Turo
The security center never sleeps. The lights stay cold on purpose.
No warmth, no softness, nothing that might convince a man he can let his guard down.
Screens line the walls in neat grids, feeds shifting between gates and corridors and tree lines, drones hovering like mechanical vultures over my land.
In the center of the room, a long table holds tablets, printouts, and coffee that no one drinks because no one trusts anything that might slow the edge.
It was built to make danger feel like data. But I’m learning something about fatherhood. Some dangers don’t become manageable just because you name them. Some dangers only become real.
Lucia sits at the far end of the table, back straight, hair pulled up like she styled it at the gala when she had to make herself untouchable.
She’s holding a pen she doesn’t need, turning it between her fingers like it’s a tool that keeps her tethered.
Her face is calm. Her eyes are not. They track every movement in the room.
Every door opening. Every guard shifting his weight.
Her body is here, but part of her is still standing between Nico and the world, arms spread, teeth bared.
I understand her.
I understand her too well.
Matteo clears his throat. The sound pulls the room to attention the way gunfire does. Every head turns. Every jaw tightens. Men who’ve killed without blinking suddenly needing permission to breathe.
“Number trace came back,” he says, and slides a printout across the table toward me. “Burner. Bought cash.”
“Where?” I ask.
He taps the paper. “Kiosk off Via San Luca.”
That street sits under Enzo’s route. It’s a convenient artery between his townhouse and the estate. It’s quiet, predictable, unremarkable. The kind of place a man chooses when he doesn’t want cameras noticing patterns.
“Time?”
“Yesterday,” Matteo says. “Mid-morning. Two hours after your car left the drive.”
Two hours after I kissed Lucia in the security center and told her we would end this. My jaw locks. Lucia’s hand tightens on her pen.
“Purchased by who?” Gianni asks, though we all know the answer. We’re men. We ask questions to delay impact.
Matteo exhales. “Camera angle doesn’t give a face. Hood. Sunglasses.” He pauses, then adds, “But the gait is familiar.”
My gaze flicks to the wall of screens without seeing them.
Thirty years. I know Enzo’s walk the way I know my own. I’ve watched him pace with a cigar when plans went wrong, watched him move like he belonged in every room he entered. I’ve trusted that walk behind me in hallways where enemies would have killed me if I turned the wrong corner.
Matteo continues. “We cross-referenced the text timing with internal access points. The message hit Lucia’s burner at 14:07. That’s within a five-minute window of Enzo leaving Marco’s legal meeting.” He flips to another page. “Which brings us to the number itself.”
I lift my eyes.
“This burner,” Matteo says carefully, “only one person had. Her sister.”
Lucia’s chin lifts by a fraction.
“He had access, anyway,” Matteo adds. “Through Marco’s custody file.”
My stomach turns cold.
“Marco’s lawyer scanned contact records,” Matteo says. “Emergency contacts. Extended family. That burner number was listed because Lucia used it as the only point of contact.”
Lucia’s mouth tightens. A muscle jumps in her cheek. I keep my face still. I won’t give my men the satisfaction of seeing the rage. I won’t give Lucia the fear of watching me become what she’s been running from.
“Continue,” I say.
Matteo swipes his tablet, brings up footage. “Cameras. During the breach.”
The screen shows the perimeter. Trees, motion sensors, a flash of heat signatures moving fast. Then it cuts to the interior log. A timestamp. A gap.
“This camera,” Matteo says, voice clipped, “went offline at 23:18. Twelve minutes before the breach. Not a power issue. Not a storm issue. Manual override.”
“And who can override?” Luca asks, already knowing. Already wanting it to be someone else.
Matteo doesn’t look at him. “You. Me. Head of security. Enzo.”
Silence drops. I can hear my own pulse in my ear. Lucia’s eyes flick to me. Not pity. Not fear. Something else. A grim kind of understanding.
Gianni shifts, restless. “Enzo said he was coordinating from the secure room.”
“He said,” Matteo repeats, like the words taste bad. He taps another key and brings up the secure room feed. Nothing. Black screen. No footage. No timestamp. No record of Enzo entering. No record of him leaving.
“He wasn’t there,” Matteo says quietly. “Or he wiped it.”
My hand tightens on the edge of the table. Not enough to crack it. But enough that the tendons stand out in my wrist.
Lucia’s voice cuts in, soft but sharp. “He offered to handle the internal investigation.”
Every head turns to her. She doesn’t flinch. She’s learning how to exist in rooms like this. Not by becoming one of us, but by refusing to be moved.
