Chapter 3
The Morning the Article Drops
The city hasn’t woken up yet, but my phone has been ringing since six. By eight, there’s a stack of newspapers on my desk, and the same headline splashed across every screen in the building.
THE MANCINI MACHINE: HOW CLEAN IS CLEAN? By Isabella Romano, Investigative Correspondent, The Metropolitan Ledger
Once heirs to one of New York’s most notorious crime families, the Mancinis have spent the past decade building an empire of legitimacy.
Or so it seems. Publicly, ISM Holdings is the face of modern reinvention, luxury real estate, urban renewal, and philanthropy.
Privately, whispers persist. Quiet contracts.
Shuttered shell companies. Board members who disappear when the light hits too close.
The Mancini legacy may have traded bullets for business deals, but the question remains: how clean can a family built in blood ever truly be?
The words bleed off the page like a slow cut. Precise. Beautifully written. Infuriating.
The office smells like strong espresso and old cigars, the ghosts of late nights still clinging to the air. Sunlight hasn’t reached this side of the city yet, so everything feels filtered, muted gray through glass, skyscrapers standing like silent judges.
I scroll through the article on my phone again. Every sentence is deliberate, sharp where it should sting, vague where it needs to wound.
She’s careful. She’s smart. She didn’t lie. But she built a world where I look guilty anyway.
The door opens without a knock. Matteo breezes in first, his tie half undone, espresso in one hand, the Ledger in the other.
“Morning, headline act,” he says, tossing the paper onto my desk. “You’ve gone viral. Didn’t even have to kill anyone for it.”
I don’t look up. “You’ve read it.”
“Oh, I’ve devoured it.” He drops into the chair opposite me, grin lazy, eyes sharp. “She’s good. Has that rhythm that makes people believe her. If this journalism thing doesn’t work out, she could write obituaries; she just buried our PR department alive.”
Adi follows, clean-cut as ever, calm wrapped in starch. He sets his briefcase on the table and pulls out a copy already marked with notes. “I’ve read it too,” he says evenly. “And I’ve already called legal. They’re preparing a statement.”
Matteo chuckles. “Legal, meaning you.”
Adi doesn’t rise to the bait. “Yes. And I’ll make sure it’s watertight. She didn’t cross into defamation, unfortunately. She’s too smart for that, but some of her sources could be vulnerable if we push.”
“Good,” I say, voice quiet. Controlled. “Handle it.”
Adi’s gaze flicks up. “You mean you’ll handle it through me.”
“Exactly.”
Matteo leans back, swirling his coffee. “You sure this isn’t personal? You look like someone stole your dog.”
“Of course it feels personal,” I admit. “She didn’t just target ISM. She targeted our family. Us.” I tap the paper, the headline blurring under my finger. “The tone. The language. She wrote this like she already knew where to hit.”
“Maybe she’s just good at her job,” Matteo offers, though there’s caution under the humor.
“Maybe,” I say, eyes still on her byline. “Or maybe someone told her where to look.”
Adi exhales through his nose. “If she has sources that deep, they’re close. Someone inside. I’ll start narrowing down access to the project files she referenced.”
“Do that.” I pause, the faint hum of the city vibrating through the glass. “But it’s more than data. This feels like a message.”
Matteo raises an eyebrow. “From her?”
“From whoever’s using her,” I say. “You don’t come at the Mancinis unless you’ve got a death wish or protection.”
Adi meets my gaze. “You think she knows who she’s messing with?”
I shake my head slowly. “No. She has no idea. Not just about me, but about them. The people who’d love to see our name dragged through mud again are dangerous. We know that, but does this woman?”
Matteo’s grin fades. “The old guard.”
“Exactly. The ones who never forgave our father for cleaning up what they built.”
Silence stretches. The air buzzes faintly with the hum of the building, a low, constant reminder of power flowing behind walls.
Adi finally says, “So what’s the plan?”
“Control the narrative,” I answer. “Quiet the investors. Track her sources. Keep this contained.”
“And if she keeps digging?” Matteo asks.
“Then she learns there are some stories that don’t end in print.”
Adi gives me a look, the kind that says he heard the edge in my voice. “Careful, Nico.”
I lean back in my chair, the leather creaking softly. “Relax. I’m not our father. But I won’t let anyone burn down what he built.”
Matteo stands, finishing his espresso. “I’ll run interference with the press. Keep things light, make a few calls, drop some distractions.”
Adi gathers his papers. “I’ll get my team on it. See if we can tie this up the legal way.”
“Good.”
When they leave, the room falls quiet again. The city’s pulse presses faintly through the glass, sirens, the far-off hum of commerce waking up.
I pick up the paper, fold it neatly, and set it aside.
Her name stares back at me from the page.
Isabella Romano.
The reporter who decided to resurrect ghosts. The woman who just kicked the wasps’ nest and doesn’t even know it’s full of men far worse than me.
My gaze drifts briefly toward the shelf behind my desk, the framed photograph of me with Matteo and Adi on the porch in Ohio.
Three kids who thought the world could be rebuilt if they just worked hard enough.
