Chapter 14 NORA
NORA
The morning sun barely cuts through the heavy Palermo fog when Luca yanks open my bedroom door without knocking.
He stands on the threshold in a charcoal wool coat, a porcelain cup of black espresso in his hand, steam curling toward the ceiling.
He doesn't say good morning. He just sets the small cup down on the wooden side table with a sharp clink that makes me jump.
"Get dressed," he commands, his dark eyes sweeping over me with zero warmth. "We have a meeting in the industrial district."
I rub the grit of sleep from my eyes, sitting up against the headboard while smoothing down the silk sheets.
"A meeting? As in, you are actually letting me leave this armed compound?
Because yesterday you had guards posted outside my door like I was a high-security inmate, and now we are going on a field trip? "
He turns on his heel without waiting for an answer. "Wear boots. And leave your purse."
I freshen up, drink the bitter espresso in two burning gulps, lace up my leather boots, and head downstairs, half convinced this is some corporate sit-down or a quiet renegotiation with Italian bankers over cold pastries.
But out in the gravel courtyard, three black SUVs idle with their exhaust chugging into the damp morning air, and every single man standing by the open doors checks the slide of an automatic pistol before tucking it under his jacket.
He holds open the back door of the black SUV with the cold, effortless grace of a man who routinely signs death warrants. "Get in the car. And keep your mouth shut until I say otherwise."
I slide onto the leather. "Charming invitation. Do I get a plus-one or is this a fucking murder date?"
Matteo snorts from the driver's seat. "She's funny when she's about to see things she can't unsee. Love that for her."
Luca climbs in beside me, his thigh pressing hard against mine without an ounce of apology.
"You think you're dealing with businessmen who just need polite negotiation," he murmurs, his voice a low, dangerous vibration.
"I brought you today so you see the real me.
The one who kills without a second thought. "
I cross my arms tight over my chest. "I was supposed to be in London reviewing client retainers, not touring Sicilian death traps. Your bumbling goons grabbed the wrong woman in broad daylight."
Luca adjusts his dark wool coat, completely unbothered by my glare.
"The original plan was clean. Bellini's assistant was scheduled for a discreet transfer to a private wellness spa outside Zurich until the Bellini threat passed.
No gunfire. No mess. Just two quiet weeks in the Swiss Alps while we secured the city. "
Matteo taps the steering wheel with his thumb, checking the rearview mirror. "Same coffee shop, same corner in London, same black wool coat. How was I supposed to know this one would kick Sal in the throat and swear at me all the way to Sicily?"
"Because you have eyes, Matteo," Luca counters in a low, dangerous rumble. "Instead of a quiet luxury clinic in Switzerland, you brought an angry London crisis manager straight to my doorstep."
I lean close enough to catch the faint scent of black coffee and cold wool on his collar. "I don't just manage crises. I bill two thousand pounds an hour to fix catastrophic fuck-ups just like yours."
Luca doesn't flinch. "Drive, Matteo. Before she sends us an invoice."
The industrial district smells like rust and diesel.
The warehouse sits alone at the end of a cracked road, windows blacked out, two guards with rifles nodding us through.
Inside, fluorescent lights buzz over concrete stained dark in places that look old and permanent.
Four people kneel in a row in the center, hands bound tightly behind their backs with thick zip ties.
The middle-aged man's face is swollen purple, blood dripping from his split lip.
Beside him kneel a trembling woman and two young kids, a boy no older than ten and a girl who looks maybe eight, all sobbing uncontrollably as tears stream down their bruised cheeks.
My stomach turns. Hard.
"Who's the guest of honor?" I demand. I force my voice to stay flat and dry, because if I let it shake, I lose the only armor I have left.
Luca stops a few feet from the line, tone like ice. "Bellini's informant. And the family that helped hide his betrayal. Three of our men bled out in an alley this morning because of him."
The man lifts his bruised head, weeping openly. "Luca, please. Spare my wife. Spare my children. They had nothing to do with it."
His lethal whisper quiets the room. "You had a choice. You chose wrong."
I take a step forward because negotiation is the only language I still trust. "This is the part where you offer him a deal. Information for exile. Something that keeps the fucking blood off the concrete."
Luca cuts his eyes to me, his expression hardening. "This isn't a boardroom, Nora. He already took the deal. Then he fucked us over."