“Immediately,” she adds. “Before anyone even finished saying the word sabotage.”
I remember. Enzo, stepping forward like a benefactor. Like a man eager to clean up messes. It landed wrong then. It lands like a bullet now.
Matteo scrolls again. “We intercepted communications.”
He doesn’t say how. He doesn’t have to. In my world, you don’t apologize for being careful.
A series of coded messages appears on screen. Short bursts. Numbers. Names disguised. A pattern hidden under blandness.
Rossi contacts. Not direct, not obvious. Nothing that could be proven in court if this were a clean world.
But we don’t live in one.
We live in a world where patterns are proof.
“Timing matches,” Matteo says. “Messages sent within minutes of our patrol changes. Within minutes of staff rotations. Within minutes of you leaving the estate for the courthouse. The gala. The sit-down planning.” He looks at me carefully.
Like he’s approaching a wound. “And the custody filing,” he adds.
My chest tightens. Matteo flips to a timeline pinned across the screen. Dates. Locations. Events that felt like coincidence when I lived them.
“They filed three weeks before Lucia returned,” he says. “Marco didn’t initiate it. He signed it. But the paperwork… drafted by someone with legal experience. Someone who knows court strategy. Someone who knew exactly how to trigger a summons without raising too much suspicion.”
My mouth tastes like metal.
“Enzo,” Gianni says finally, the name coming out like an accusation and a prayer. Like if he says it loud enough, it will stop being true.
Lucia’s gaze drops for a second. Then rises again. “At the gala,” she says, voice controlled. “He called children leverage. Like it was a joke.”
My jaw locks hard enough that my teeth ache.
Matteo’s eyes flick to me, then back to the screen. “We also pulled purchasing records. Small things. Supplies. Equipment. Items ordered through vendors Enzo uses for his personal accounts.” He pauses, then adds, “Some of it matches what the intruders used.”
The room shifts. Men who have known Enzo for decades suddenly look at the air as if it’s poisoned.
One of the guards near the door mutters a curse.
I keep my face blank. Inside, something is breaking.
Thirty years of loyalty cracking under the weight of one undeniable fact: Enzo touched my son.
He didn’t have to lay a hand on him. He didn’t have to step into Nico’s room with a knife.
He threatened him. He plotted around him. He aimed danger at him and called it strategy.
That is unforgivable.
I push back from the table. The scrape of my chair is controlled. Still, it cuts through the room like a warning shot.
“Everyone out,” I say.
Matteo hesitates. “Don…”
“Now.”
They move. In less than a minute, the security center empties except for Lucia. She stays seated, hands still, eyes on my face. She has learned quickly what kind of silence means in my world.
“What happens now?” she asks softly.
The question is simple. The answer is not. I walk to the screens. Study the feeds. Not because I need to. Because my hands need something to do that isn’t violence.
“Now,” I say, “we make sure there’s no doubt.”
Lucia’s throat works. “There’s no doubt for me.”
I glance at her. She holds my gaze without flinching, but I can see the fear underneath. Not fear of me. Fear of what this will cost. Fear of being right.
“I need proof that holds,” I say.
“Because of the family,” she guesses.
“Because of the blood,” I correct.
Her jaw tightens. “You’re going to kill him.”
It isn’t a question, and I don’t lie to her.
“Yes.”
Lucia’s eyes don’t drop. She doesn’t recoil. She doesn’t plead. She inhales slowly. Like she’s storing oxygen for later.
“Okay,” she says. “Then do it clean.”
My chest twists. Not out of guilt. Recognition. She understands the rules of this world more than she wants to. She just refuses to let them swallow her whole.
I move closer, stopping in front of her. “Go to Nico,” I tell her. “Stay with him.”
She rises, slow and deliberate. “He’s safe.”
“He’s safe because I’m still breathing,” I say.
Her expression flickers. Pain. Agreement. Something like anger at the truth.
“Do you need me?” she finally asks, and the question surprises me. Not because she offered. Because of the steadiness in her voice.
I look at her. At the woman who survived my son. At the woman who walked into my war room with her spine straight and dared to tell me she could help.
“I need you alive,” I say.
Her lips press together. Then she nods once. She moves toward the door, then pauses.
“Turo.”
I look at her.
She hesitates, then says, “You’re allowed to feel it.”
I don’t respond. Because if I let myself feel it here, I might tear the room apart.
Lucia leaves. The door closes.
And I stand alone in the cold glow of screens and evidence.