Chapter 11 Nico
I leave her door almost shut with a sliver of light cutting across the carpet, enough that if she wakes, she’ll know she’s not alone and I’ll hear her if she needs me. Seeing her break at the scene of the fire caused something to shift inside me. The stakes have changed now.
My father always said people sleep better when they know someone is standing watch. I used to think he meant soldiers. I’m starting to realize he meant all of us.
Voices drift from the kitchen, low and threaded with tension. I scrub a hand over my face, push the clawing exhaustion down, and head back out.
Adi is seated at the island with his laptop open, sleeves rolled, tie tugged loose, all precision and control, relaxed now that we’re alone.
Matteo sits on the far stool, spinning it slowly with one heel, staring at the city lights like he’s trying to decide which one to set on fire.
He looks the calmest, but I know my baby brother, and he’s a volcano ready to erupt.
Rossi stands by the window, a solid wall of muscle in a dark jacket, arms folded. His eyes track me as I cross the room. They’re tired but sharp. He’s been up all night too. He’s the one man outside of my brothers who I trust implicitly.
“How is she?” Matteo asks first.
“Asleep,” I say. “Or close.” I grab the bottle of bourbon, pour a little into three glasses, then a fourth. I slide one to each of my brothers and put the last in front of Rossi. “She’ll crash hard.”
Adi gives a tight nod. “Good. She needs it.”
I lean against the counter, glass in hand but untouched. “Talk.”
Rossi clears his throat. His voice is steady, the same tone he used when he’d give status updates to my father. “We got what we needed from the guy in her apartment,” he says. “Took some time, but he broke.”
Matteo smirks. “They always do.”
Adi shoots him a look. “Details, please.”
Rossi nods once. “Name is Oleg Sidorov. Small-time Bratva muscle, mostly enforcement and intimidation. He was hired for two jobs, both tied to Romano.”
My grip tightens around the glass. “The car yesterday and the apartment.”
“Yes.” Rossi shifts his weight, gaze flicking briefly to me. “The instructions were simple. First, scare her, make her back off whatever story she’s chasing. If that didn’t work, escalate. Make it personal.”
My jaw clenches. I remember the way she looked on the floor, arms over her head, trying to make herself small. Fury burns hot in my chest again, sharp enough to cut.
“Who gave the order?” Adi asks.
“That’s where it gets interesting.” Rossi reaches into his jacket and pulls out a folded sheet of paper, sliding it across the island.
“Oleg didn’t have a name. He had a number.
Disposable phone, Russian country code. We traced the calls that phone received in the last week.
Most are dead ends, but one pinged from a landline we know. ”
I don’t have to look at the paper to know I’m not going to like what he says next.
“The call came from a club in Brighton Beach,” Rossi continues. “One that used to be friendly territory for the old guard. And the landline is registered to Mikhail Orlov.”
Matteo swears softly. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
Adi exhales through his nose, slowly. “Orlov has been quiet for years.”
“Too quiet,” Rossi says. “Your father suspected he was waiting for an opportunity.”
I finally look at the paper. Orlov’s name sits there in black ink, neat and ugly.
He’s one of the men who never forgave Enzo for turning the docks into condos instead of letting them keep smuggling whatever poison they were running.
My father cut him out of three major streams of income.
It always sat wrong with Orlov that a Mancini kept his hands mostly clean and still came out on top.
“This is retaliation,” Matteo says. “For Dad. For the docks. For us existing.”
“Partially,” Rossi agrees. “But Orlov isn’t stupid. He doesn’t go this public without cover. Oleg said the orders came with a warning, ‘The family is protected at the top, but the girl is fair game’ and that’s a direct quote.”
The girl.
My fingers tighten until the glass creaks. “Protected at the top by who?”
Rossi hesitates, and that alone makes my stomach drop. The man doesn’t hesitate.
“That’s the second piece,” he says. “Oleg said Orlov bragged about finally having ‘friends in the house again’ meaning the old house. Old alliances.” His gaze meets mine.
“He mentioned a name. Not directly connected, but close enough that I’m not saying it in this apartment without you knowing exactly what it means. ”
Adi straightens. Matteo stops spinning the stool.
“Who?” Adi says.
Rossi’s eyes don’t leave mine. “He said the man keeping you busy, the one making sure your name stays muddy in the papers, is someone who knows your family very well. Someone who knew your father before he changed the rules. He called him ‘the uncle’….”
A cold, familiar dread slides into my veins, heavier than any bourbon.
