Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NICO
Blood has a distinctive scent. Metallic. Primal. It cuts through the chemical smell of disinfectant here in the warehouse.
Dante Moretti’s body lies on a sheet of plastic on the concrete floor.
The war is over. The debt for Marco is paid.
I watch as my men efficiently wrap the body, their movements practiced and silent.
There is no triumph in this moment, only the cold finality of a problem solved.
I take the damp cloth Blake offers me and wipe my hands, removing the last traces of my rival from my skin.
“It’s done, sir,” Blake says, his voice a low tone in the echoing space. “The car is ready. Your uncle is expecting you.”
I nod, dropping the cloth into a disposal bin. My mind has already moved on. Twenty-four hours ago, I was preparing to walk into a trap. Now Moretti is dead. Isabel and Eunji Song are in federal custody. And Lea is waiting. Lea is mine, in a way I never expected.
“Is she settled?” I ask as we walk toward the warehouse exit, leaving the cleanup crew to their work.
“Yes, sir. I escorted her to the lake house. Double security perimeter, as instructed.” Something almost like amusement flickers in Blake’s eyes. “She asked if she was still a prisoner.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“That I don’t make those determinations, sir. That’s between you and her.”
Smart man. Blake will never be Marco, but he’s learning. “Her reaction?”
This time, Blake’s mouth definitely twitches. “She said she’d take that as a no, and that she expected you before midnight.” He pauses. “Sir.”
I check my watch. 9:17 PM. Time for one last conversation before I go home. “Alessandro first,” I say.
The word home feels different now, loaded with new possibilities.
I slide into the waiting Bentley. As we pull away from the industrial grimness of the warehouse district, I watch the glittering towers of the city come into view.
Tonight marks a new chapter. The king has eliminated his rivals.
The last piece on the board has moved exactly where I want her. Now, I just need my uncle’s blessing.
Alessandro’s study hasn’t changed in twenty years. The same leather chairs. The same bookshelves. The same crystal decanters filled with amber liquids that cost more than most people make in a month. It’s old-world power, insulated from the modern chaos just beyond its walls.
My uncle stands at the window, his back to me as I enter. Even at sixty-eight, he maintains the posture of a much younger man.
“Nicolás,” he says without turning. He uses my full first name only in moments of gravity or disapproval. Tonight, I suspect it’s both.
“It’s done,” I tell him, moving to the bar cart to pour us both a measure of Macallan 25. “Moretti is dead. Isabel and Professor Song are in federal custody.”
“And the Korean pipeline?”
“Secured. I’ve already spoken with Mr. Kang. With Moretti gone and the professor neutralized, we control the distribution network from Vancouver to Chicago.”
Alessandro turns finally. His dark eyes study me. He accepts the crystal tumbler I offer him, raising it slightly.
“To victory,” he says.
“To balance,” I correct, clinking my glass against his. The ritual complete, I take my usual seat across from his desk. He remains standing, a subtle power play I recognize but choose to ignore.
“You’ve done well,” Alessandro concedes, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “Better than I expected, given the... complications.”
We both know what he means by complications. Who he means.
“Lea wasn’t a complication,” I say evenly. “She was the key.”
Alessandro’s eyebrow rises a fraction. “Explain.”
I lean back, crossing one leg over the other. “Without Lea, we wouldn’t have had the leverage to bring Eunji Song into the open. Or known about Isabel’s connection to Moretti. Without Lea, I likely would have been walking into Moretti’s ambush blind.”
“All problems that wouldn’t have existed if you hadn’t involved the girl in the first place,” Alessandro counters. “If you had maintained your focus, eliminated Song quietly when we first identified her, none of this would have been necessary.”
“Perhaps,” I allow. “But then we wouldn’t have uncovered the full extent of their operation. We wouldn’t know about the Vancouver connection. We wouldn’t have the network intact to take over.”
Alessandro moves to his desk, setting down his glass with deliberate precision. “You’re rationalizing, Nicolás. Justifying emotional decisions with strategic language.” His voice softens slightly. “I taught you better than that.”
I feel a flicker of the old frustration. The teenager who could never quite meet his uncle’s impossible standards. But I’m not that boy anymore. I’m the man who just eliminated the greatest threat to our organization in a decade.
