Chapter 8
A few weeks later…
One night, I see them kissing, and I want to kill him.
It costs me every shred of restraint not to move.
Not to put a bullet between his eyes and drag her away before anyone notices.
Just the thought of him breaking her innocence infuriates me.
His hands on her infuriate me. The way he looks at her like she’s already his, like he earned her—as if he suffered for her, bled for her, fought for her—that infuriates me most. All her kisses should be mine.
I kissed her first. I slam my palm against a column, relishing in the sting of the pain.
But it doesn't last long, not nearly long enough, before the ever-present ache in my heart takes over.
I should go over there, put my fist into his arrogant face, and take Sophia away from here. But what stops me cold is the way she melts into him. That's something I hadn’t considered. Her falling for him. Her actually being happy in an arranged marriage.
It feels like my heart’s being torn from my chest, muscle by muscle, vein by vein.
And I hate myself for it because I have no claim.
No right. I kissed her, yes, but I never told her what I felt for her.
I stood in the shadows like a coward while she waited for someone who never came.
I thought I was protecting her. But maybe I was just afraid.
Watching her in his arms—smiling, soft, his—makes me realize something I’ve been trying to suppress.
I want her.
Not just her body. Not just her light.
I want the life I could’ve had with her if I’d been someone else. Someone real. Someone with a name that opened doors instead of someone else's trunk. Someone who didn’t need permission to stand at her side.
I want to be the man she reaches for.
But I’m not.
I’m a shadow. A tool. A made man with no bloodline, no legacy, no real future.
Just a vault of secrets and a ledger full of names, all crossed out in red.
So I stand there. And I watch her kiss him.
And I lie to myself. I tell myself that if she can find peace in this world, even with him, I should be glad. I should be relieved.
But it’s a weak, bitter lie.
Because the truth is, I want to rip her away from him and never let her go. I want to lock every door behind us and burn every name that thinks it owns her.
And that’s when it hits me one more time, with brutal, surgical clarity: I can’t keep standing still.
If I ever want a chance—any real chance—I have to become more than just another soldier in Carlos Orsi’s army. I have to build something that no one can take from me. I have to make my own kingdom. Built on power, territory, and fear.
The problem is my name, or rather, my lack thereof.
The Zanello family controls the other five Cosa Nostra families in New York.
Between the DeLuna, Sartori, Giordano, Conti, and Orsi families, all branches of crime have been staked out.
If I want to build my own empire, I can't step on any of their feet.
It needs to be something that nobody has done so far.
Not drugs, prostitution, money laundering, arms trafficking, gambling, and whatever else they have their greedy fingers in.
This needs to be different and mine. It needs to earn the respect of the entire New York Cosa Nostra if I want a chance of winning Sophia. And it has to be done in the shadows.
I've already lost a month. A whole fucking month spent circling her like a ghost, convincing myself that I was doing the right thing by staying quiet and still. I won’t lose another.
I can’t become what I need to be while orbiting her like some lovesick shadow.
And I definitely can’t do it under Carlos Orsi.
The decent thing would be to ask him for a clean break.
God knows he owes me that much after what I did.
After saving Sophia. No, not just her, but the other capos’ daughters.
He wouldn’t have just lost face that night in the alley.
He would’ve lost power, respect, and alliances.
He knows that. A hundred grand and a crappy promotion don’t even come close to settling that debt.
But this isn’t about what’s decent anymore.
This is about what’s necessary.
Seeing Sophia every day is like carving out my own heart with a spoon. I know I can’t stay near her. I know I can’t breathe the same air and not want her. If I keep orbiting her, I’ll never rise. I’ll be the same man—just better dressed. Still a shadow. Still not enough.
School smarts have never been my forte. Nobody ever checked my homework or pushed me to aim higher.
But I’m good with patterns. Systems. Quiet vulnerabilities.
I can’t quote philosophers or solve equations, but give me an encrypted server or a broken man with secrets, and I’ll crack them both open the same way: slow, precise, final.
I’m good with computers. Not flashy-hacker good, not neon-lit rooms, and video-game soundtracks good. Just quietly dangerous. I can ghost through firewalls, vanish from surveillance, scrub a trail until it looks like it never existed.
