Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
KAI
After that night with Aria, I couldn't get her out of my head. Not that she'd ever really left, but now it was worse. So much worse.
I could still feel her. The way her body had fit against mine like we'd been made for each other. The sounds she'd made when I touched her. The way she'd whispered my name like a prayer when she came apart in my arms.
The way she'd looked at me afterward, eyes soft and vulnerable, like I was something worth keeping instead of the monster everyone else saw.
I was completely. Utterly, hopelessly, dangerously in love with a girl I couldn't have. A girl who was supposed to marry my father in two weeks.
Two weeks. Fourteen days. Three hundred and thirty-six hours until I lost her forever.
Unless I could pull off a miracle.
The separation since that night was killing me slowly. Every day without seeing her, touching her, hearing her voice felt like dying by inches. My father kept her locked in his wing like a prisoner. Monitored her constantly. Made sure I had no legitimate reason to be anywhere near her.
Smart bastard. He suspected something even if he didn't have proof yet. The way he watched me at dinners. The questions Luca kept asking. The tightening noose around both our necks.
I needed to work faster. Needed to find the evidence that would bring him down before the wedding happened. Before he got his hands on Aria in ways that would destroy us both.
So here I was. My office at 2am. Surrounded by papers and recordings and desperation. Eyes burning from staring at documents for hours. Coffee keeping me functional when sleep was impossible anyway.
Marco sat across from me, headphones on, listening to another wiretapped phone call. He looked as exhausted as I felt. We'd been at this for six hours straight.
"You know," he pulled off the headphones, rubbed his face hard, "normal guys our age are at strip clubs right now. Getting drunk. Making questionable life choices that don't involve federal wiretapping charges and potential death sentences."
Despite the gravity of our situation, I almost smiled. "You volunteering to leave? Door's right there. No one's forcing you to commit felonies with me at ass o'clock in the morning."
"And miss all this fun? Never." He gestured at the organized chaos surrounding us. Stacks of files, recording equipment, evidence we'd gathered over years. "Besides, someone needs to make sure you don't completely lose your shit before we pull this off. You look like hell, by the way."
"Feel like it too." I rubbed my eyes, trying to focus. "Any luck with those tapped calls from the Romano family line?"
"Mostly boring business stuff. Your father setting up territory meetings. A few calls with captains about shipments." Marco made a face. "One particularly disturbing conversation with some woman he's apparently screwing on the side. Details I absolutely did not need to hear about his sex life."
"Jesus. Please tell me you didn't listen to the whole thing."
"Enough to be scarred for life." He shuddered dramatically. "The man is fifty-three. There are things I can never unhear now."
"Welcome to my childhood." The joke came out darker than I intended. "Try living with him for twenty-six years. You develop excellent selective hearing."
Marco's expression sobered. "Nothing substantial though. Nothing we can use. Just confirming what we already knew about him being a manipulative bastard."
I nodded, turned back to my own stack of recordings.
Files we'd obtained through various illegal means over the past few years.
Wiretaps on my father's private line. Hidden communications we'd intercepted.
All of it inadmissible in any real court but potentially enough to sway the Council if we presented it right.
The Council operated on different rules. They cared about power, territory, maintaining order. If we could prove my father had crossed that line, they might actually act.
Might. Everything hinged on that word.
I picked up another recording. Checked the date. The night Antonio Romano died. The night everything changed.
My hands moved mechanically, loading it into the player. I'd listened to dozens of calls from that period already. Nothing but routine business.
But something made me pause on this one. A call between my father and Vincent Romano. Timestamped two hours before the car bomb.
I hit play.
Static. Then Vincent's voice, panicked and stressed.
"We have a problem. Antonio is having second thoughts about the arrangement. Says he wants to call off the wedding. That Aria is too young. That she deserves better than being sold off like cattle."
My blood went cold. I sat up straighter, every nerve suddenly alert.
My father's voice came through. Calm. Too calm. "And what did you tell him?"
"That he can't back out now. That we have an agreement. But he's not listening, Salvatore. He's talking about taking Aria and leaving the city."
Silence. I could picture my father's face. The calculating coldness that preceded violence.
"Then you need to handle it. Tonight. Before he has a chance to disappear with the girl."