Uncle.
Matteo frowns. “There’s only one person anyone ever called that around us.”
Adi goes very still. “You think it’s really him?”
“Domenico Bellucci.”
The name lands like a blade, sharp enough to cut through the room.
My mother’s brother.
The man who drifted in and out of our childhood like smoke, always around when things were good, always gone when they weren’t.
The uncle who used to ruffle my hair when I was a kid and tell me I had “a king’s spine,” and then disappeared for months without a word.
The one my father stopped inviting to holidays long before we were old enough to understand why.
Rossi nods once. “We can’t confirm full involvement yet, but the access lines up. So does the timing. And the language used in the message to the Bratva. If Orlov wanted an inside conduit without touching Mancini leadership directly, Domenico would be the logical choice.”
A sour, metallic taste hits the back of my tongue. Domenico wept at our father’s funeral not four days ago. He looked us in the eye and offered his respects, all while he was driving a knife under our ribs.
Working with Orlov.
And worse, using an innocent woman to get to us. Yes, she wrote the article, but from what I can see, Isabella had been manipulated from the beginning. But why her?
Adi swears under his breath. Matteo’s jaw locks. The three of us absorb the blow like a shared impact, silent but brutal.
Rossi continues, voice low. “If Orlov is using Domenico as a buffer, it gives him enough distance to make moves without exposing himself. And enough confidence to hit you through the girl. Her article destabilizes you, while Orlov does the rest.”
Through Isabella. Through an innocent.
Through someone who had nothing to do with this war.
Heat spikes through me, hot enough to blister. “If Domenico touched her, he’s a dead man, blood or not.”
“We don’t know that yet,” Rossi says quickly. “We only know he’s involved on the political side. Operational orders may still be coming from Orlov.”
It doesn’t matter.
Family betrayal is still betrayal.
And the idea of my uncle lending his name, his access, his shadow… to hunt Isabella, to hunt us, it lights a fuse in me I didn’t know I had.
Adi meets my gaze. Matteo, too. Three brothers. One truth forming in the space between us.
If Domenico Bellucci chose the other side?
He’s already dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.
Except men do ugly things when they’re convinced they’ve been wronged. And grief doesn’t always turn people gentle. Sometimes it turns them into a rusty blade.
Adi’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “We need proof before we move on him. Accusations without evidence will just muddy the waters more.”
Matteo shakes his head, eyes dark. “I don’t need proof to put a bullet in a man who set a fire outside my brother’s woman’s door.”
“She’s not my woman,” I snap automatically. The words feel thin even as they leave my mouth. “And you’re not putting a bullet in anyone without a plan. We’re not going back to running on rage. That was the life Papà spent years dragging us out of.”
Rossi’s gaze softens for the first time tonight. “Your father would be proud you said that.”
The compliment sits rough in my chest. I tip the bourbon back, letting the burn keep me grounded, then set the glass down carefully.
My hands want to move, to hit, to break.
Instead, I force them flat against the counter.
“Okay,” I say. “We do this Dad’s way. Smart.
Clean as we can make it. Orlov and whoever is feeding him need to be cut off at the root. No noise. No splash.”
Adi nods, already shifting into strategy. “I’ll start combing through the paper trail in the morning. Shell companies, donations, anything that ties Orlov to the old accounts. If Domenico is involved, there’ll be a bridge somewhere. Men like him can’t resist mixing personal and business.”
Matteo leans forward, forearms on his knees, energy coiled. “What do you need from me?”
“Watch,” I say. “Listen. Your clubs pull in every kind of scum there is. If Orlov is strutting around bragging about having a Mancini family member in his pocket, we’ll hear it there first.”
He smirks faintly. “So, flirt with criminals and drink expensive whiskey. My burden is heavy.”
Adi rolls his eyes, but there’s no real heat in it. We all know Matteo does more than flirt. He hears things the rest of us don’t, because people underestimate a pretty face with a crooked grin.
Rossi clears his throat again. “What about the girl?”
I don’t miss the way he says it, careful, testing. “She stays here,” I say immediately. “No argument.”
Adi lifts a brow. “We already agreed on that.”
“I’m reminding myself,” I answer. “Because every part of me wants to go to the warehouse right now and peel Orlov’s name out of that bastard’s throat. But if I leave, she’s one step closer to a body bag.”
Matteo whistles softly. “You’ve got it bad, brother.”
I shoot him a look sharp enough to cut. “This isn’t about feelings.”