“You taught me to recognize assets,” I reply. “To identify leverage points and exploit them. That’s exactly what I did with Lea.”
“And now? What is she now that her usefulness is spent?” Alessandro watches me with hawkish intensity. “An ongoing liability? A loose end to be tied off? Or something else entirely?”
Here it comes; the real reason for this meeting. Not a celebration of victory, but an accounting of my choices.
I set my glass down untouched. “She’s something I never expected.”
Alessandro’s expression hardens. “After everything, you still haven’t learned.”
“I’ve learned precisely the lesson I needed to learn,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “Not the one you wanted to teach.”
“And what lesson is that?”
I stand, refusing to be a supplicant. “That isolation isn’t strength. It’s vulnerability.” I move to the window. “You taught me to build walls. To trust no one. To view every person as either an asset or a threat.”
“Because they are,” Alessandro says simply.
I turn to face him. “Lea saved my life. Not because I ordered it. But because she couldn’t bear to watch me die.
She was the one who suggested mercy for Julian, understanding that leaving a man in your debt is more powerful than making an example of him.
It was Lea who crafted the plan to trap Isabel and her mother.
Tell me, Uncle. Does that sound like weakness to you? ”
Alessandro studies me for a long moment. “It sounds like you’ve found someone exceptional,” he finally concedes. “But exceptional people can still be fatal distractions.”
“Or they can make us stronger than we ever could be alone.”
Alessandro sighs, a rare display of genuine emotion. He moves around his desk to stand directly before me, his eyes level with mine. “You’ve always been stubborn,” he says, a hint of fondness creeping into his tone. “Even as a child. Once you fixed on something, nothing could dissuade you.”
“I learned from the best,” I reply, the ghost of a smile playing at my lips.
“You think she’s different,” Alessandro says. Not a question. “You think what exists between you can survive in our world.”
“I know it.”
He studies me carefully. “And what exactly do you plan to do about this certainty?”
I hold his gaze. “I’m going to marry her.”
For once, I’ve surprised Alessandro. His eyes widen fractionally, his composure slipping for a heartbeat before he regains control.
“Marry her?” he repeats, as if testing the concept.
“After knowing her for what—three months? During which you’ve manipulated her, imprisoned her, and forced her to confront the fact that her entire life was built on lies?
” He shakes his head. “Be reasonable, Nicolás. This is a trauma response. The intensity of recent events?—”
“It has nothing to do with recent events,” I interrupt, “and everything to do with who she is. Who I am when I’m with her.”
“And who is that?” Alessandro asks, genuine curiosity in his voice.
I consider the question seriously. “Someone who can see beyond the next move. Someone who understands that maintaining order doesn’t have to mean sacrificing everything human in themselves.” I meet his eyes. “Someone who might actually be worthy of what you’ve built.”
Alessandro’s expression softens almost imperceptibly. “You think marriage is the answer? A legal contract, a symbolic gesture?”
“I think claiming what’s mine in every way is the answer,” I reply. “I think showing her—showing everyone—that she isn’t just another asset is the answer.”
“It’s too soon,” Alessandro says, but there’s less conviction in his voice. “Wait. Be certain. There’s no need to rush into a permanent decision.”
I laugh softly at that, the sound so unexpected in this room that Alessandro actually blinks in surprise.
“In my life, there’s no time for second-guessing,” I tell him.
“I could be dead tomorrow. You taught me that. You taught me to seize opportunities when they present themselves, to move decisively when the moment is right.” I take a step closer until we’re only inches apart.
“The moment is now. She is my future. I’ve never been more certain of anything. ”
Alessandro searches my face, looking for any hint of doubt, any crack in my conviction. He finds none.
“You love her,” he says finally. A simple statement of fact.
“Yes.”
“And this love... it doesn’t feel like weakness to you?”
I consider the question seriously. “It feels like finally understanding what I’ve been fighting for all these years. Not just power. Not just control. But the right to build something that matters.”
Alessandro turns away, moving back to the window.
For a long moment, he’s silent, looking out at the estate.
“I have never married,” he says quietly.
“Never allowed myself that... indulgence. I told myself it was because I couldn’t risk the vulnerability.
Couldn’t risk giving anyone that much power over me.
” He turns back to face me. “But the truth is simpler, and far more pathetic. I never found anyone worth the risk.”
The raw honesty surprises me.