Chapter 30 LUCA
LUCA
I just walked back down the hallway after watching Adrian and Sofia finally sort things out and share a kiss I would rather not watch. I was hoping for five minutes of peace in my office to clear my head, but Matteo bursts through the door looking like he lost a fight with a doorframe.
I sink into my leather chair without making a sound, fixing my eyes directly on his face. He shifts his weight from boot to boot, pulling at his collar as beads of moisture gather along his hairline.
Matteo conducts an invisible orchestra with both hands, swaying on his feet. "Okay, so, theoretically, if someone wanted to ruin your entire night, how mad would you be on a scale of one to we need to buy a whole new set of leather furniture?"
I set my palms on the mahogany desk and lean forward. "Give me a number, Matteo."
"A solid eight." Matteo winces. He touches a tender spot on his jawline. "Maybe a nine if you factor in the commute."
Adrian follows him in and shuts the door with the kind of care that means the news is bad.
My knuckles turn white against the polished wood. "Can someone explain it to me," I growl.
Matteo winces and rubs the bruise on his cheek. "Bellini hit three of our warehouses at once. Palermo, Naples, and the one outside Genoa that we pretended was a furniture importer. They didn't steal. They burned. Coordinated to the minute."
Adrian pushes the tablet across the wood desk. On the screen, thick gray smoke pours from the roof of the Genoa warehouse. Red and yellow lights flash against burned black brick. In the corner of the video, two paramedics carry a heavy black body bag into an ambulance. My jaw locks tight.
"Casualties." My voice cuts through Matteo's babble like a blade.
"Four of ours dead," Adrian answers, voice flat as concrete. "Seven wounded. Two of theirs left behind, which means they wanted us to know it was intentional. Not a smash and grab. A message."
Matteo drops into the chair opposite me hard enough that it creaks. "Also, funny story, not funny, the Genoa crew sent a photo of the gate with a note stuck to it. In Italian. Very rude Italian. It says the Moretti heir's distractions are showing."
I look up, my stare locking onto Matteo's face. "Say that shit again."
He holds both palms out. "I didn't write it. I'm just the charming delivery system. Also I may have punched a wall on the way in. The wall won. Don't tell Nonna."
Adrian ignores him and taps the screen. "There's more. They hit our shipping lines. Two trucks gone mid-route. The trackers were cut. That's not street muscle. That's someone who knows our schedule."
"Inside help," I say.
"Or someone who planned this for months." Adrian folds his arms across his chest, eyes fixed on the map behind me. "Either way, it's a trap. They smash our outside spots so we pull everyone back to the house."
I rub the tension between my eyes. "And then we sit here like ducks in a parlor. Waiting for the pot to boil."
Matteo taps his knuckles against his chest. "Extremely well armed ducks, if that helps."
Matteo leans forward, planting his elbows onto his knees. "Can we talk about the part where my favorite espresso counter near the Genoa site is now a smoking crater? Because I had a loyalty card. Two more stamps and I earned a free pastry. Bellini literally owes me a breakfast feast."
I reach into my drawer for a fresh magazine. "I will personally buy you a bakery if you shut your mouth for sixty seconds."
Matteo raises two fingers. "Make it two bakeries and I will consider humming silently instead."
"Matteo," I snap. A cold glare pins him to his chair and shuts him up instantly.
"I am processing my trauma through lighthearted banter." Matteo slumps back into the leather cushion. "My therapist says suppressing panic causes stomach ulcers."
"You fired your therapist three weeks ago for diagnosing you with chronic stupidity," Adrian pulls up a satellite feed on the display.
"He lacked professional bedside manner," Matteo sniffs, crossing his legs.
I close the tablet. Somewhere between watching Nora rest upstairs and this door swinging open, the night decided it wasn't finished with me. The tea she brought me earlier sits on the edge of the desk, gone completely cold. I don't look at it for long.
I turn my back on the cold tea. "Status on the estate."
Adrian answers immediately. "Perimeter doubled. Sofia is in her room with two men outside her door. Enzo is on the south gate. Nonna is in the kitchen threatening the chef with new recipes."
Matteo snorts. "She already force-fed me the new bread. I think it was a rock."
I slam my palm flat against the desk. "Focus."
Matteo straightens up, wiping the grin off his bruised mouth. "Fine. We focus. What's the call? Do we retaliate immediately, or do we dig in and play defense?"
"We don't react blindly." I look down at the map on the blotter. "If we rush out, we walk right into an ambush. We find out who gave up those routes, we secure the area, and then we strike where it hurts him most."