The kneeling man sobs once, wet and broken. "I can still help. Names. Locations. Anything."
Matteo shifts his weight, arms crossed. "Buddy, you already sang. The song sucked."
"Matteo." Luca's voice drops an octave, hand dropping toward his waistband.
"What? I'm being supportive."
I push past my own rising panic, taking a step closer to the blood. "Luca. Look at him. He's broken. You already won. Executing him now is just... sadistic fucking theater."
Luca's jaw flexes. "Theater keeps the next rat from thinking he can walk into my house and sell my people."
"And what about me?" My temper flares to mask the terror. "You dragged me here so I could clap? Write a review? Five stars for the goddamn bloodstain aesthetics?"
Something cold settles into his eyes. "He tried to sell your name to Bellini to get leverage on us. And I brought you here so you see what I really am. No charming facade. No boardroom manners. Just cold, cruel reality."
The man on the floor whimpers. "Please. Leave my kids."
Luca pulls a heavy combat knife from his boot instead of checking his watch, the steel glinting under the pale lights. My stomach lurches into my throat as my pulse hammers hard.
"Kids," I repeat, my throat tight, hating the raw vulnerability in my tone. "Jesus fucking Christ, Luca."
He steps forward and plants a heavy boot onto the informant's right hand, pinning his fingers against the rough floor. "Treason wipes out the whole bloodline."
With three swift, sickening hacks of the blade, Luca severs three fingers clean off the man's hand. Blood squirts across the stone, and the man lets out a high, shredded shriek that bounces off the steel rafters.
"You don't have to do this in front of her," Matteo mutters, suddenly less comic. "She's going green."
Luca doesn't blink, boots planted against the concrete. "She stays. She asked for the truth. This is it."
I dig my fingernails into my palms until the skin protests. "I asked for an itinerary. A heads-up. An email invite with an RSVP option so I could respectfully decline."
The kneeling man curls over his spurting hand, sobbing and choking on his own blood while his wife shrieks beside him. Luca wipes the red blade on his dark trousers, draws his pistol from under his jacket, and without a pause fires once into the man's forehead.
The gunshot cracks the air open. Blood and skull fragments spray backward across the concrete.
The informant drops sideways, his body twitching once before going totally limp.
Beside him, his wife and two young children scream in raw terror, thrashing frantically against their plastic ties as warm blood spatters their faces.
My ears ring violently. Before I can draw breath to yell, Luca steps right up to the weeping woman.
She is screaming hysterically, begging for her babies in choked Italian.
Luca doesn't hesitate for a second. He raises the pistol and fires straight into her chest, then puts a cold second bullet through her temple.
She collapses in a heap, blood pumping fast across the floor into a widening red slick. The two children shriek, crawling backward on their knees through their mother's blood, the little boy crying out in absolute agony as his pants soak in his own terrified urine.
I lunge forward, but Matteo catches my arm and holds me back with rigid force. "Luca, stop! They're just little kids!"
Luca steps forward and grabs the young boy by his hair, pulling his head back hard.
He fires once into his forehead, dropping him instantly.
Without even pausing to breathe, he turns the gun on the little girl cowering on the concrete and pulls the trigger.
The blast shatters the quiet, leaving the entire family dead in a pool of dark blood.
"Fuck!" I choke out, my knees turning to jelly as the stench of copper, gunpowder, and voided bowels hits my throat. "Fuck! You just butchered a whole family! You killed babies! You're a fucking monster!"
Luca lowers the smoking gun. His face remains dead blank, though blood mist dots his cheek and cuffs. "Treason has no heirs. This is how we survive."
I take a wild step toward him. "Survive? That was a human being on his knees begging for his life. You didn't even let his kids go, you bastard."
Matteo whistles low. "She's taking it great. Super calm. Take notes mate."
I swing around to glare at him. "Shut the fuck up, Matteo. Or I will grab that gun myself, and I promise you my aim is highly emotional."
He holds up both hands, stepping back. "Noted. Emotional aim. Terrifying. I'm out."
Luca holsters the weapon and turns fully toward me. Blood mist dotted the cuff of his shirt. "You wanted to know what I am. Now you do."
"That was not on the company brochure," I whisper, the edges of my vision blurring before snapping back into harsh, sharp focus. "You left off the part where you execute people before morning coffee."