I can’t glance at a ledger and tell you where the numbers don’t add up. But I can stare at the same page and feel where something’s wrong, where the flow breaks, where the story stutters. I see the fracture lines others miss, the dots no one else bothers to connect.
That’s why Nestor, Carlos’s second, kept me close. Extortion. Weakness-hunting. I can find a man’s fault line and press until he cracks. And I know, deep down in my gut, that there is more to it than Nestor understands. More I can build on if I choose.
The Contis—especially Stephano—have made an empire out of that.
Carlos Orsi traffics in fear and fists. But the Contis?
They steal futures with silence. No blood.
No bullets. Just zeroes and ones, spread across a dozen jurisdictions, buried under shell companies and false identities.
We’re not talking about fleecing pensioners or running email scams. We’re talking about millions.
Gone in hours, lifted clean from offshore hedge funds, corporate tax shelters, crypto laundries.
Whole portfolios gutted and rebuilt in their name before anyone even notices the breach.
It’s clean. Elegant. Untouchable.
I can't do anything like that without pissing the Contis off, but I feel there is something there, in between.
Stephano Conti runs his crew like a black-market intelligence agency.
He doesn’t just fight the old-world capos—he outpaces them.
His men wear suits, not chains. They speak in code and calculus.
But I don’t let the polished look fool me—he’s every bit as dangerous as Carlos.
Plus, he's smarter, meaner, and quieter.
I’ve been watching him.
Studying him.
Because if I want what he has, I need to learn how he plays the game, better yet, how to beat him at it.
I start drawing up a plan.
I’ll need to step back from Carlos carefully. Not just walk away—I need to sever our relationship. Quietly. Cleanly. No mess. I’ll call it a side project, a personal venture, something I’ve earned. He’ll sneer, but he won’t stop me. He’ll underestimate me. That’s his mistake.
I’ll vanish into the background and begin building from the bones up. My own network. My own rules. I’ll find a way to get close to Stephano, not as a lackey, but as a student.
And, eventually, a rival.
Because one day soon, when the dust settles and the lines are redrawn, I’m not going to stand behind any man’s throne.
I’m going to build my own.
And then… I’ll come back for her.
And when that time comes, I won’t have to watch her love someone else.
A month later…
The air smells like rust and old blood. It’s cold from the dampness that lingers in the walls, floor, and ceiling. They brought me to one of those forgotten warehouses near the river, a place where the cops don’t drive by and the bodies don’t echo when they drop.
I’m on my knees with my hands cuffed behind my back.
My face is already split at the cheek from one of Angelo’s goons trying to impress the boss.
There are four of them. Carlos’s men. They didn’t say anything when they grabbed me.
Just a black bag, zip ties, and the usual bruises handed out on arrival.
I don’t struggle. I don’t scream. I’ve bled in worse places. Only this one feels personal. And I have a pretty good idea why.
Carlos steps in like he owns the night. Fine leather shoes click against the concrete as he circles behind me.
I hear the flick of his lighter before I smell the smoke on an expensive Cuban cigar.
He saves them for moments like this, when he gets to perform.
He doesn’t speak at first, just paces, slowly and deliberately.
I’ve seen it dozens of times. He knows the strength of a calculated silence meant to induce fear in his victim.
This time, that victim happens to be me. But he won't succeed. I don’t give a shit if he kills me or not. Never have. When he finally speaks, his voice is cold and sharp, each word a scalpel. "So, I hear you want to leave."
I don’t answer and keep my eyes forward and chin level. The men behind him are watching too closely. One twitch and it’s over.
Carlos comes around and crouches in front of me; his shadow stretches long across the stained floor. He’s calm, but not relaxed. There’s something coiled in his body, like a rattlesnake right before the strike.
"You really think you can just walk away from me?" he says, voice dipped in venom. "You think you can ask to work for Conti? Like this is a fucking career fair?"
Still, I say nothing. I know he wants a reaction. That's what he feeds on, but I won’t give him one. He grins without any warmth in it—just teeth and poison.
"You fucking asshole," he spits, standing again. "After everything I gave you. After everything I taught you. You want to jump ship the minute you smell another man’s money?"