up through the floor.
Turi is sitting on the narrow cot behind the reinforced glass, a book forgotten on his lap.
Rico stands guard at the door, Turi’s devices bagged on the table, the signal to this level killed.
He looks old. He looks fragile. He looks like the man who held me after Riza was killed, when I finally understood grief could come back for the same family twice.
“You’re back early,” he says, his voice a gentle rasp. He doesn't look up, but his shoulders are stiff. He knows. “So the gate opened.”
I stand in the doorway, my hands curled into fists. I want to roar. I want to demand to know how much my mother’s life was worth to him. I want to know if he thinks about my father’s blood every time he looks at me. But I keep my hands steady.
"The gates were open, Turi," I say, my voice flat and dead.
He finally looks at me. There’s a world of grief in his eyes.
"The world is a dangerous place, Alessio," he says, his voice trembling. He stands up, his joints popping, and walks toward the glass. He presses a hand against it. It’s the same gesture he’s used a thousand times.
Now, it looks like a predator reaching through a cage. "You carry so much. The weight of this family, the secrets of the dead. You’ve always been the strongest of them. The one who could see the truth when the others were blinded by rage."
"I see it now," I whisper.
"Then you know that sometimes, we do things we hate to protect the things we love," he says, his voice a low, urgent plea. He’s looking at me with a terrifying, warped affection.
“Your mother... she was the light of this family. I owed money. I was desperate. And I told myself selling the routes would buy her safety.”
The confession is a jagged truth wrapped in the velvet of his grief.
He sold the routes to the Bellantis to cover a gambling debt, then told himself it might buy her safety.
He’s been living in the ruins of that decision for twenty years, trying to atone by feeding us scraps of intelligence, acting as the anonymous savior who kept us from falling into the holes he helped dig.
"You should get some rest, son," he says, turning back to the shadows of his cell. "The morning will be here soon. And the war... the war is almost over."
The recorder over the glass catches every word. I make myself walk away before I do something that can't be undone. I go to my private workroom.
The room is cold, the monitor hum a constant, irritating drone. I stand in front of the whiteboard where I’ve spent eleven years tracking the shadows of our past. The list is there, five names on the board, six in my head. Corvi. Silvio. Leo. Bruno. Turi.
I stare at Turi’s name. I remember the way he smelled of peppermint and tobacco when he tucked the younger boys into bed after the massacre. He became the only father I had left. And he’s the monster I’ve been hunting.
I grab the lighter from the desk. I pull the copy off the wall.
The original stays locked in the drawer because I am grieving, not stupid.
The fire catches quickly, the orange glow devouring the names one by one.
Rossi disappears into ash. Marco curls into black soot.
Silvio and Leo are gone in a flash of heat.
I watch the fire devour the decoy names.
I tear Turi’s name free before the flame reaches it.
I let the burning paper fall into the metal trash can.
I don't need the list anymore. I have the answer.
I lean my forehead against the cool edge of the metal filing cabinet.
I'm empty. The door slides open behind me.
I don't have to look to know it’s her. The scent of her—crisp and clean, like rain on a city street—fills the space.
Amara doesn't say anything at first. She walks over to the trash can, looking down at the smoldering remains.
"You burned the list," she says.
"I don't need it," I say.
"Because you know."