Rico (Russo Cosa Nostra (Part of the Chains and Crowns Chronicles) 5)

Prologue

Rico

The first thing I notice is the silence.

Not the kind that comes with peace, when a room finally settles after a long night and everyone allows themselves to believe that, for a few precious minutes, nothing is waiting beyond the walls to disturb them.

This silence is different. It is too deliberate, too sharp around the edges, carrying the uncomfortable weight of something that has not happened yet but is already moving toward us.

I have spent my entire life surrounded by chaos, so I know what it sounds like when a room is truly at ease, and I know what it sounds like when men who have learned to survive by instinct are waiting for something to break.

This is the second kind. The ballroom is full, the chandeliers are throwing warm light across polished marble, music drifts through the air, and conversations rise and fall around me, but underneath all of it is a tension I can't quite put my finger on.

It feels like the world has taken a breath and forgotten how to let it go.

My fingers tighten slightly around the glass in my hand as I stand near the edge of the room, watching without appearing to watch, because men like me don't survive by reacting to the first thing that feels wrong.

We survive by noticing what everyone else misses.

My gaze moves across the ballroom slowly, taking in the people, the entrances, the security positioned around the room, the men who appear relaxed but have spent their entire lives learning how to reach for a weapon without anyone noticing.

There are too many important people gathered here tonight for anyone to afford a mistake.

Every seat is occupied by someone who matters, every conversation carries consequences, and every smile hides calculations that have nothing to do with the celebration taking place around us.

Tonight is supposed to be about a wedding, but in our world, weddings are rarely only about love.

They are about families, alliances, territory, loyalty, bloodlines, and the promises made between people who understand that breaking an agreement can cost more than keeping one ever will.

This wedding is no different. My brother Giuseppe has just married Caterina, and with that marriage, our family has secured the alliance with the old country that was once supposed to come through me.

For a long time, that was the plan. Caterina was supposed to marry me because it made sense for everyone involved.

The arrangement had never been presented as some grand love story.

It was a strategic decision, one that would strengthen the ties between our families and reinforce our position with the people who still hold influence across the ocean.

I understood what was expected of me, and I was prepared to do it because that is what men in our family have always done.

We carry the weight placed on our shoulders without complaining about it, and we understand that sometimes duty comes before desire.

I could have married Caterina, built the life everyone expected us to build, and probably convinced myself that eventually the arrangement would become something more.

The problem was that Caterina and Giuseppe had never stopped loving each other, no matter how much time had passed or how many walls had been placed between them.

Once I understood that, there was no way I could pretend I hadn't seen it.

There is a particular kind of pain that comes from realizing the woman you are supposed to marry looks at another man the way Caterina looked at Giuseppe.

It isn't jealousy in its simplest form, because jealousy suggests that you believe something belongs to you and has been taken away.

Caterina was never mine. She was promised to me, but those are not the same thing, and I learned the difference the hard way.

I could have held her to the agreement. I could have gone through with the marriage and taken the alliance that had been placed in front of me, but I would have known every day that her heart belonged somewhere else.

Worse, I would have known exactly where it belonged.

Giuseppe is my brother, and despite everything that happened between us, I couldn't stand beside him for the rest of our lives knowing I had taken the woman he loved simply because a piece of paper and a family agreement said I could.

So I stepped aside. It cost me more than I ever admitted, but I would make the same decision again.

Some sacrifices hurt because they matter, and Caterina mattered enough that I would rather lose the future I thought I was going to have than spend the rest of my life pretending I couldn't see the truth standing directly in front of me.

Now I watch them together from across the ballroom, and there is no bitterness left in me.

Caterina is smiling in a way I rarely saw when she thought she was going to marry me, and Giuseppe looks like a man who finally stopped fighting for permission to want the one thing he had never been able to forget.

His hand rests against the small of her back, protective without being possessive, and when she turns her face toward him, something passes between them that needs no explanation.

They don't have to say a word for me to understand what I am looking at.

They chose each other. They always would have.

I simply had to stop standing between them long enough for all of us to admit it.

A faint smile touches my mouth as I lift my glass, watching my brother lean down to say something into Caterina's ear that makes her laugh.

Maybe this is what acceptance feels like.

It isn't forgetting what could have been, and it isn't pretending that walking away never hurt.

It is looking at what happened and understanding that the right choice can still be painful.

Giuseppe is happy. Caterina is happy. The alliance is stronger than anyone expected because it was built on something real instead of forcing two people into a marriage neither of them wanted.

For the first time since this entire mess began, I can look at them and feel something close to peace.

I lost a future, but my brother gained his.

In the end, that matters more to me than I expected it would.

My eyes move away from them and begin another slow sweep of the room, and that is when the feeling returns.

Something is wrong. I don't know what yet, but the instinct that has kept me alive through more dangerous situations than I care to remember begins pressing against the back of my mind.

I watch the guards first, because security is always the easiest place to find a weakness.

One man near the eastern entrance shifts his position, and another glances toward the doors before looking away too quickly.

A third seems distracted for half a second, his attention drifting toward the balcony when it should be focused on the people entering and leaving the room.