Luca wipes a smear of dark grime from his knuckles with the pad of his thumb. "The coffee comes after."
"I wanted to know the man who kissed me like the world was ending," I scream, heat rushing to my face as anger and sheer revulsion twist together. "Not the cold-blooded monster who turns a warehouse into a slaughterhouse."
His eyes go cold. "They're the same man. You don't get one without the other."
I swallow hard, shoving my shaking hands deep into my pockets so they don't see me unraveling. "Is this a regular occurrence, or did I just get the premium fucking package?"
Luca studies me for a long second. "You can hate me for it. Most people do."
"I don't hate you," I admit, the honesty coating my throat like bile. "I hate that a sick part of me already knew who you were and still got in the car. I hate that watching you pull that trigger felt like the cell door locking behind me for fucking real."
Matteo clears his throat from a safe distance, rocking back on his heels. "So... the cleanup crew is ten minutes out. Do we do the awkward silence now or the group hug? I am flexible."
I glare at his smirk. "Touch me and I will bite your nose off."
Matteo nods with genuine appreciation. "Feisty. I respect boundaries. Handshake it is."
Luca ignores him. He steps closer to me, voice low. "Say the word and you never see this again. You stay in the house. You stay soft."
I look at the dead man. At the blood already congealing at the edges. "Soft gets people killed in your world. I noticed."
"Then stop flinching," he murmurs, his dark gaze raking over my trembling jawline.
I glare at him. "I'm not flinching. I'm recalculating. There's a difference. One involves math. The other involves therapy I'll never be able to afford after this shit."
He almost smiles. Almost. "You still talking."
"Someone has to fucking speak. Your creepy guards just stared at me like I was a puzzle with missing pieces and then vanished. Super comforting. Really grounds the whole murder vibe."
Matteo edges closer now that the gun is tucked away. "They do that. Creepy silent assassin energy. You get used to it right around never."
I roll my eyes. "Fabulous. Add it to the brochure. Scenic warehouses, complimentary executions, and mysterious guards who watch you like they know your middle name and your credit score."
Luca closes the distance between us, his broad frame cutting off the view of the blood on the floor.
His leather-gloved fingers wrap around the crook of my elbow, applying just enough steady pressure to turn me around without wrenching my arm.
The heavy heat of his palm radiates straight through my coat sleeve, anchoring me even as my pulse thumps against my ribs.
He guides me past the puddles toward the open metal doorway, his stride measured and unhurried.
"We're leaving before you start charging consulting fees for better lighting," he murmurs.
"The lighting is garbage," I mutter. "How do you even aim properly?"
He guides me across the threshold without breaking his stride. "Practice."
I rub my temples. "Remind me never to challenge you to darts at a pub. Or literally anything involving projectiles."
"I will keep that under advisement," he murmurs back, his grip lingering on my sleeve for a beat too long before releasing me.
Outside, the morning air hits crisp and sharp.
I suck in a deep lungful to clear the smell of iron and spent gunpowder.
My hands don't shake, but the cold calculation of what just happened sits heavy in my chest. He killed a traitor without blinking.
I stood there and watched it happen without falling apart.
The rules of this world are brutal, but I'm adapting to them faster than I'd like to admit.
I climb in. Luca follows. Matteo starts the engine and immediately fills the quiet with noise. "So. Who's hungry? I'm thinking we skip the blood and go straight to carbs. Nora? You look like you could murder a pastry. No offense to the actual murder."
Luca pinches the bridge of his nose in sheer exhaustion. "Matteo."
Matteo catches Luca's glare in the rearview mirror and lifts a single shoulder. "Right. Espresso first, trauma processing later. Message received."
I stare out the window as the warehouse shrinks behind us. The image of the man's open mouth won't leave. Neither will the way Luca's hand stayed steady. Neither will Vittorio's quiet stare, heavy with something I can't name yet.
"You okay?" Luca asks after a mile of road.
I lean my head against the cool glass. "Define okay. If it includes a massive existential crisis and the sudden urge to bill you for emotional trauma, then sure. Peak fucking wellness."
He watches me sideways. "You didn't throw up. Most people throw up."
"I'm saving it for the ride home," I drawl. "Dramatic timing. Keeps the audience engaged."
Matteo laughs too loud, shaking his head. "She's fucking magnificent, Luca. Terrifying, but magnificent."