"Handle it how? Antonio is my brother. I can't just..."
"Can't you? You wanted power, Vincent. You wanted control of the Romano family. Antonio stands in your way. The girl is the key to both our futures. You remove the obstacle. I'll make sure no one looks too closely at how it happened."
More silence. Then Vincent, voice shaking. "The car. He'll be driving alone. I could arrange something. An accident. Make it look like..."
"Not an accident. Send a message. A bomb. Quick. Clean. No survivors. Do it tonight and tomorrow you'll be head of the Romano family. Your niece will marry me as planned. Everyone gets what they want."
"And if someone investigates?"
"They won't. I'll make sure the right people look the other way. You handle your brother. I'll handle everything else."
The call ended. Another one started immediately. Vincent again, four hours later.
"It's done. The car... there was nothing left. Antonio is dead."
"Good. Mourn appropriately. Play the devastated brother. In a week, you'll approach the girl about honoring her father's commitment. Use whatever leverage you need. She's young and grieving. She'll agree."
"And if she doesn't?"
"Then you remind her that accidents can happen to anyone. Staff. Friends. Anyone she cares about. She'll fall in line."
The recording clicked off.
I sat there, frozen. Unable to process what I'd just heard.
My father had ordered the hit on Antonio Romano. Had helped Vincent plan the murder. Had covered it up. All so he could have Aria.
Everything she'd suffered. Her grief. Her guilt for being at the club while her father died. The way Vincent had manipulated her with threats. Her entire nightmare existence.
All of it orchestrated by my father.
Marco was staring at me. "Kai? You okay? You look like you're about to murder someone."
"Play it back." My voice didn't sound like mine. Too flat. Too cold. "You need to hear this."
I rewound the recording. Let it play through both conversations. Watched Marco's expression shift from confused to horrified to furious.
When it finished, he sat back. Ran both hands through his hair.
"Holy shit. This is it. This is what we needed." He looked at me, eyes wide. "Murder of a respected Don who was within his rights to call off an arrangement. Conspiracy with another family member. Cover-up. The Council will have to act on this. They won't have a choice."
"He killed her father." I stood up so fast my chair crashed backward.
Started pacing. Needed to move before the rage building in my chest exploded.
"He fucking killed her father so he could have her.
Helped her uncle murder his own brother.
Then sat across from her at dinners pretending to be some benevolent savior taking in an orphan. "
My hands were shaking. Actually shaking with the need to put a bullet in my father's head right now. To walk into his room and end this tonight.
"We can use this." Marco stood too, blocking my path to the door like he could read my thoughts. "This is enough to bring him down the right way. Legal by Council standards. No blowback on you or Lia or Aria. You go to Father Benedetto tomorrow, request emergency session, present the evidence."
"She needs to know." I stopped pacing. Looked at him. "Aria needs to know what they did. That her father wanted to save her. That he died trying to protect her from this marriage."
"Kai, it's two in the morning. Your father is in his wing. Luca does rounds every hour. You can't just walk over there and..."
"Watch me."
I grabbed the recording. Shoved it in my pocket. Headed for the door.
Marco grabbed my arm. "You're not thinking clearly. Wait until morning. Tell her when it's safer."
"She's been living with the guilt for months. Thinking her father died while she was out having fun. Blaming herself. I'm not letting her spend one more night carrying that when I can give her the truth."
Marco stared at me for a long moment. Then sighed, let go of my arm.
"You're an idiot. A complete fucking idiot. But I get it." He grabbed his jacket. "I'll create a distraction. Pull Luca to the east wing with some fake security issue. You'll have maybe fifteen minutes. Don't waste them."
"Thank you."
"Yeah, well. When we're both dead because you couldn't wait until morning to play hero, I'm haunting you for eternity."
Despite everything, I smiled this time, but it was a brief smile.
Fifteen minutes later, I was slipping through shadows toward my father's wing. Marco had done his job. Luca and two guards were dealing with a "suspicious person" Marco had reported seeing on the east perimeter.
The hallway to Aria's suite was empty. I picked her lock in seconds. Slipped inside.
She wasn't in bed. I felt a moment of panic before I saw her in the sitting room, curled up in a chair by the window with a book.
"Why aren't you in your room?"