Adrian nods once. "I'm already checking the names of the drivers and warehouse workers. Anyone who touched those shipments gets questioned tonight."
Matteo cracks his knuckles. "A polite conversation. Or the other kind. I'm flexible. My face is already purple, so aesthetics are off the table."
I almost smile. Almost. "You're on the Palermo crews. Get me names of who lived and who didn't. No heroics. If they're baiting a second wave, I want us gone before it lands."
He stands, salutes badly, and nearly knocks over a brass lamp. "Yes sir, emotional support cousin departing. Also, for the record, if this turns into a mess and Nora tries to fix it herself, I support her in theory and you in practice. Split loyalty. Very modern."
"Get the fuck out." I press two fingers to my temple.
He grins like I've paid him and jogs to the door. "Going. Calling Palermo. Not mentioning your tragic romantic life. Probably."
The door clicks shut behind him. Adrian stays. The room feels smaller without Matteo's noise to fill the gaps.
I stand and walk to the window. The grounds look calm under the floodlights. Calm is a costume we put on so the house doesn't smell like panic.
I watch the shadows stretch across the lawn. "How long until the second wave?"
"If they're following the old pattern, hours. Not days." Adrian joins me at the glass, a half step back the way he always stands when we're working. "They want us reactive. Scattered. Looking at smoke instead of the knife."
I turn back to face the room. "Then we don't scatter."
"And Nora?" Adrian presses, his eyes drilling into me.
I keep my eyes on the dark tree line, my jaw clenched so hard the muscles ache. "She stays here. I'm not sending her away into an open fight while Bellini's hunters are loose, and I'm sure as hell not letting her out of my reach. She stays right where I can protect her."
Adrian lets out a slow breath through his nose. "She will want to help. The moment she smells smoke, she will try to manage the room."
I click the pen in my hand until the plastic strains. "Then she can give orders tomorrow."
Adrian glances sideways at the glass. "She won't wait until tomorrow."
"She can be furious at me alive."
"That is profoundly romantic of you." Adrian dryly checks the courtyard monitors.
I snap the pen cleanly in half over my blotter. "I am a poet at heart."
His mouth twitches. "Matteo already started. I'm just the backup chorus."
My phone buzzes on the desk. Unknown number. Italian prefix that isn't one of ours. I pick it up, thumb hovering.
"Speaker," Adrian says.
I hit it.
Don Vincenzo Bellini's voice fills the office like oil on water. Smooth. Old. Enjoying itself.
"Luca. You look tired in all those warehouse photos. You should rest more. Delegation is a gift."
I don't answer. Silence is a tool. And he hates tools he didn't invent.
"Three sites," he continues. "Consider it a courtesy cleanse. Dead weight, weak security, sentimental routes. I tidied for you. It's a payback for the shot your grandmother gave me"
Adrian's jaw flexes. He starts tracing routes on the wall map with one finger, already working while the old man monologues.
My grip on the receiver tightens enough to crack the plastic. "What the fuck do you want?"
"I want the board cleared and maybe an apology from your grandmother." A soft laugh. "Your grandfather understood board games. Pity he didn't live to teach you the endgame properly."
Matteo chooses that exact second to shove the door back open, phone still glued to his ear. "Palermo confirms four dead, and also someone left a stuffed crow on the fence, which is either symbolic or a very committed prank, and why is there a creepy voice on speaker?"
"Hang up," I mouth.
He freezes, eyes wide, then whispers into his phone, "Call you back, don't die," and kills the line. He mouths who at Adrian. Adrian mouths Bellini . Matteo's whole face does a silent scream and he tiptoes to the side like the floor might report him.
"Your cousin is remarkably noisy," Bellini chuckles through the speaker grille. "Energetic. Reminds me of a hunting hound that never learned which velvet chairs cost money."
"I cost more than your entire fleet, you antique fossil!" Matteo mouths furiously at the speaker, his knuckles whitening as he clutches the back of the leather chair.
Matteo flips off the phone with both hands. Adrian catches his wrist and lowers it without looking away from the map.
I step up to the speaker. "Get to the fucking point, Vincenzo."
"The point is simple. You have something that makes you slow. Slow men lose cities. Slow men lose sisters. Slow men lose the pretty English problem sleeping under their roof."
The temperature in my blood drops. "You don't involve her."
"I don't need to. Everyone in my house already knows it. Sara especially. She has opinions about women who walk into rooms like they own the air."
Matteo starts pacing in a tiny circle, whispering, "I hate him, I hate him, I hate the crow, I hate this night."