None of it is enough to make anyone else suspicious, and maybe none of it means anything at all, but I have spent too many years learning how small mistakes become dead bodies to ignore the feeling crawling beneath my skin.

I set my glass down and straighten slightly, my attention narrowing as I begin calculating the room without consciously deciding to do it.

Entrances. Exits. Windows. Security. Distance.

The position of my brother. Caterina. Dario.

The men closest to them. My mind moves through the possibilities automatically, separating what is normal from what isn't, until something catches my attention near the edge of the ballroom.

It is not movement itself that draws my eye but the intention behind it.

Someone is standing where they shouldn't be, and there is something about the way he moves that makes every instinct in me sharpen at once.

I don't know who he is, and I don't know what he wants, but I know that he isn't here for the wedding.

The first shot rings out before I can move.

The sound tears through the ballroom with such violence that for one brief second my mind struggles to reconcile it with everything happening around me.

The music cuts off. Screams erupt. Chairs scrape against marble as people drop or scramble for cover, and the room that had been filled with celebration becomes chaos in less than a heartbeat.

My body moves before my thoughts catch up, instinct taking over as I turn toward the direction of the gunfire and search for the threat.

Giuseppe is already moving toward Caterina, and men around the room are reaching beneath their jackets, drawing weapons as the security detail begins closing ranks.

Then the second shot comes.

Pain explodes through my side before I even hear the report.

The force of the bullet knocks the breath from my lungs and sends me stumbling backward, my shoulder striking something hard before my legs give out beneath me.

I hit the marble floor with enough force to make my vision flash white, and for several seconds the entire world seems to collapse into sound and light without any order to it.

My hand moves instinctively toward my side, and when my fingers press against the wound, warmth immediately floods across my palm.

Blood. Too much of it. I draw in a breath and nearly choke on the pain, but even as my body struggles to understand what has happened, my mind is already working through the details.

This wasn't random.

The shooter didn't fire blindly into a crowded room.

The first shot created chaos, but the second found me.

Whoever pulled that trigger knew exactly where I was standing, and they knew enough about the wedding to understand that everyone who mattered would be gathered inside these walls tonight.

That realization cuts through the pain more sharply than the bullet ever could.

Someone planned this. Someone studied the room, studied our security, studied the people who would be here, and chose this particular moment to make a statement.

"Rico!"

Caterina's voice reaches me through the chaos, and something twists inside my chest that has nothing to do with the wound in my side.

She sounds terrified, and I hate that I am the reason for it.

I try to turn toward her, but another wave of pain tears through me before I can manage it.

Somewhere nearby, Giuseppe's voice cuts through the screaming, ordering the men to lock down the building and keep everyone inside until they know exactly what happened.

Dario doesn't need to shout. He never has.

His authority moves through the room with the same certainty it always does, and within seconds men are securing the entrances, checking the exits, searching for the shooter while others move toward me.

Hands press against my side.

Someone tells me to stay awake.

Someone else calls for the medical team.

I barely hear them.

My attention remains fixed on the only question that matters.

Who knew?

The ballroom blurs around me as I force myself to keep my eyes open.

Faces become shadows beneath the chandeliers.

Voices blend together. Caterina is still somewhere nearby, and I can hear Giuseppe trying to keep her back while simultaneously making sure I am alive.

I want to tell them both that I'm fine, because that is what I have always done.

I have spent my entire life telling people I'm fine when I'm bleeding, when I'm angry, when I'm exhausted, when something inside me is breaking apart.

But the truth is becoming impossible to ignore now.

The blood beneath my hand is warm and heavy, and every breath feels harder than the one before it.

Still, my mind refuses to stop.

This wasn't an outside attack. It was too precise.

Too controlled. Whoever did this knew where to find me, knew where I would be standing, and knew that the wedding would give them enough bodies and confusion to disappear afterward.

Someone had information, and information like that doesn't come from nowhere.

It comes from inside. It comes from someone who knows our routines, our security, our families, and the people we trust enough to let them stand close.

The realization settles into me as the darkness begins creeping into the edges of my vision, and for the first time since the bullet hit, something colder than fear moves through me.

This wasn't simply an attempt to kill me.

It was a declaration. Whoever pulled that trigger wanted the Cosa Nostra to understand that someone was willing to strike at us in the one place where we should have been untouchable, surrounded by our families and celebrating one of the most important alliances we have secured in years.

They wanted blood, but they also wanted us looking over our shoulders, questioning the men standing beside us and wondering which one had opened the door.

My eyes begin to close despite everything I do to keep them open.

The voices around me grow distant, the pain becoming strangely detached from the rest of my body as consciousness slips farther away.

I think about Giuseppe and Caterina, about the way they looked at each other only minutes ago, about the future I willingly gave up so they could have theirs.

I think about my family, about the men who will now hunt for whoever did this, and about the fact that whoever fired that gun has no idea what they have just unleashed.

Because this war didn't begin tonight.

Tonight was simply the first time they made sure we knew it had begun.

And as the darkness finally pulls me under, one thought remains clear enough to hold onto.

They came for me.

But whatever happens next, they just made themselves a problem for every man who carries my family's blood.