My father had taken that picture. He’d believed we could be better.
And I’ll be damned if I let anyone undo that.
I never wanted the throne, but I’ll keep it if it means no one else bleeds for us.
I open my laptop and type a single sentence.
Not a threat.
A warning.
You don’t know what you’ve done.
The words sit on the screen for a moment before disappearing into the ether.
People mistake restraint for weakness. They don’t know I save destruction for when it matters.
And for the first time in a long while, I feel something I can’t quite name. Not anger. Not fear. Just the electric certainty that everything in my world has started to move again, and she’s the reason.
Work’s a waste of time after I hit send. The words hang in my head like a threat I didn’t mean to make.
You don’t know what you’ve done.
Adi says legal will handle it, Matteo cracks jokes like nothing’s burning, but I can’t sit still.
Control isn’t waiting; it’s acting. It’s taking the fight to the threat.
It takes less than five minutes to pull Isabella Romano’s life apart. Address, workplace, commute, social profiles. Everything anyone needs to find her. She’s too exposed. Naive. Amateur hour. Pathetic.
I clench my fists as I head for the exit, informing my PA that I’m out for the day. Ezra nods, he’s used to my comings and goings. The man’s a godsend for my work life. If only I were gay, he’d make the perfect wife.
By late afternoon, I’m already across the street from her building.
I tell myself this is just recon. A threat assessment.
She walks out into the street like she owns the daylight.
Smaller than I expected. Lighter on her feet. Coat cinched at the waist, a tote bag dragging down one shoulder. Dark hair twisted up, but a few strands keep breaking free. She doesn’t bother to fix them. The kind of woman who underestimates her beauty, and how much people look her way.
She pauses to talk to an older guy at the door, probably a colleague. She laughs at something he says.
Of course she laughs like that, bright, easy, like she’s never had to clean blood off her hands.
I track her from a distance as she starts walking. She doesn’t check mirrors or shadows. Doesn’t notice me. If she were mine to protect, I’d tan her ass for being this oblivious.
Halfway down the block, she stops short and crouches. A grocery bag split open near the curb, oranges everywhere. I step out of my car and get closer.
And she kneels. Bare knees on filthy concrete, picking them up, helping some old woman who can’t bend far enough. No cameras, no audience. Just her.
For a second, I think it’s a performance. But she doesn’t even look around.
It shouldn’t irritate me. It does.
People who wear soft edges get cut first.
Then the air changes, a low growl of an engine pushing too hard.
Old habits take over before thought does. My senses focus, tuned in to threat.
The black car leaps the curb. Isabella turns toward the noise, wide-eyed, too slow.
I move. One arm around her waist, pulling hard, both of us hitting the ground behind a parked van. Her breath catches, a soft, shocked sound against my neck.
The car clips the curb and roars away. Gone in seconds.
Her body is pressed tight against mine, warm, trembling, the faint sweet scent of her perfume cutting through exhaust and concrete. There’s a heartbeat against my chest that isn’t mine. It shouldn’t register. It does anyway, sliding under my skin before I can stop it.
For a second too long, I don’t move. I just feel.
Then I curse under my breath and shove to my feet, hauling her up by the arm. “You always this reckless,” I bite out, “or did you wake up looking for trouble?”
She stares at me, disoriented. “You.”
“Yeah, me.” My voice is low, sharp. “You write a story that paints a target on your back and then walk around alone? Are you really that stupid?”
Her eyes narrow, heat flashing there. “You think this was about my article?”
“I know it was.” I jerk my chin toward the street. “You dig deep enough, you’ll hit things that bite. Don’t act surprised when they do.”
“I did my job.”
“You did more than that.”
“I told the truth.”
“Truth doesn’t try to run you down.”
She squares her shoulders; her breath unsteady, but her chin high. There’s a flush across her throat, defiance or adrenaline, maybe both. It draws my eye before I can stop it. The shape of her mouth, too soft for someone who writes like she does.
I drag my gaze away, annoyed at myself for noticing any of it. “You want to play martyr, fine,” I say. “Just stay the hell away from my family while you do it.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“Maybe you should be.”
Her pulse jumps, visible where her collar opens. I hate that I notice that too.
I turn before she can speak, already done with the conversation. Anger burns hot, close to the surface.
At the driver. At whoever sent them. At her for being careless. At myself for giving a damn.
By the time I reach my car, the anger’s cooled into focus. I pull out my phone. “Rossi,” I say when my head of security answers. “Romano. I want eyes on her. Starting now.”
A pause. “Is she a threat, sir?”
“Maybe.” I start the engine. “But she’s also bait.”
I hang up.
The engine hums low. Outside, the city’s nightlife is coming alive: horns, footsteps, the rush of another Friday night that’s going to get messy.
I should feel vindicated. Instead, I’m staring at the space in the street where that car almost hit her, watching her help the older woman on her way before she turns, scans the street, and then walks back the way she came, away from the direction of her apartment.
My jaw clenches so tight it hurts. I told her to go home. She defies me. I should be shocked, nobody defies me, but I find I’m not.
This was supposed to be simple. Why is nothing ever fucking simple?