Chapter 35 Nico
The apartment feels wrong.
Too damn quiet, too neat, like the walls are holding their breath.
Isabella is in the office with Adi, going over her memories of the ambush while she pretends she isn’t shaking.
I wanted to stay, but hearing the details was making me apoplectic, and Isabella sent me out to start making dinner.
Matteo is perched on the arm of the sofa, suit jacket off, tie loose, bouncing his heel in that restless way that means if he doesn’t hit something soon, he’s going to crawl out of his skin.
I stand in front of the security monitors I’ve pulled up on the living room T.V, arms folded, replaying the footage from the garage, the lobby, the street outside. I’ve watched the same ten seconds of grainy footage six times already.
Marco had been right about the shooter, but wrong about him being on the street.
The asshole was on a motorbike, a blurred shape at the corner of the block.
I see him follow the car, a food delivery logo on his jacket, then the flash, the crowd on the sidewalk flinching, and it doesn’t get any less useless.
No license plate, no description, nothing I can use.
“Freeze it,” Adi says, coming in from the hall. “There.”
I tap the keys, pausing on a frame where the man on the street is half-turned. All we get is a smear of dark hoodie, the angle of a jaw shadowed by the cap, the line of his shoulders. But it’s him. Uncle Domenico, watching from the street as the hit goes down.
“He must have known we’d find this,” I state, trying to figure out his endgame.
Adi shakes his head. “His arrogance means he probably thinks he’s invincible.”
“You think the shooter is his?”
“Doubt it,” Matteo says. “One of Orlov’s, most likely. He likes young men who think they’re invincible and cheap enough to throw away.”
“If they were aiming to kill her, they would’ve taken more time, more shots.” Adi’s voice is calm, but there’s a tightness around his mouth. “This was a drive-by warning. They wanted noise and blood, not bodies.”
“They got both,” I say. “And they hit Rossi to do it.”
The taste of that sits sour in my mouth.
Rossi bleeding in the front seat of the SUV, Isabella’s hands pressed into the wound because they were the only ones available.
It keeps slamming back into my head, each replay sharper than the last. I should’ve been there, I should’ve shielded her from that.
Matteo mutters a curse. “Have you heard from the hospital yet?”
“No.” I check my phone again anyway, as if that will make it ring. Nothing. “They said they’d call when he was out of surgery. We just have to wait.”
“I hate waiting.” He scrubs a hand through his hair, sending it into even more disarray. “We should be doing something. Hitting something. Someone.”
“We will,” I say. “But not blind.”
My phone buzzes. All three of us look at it like it might explode.
Unknown number.
I answer. “Mancini.”
“Mr. Mancini? This is St. Luke’s. The patient that was brought in earlier, Mr. Rossi, he’s awake, but his condition is unstable, and he’s asking for you, specifically.
If you can come now, it should be quick.
No more than a few minutes. The surgical team is prepping to take him back into surgery and he’s refusing until he speaks with you. ”
For a second, I say nothing, because the words tangle, awake, unstable, back in. “I’m on my way,” I manage. “Keep him comfortable. Don’t let him talk too much.”
“We’ll do our best.”
The line clicks off.
I look up to find Adi and Matteo watching me. “He’s asking for me,” I say. “They’re taking him back in. This might be our only shot to hear what he’s got.”
Matteo nods once. “Then go.”
I glance up at the stairs, toward the faint sound of Isabella’s voice drifting from the bedroom, as she sings some cheesy Christmas tune, to calm her nerves. “I don’t want to leave her right now.”
“Then I’ll stay,” Adi says immediately. “Letty is safe at home. Half of our security team is with her. You go to Rossi. We’ve split the load before and we can do it again.”
“We’re not leaving her uncovered,” I warn.
“You’re not the only one who cares about her, Nico,” he says quietly. “I’ll keep them safe. You get whatever Rossi dragged himself back from the brink to tell you.”
He’s right. I hate that he’s right, but I nod anyway. “Call if anything feels off,” I say. “Anything. I don’t care if it’s a light flickering.”
“I will.”
Matteo claps my shoulder as I pass. “Tell him he’s not allowed to die,” he says. “He still owes me fifty bucks.”
I huff out a breath that’s almost a laugh. “You tell him that.”
“Go.”
I take the private elevator down, switch to a car without plates anyone would recognize, and push it harder than I should through midtown traffic.
The city is its usual mess, honking taxis, flashing lights, pedestrians daring death at every crosswalk, but it all feels thinner now, like scenery behind glass.
The hospital is chaos in an organized way. I park illegally in the physicians’ lot, not caring if I get a ticket.
They lead me through antiseptic corridors that smell like bleach and recycled air, past curtained bays and nurses moving at a pace just below a run. We reach a small room off the surgical wing where Rossi lies pale under too-white sheets, wires and tubes everywhere.
He looks wrong like this. Smaller. Less invincible. The man has been with us since I was a boy, and is more family than anything else. If something happens to him and he doesn’t make it, I’ll raise hell.
There’s a monitor above his head, its beeps a jagged rhythm that doesn’t match the steady, unflappable man I know. A nurse is adjusting a drip; another is conferring with a doctor at the foot of the bed.
“Two minutes,” the doctor says, turning to me. “He asked for you. We’re about to take him back in.”
I nod and move to the side of the bed. “Rossi,” I say.
His eyes crack open, dark and heavy-lidded, pupils dilated from pain meds. It takes him a second to focus. When he does, his mouth twitches in what might pass for a smile on a better day.
“Boss,” he rasps.
I lean in so he doesn’t have to strain. “You’re supposed to be resting.”
“Boring,” he mutters. “Listen.”
His hand gropes for mine. I take it, surprised by how cold his fingers are. He squeezes once, with more strength than he should have.
“Domenico,” he says.
Ice slides down my spine. “What about him?”
“Here.” His breath hitches; he fights for the next words. “He was here. In the hallway. When I woke up the first time.”
My grip tightens. “He came into your room?”
“Yes.” Rossi’s jaw clenches briefly, whether from pain or fury, I can’t tell. “Saw him. Didn’t think it was real at first. Thought I was dreaming. He was talking to someone. Left something.”
The doctor glances up, frowning. “One minute.”
“What did he leave?” I ask, ignoring the warning.
Rossi’s hand shifts, fingers fumbling at his chest. The nurse helps him, sliding a hand under the edge of the hospital gown to pull out a folded scrap of card that had been tucked against the bandage tape, hidden where only he or someone stripping him would find it.
She passes it to me without comment. Hospitals see worse things than notes on wounded men.
I unfold it.
The handwriting hits me first. Sharp, old-fashioned cursive that I recognize from birthday cards and scrawled notes left on my father’s desk.
Legacy cannot be avoided.
If the name can’t step up, it can die.
There is a cost to silence.
There’s no signature.
He didn’t need one.
My vision narrows.
“Domenico left this?” I ask.
Rossi nods weakly. “Said it was… a message. For you. For all of you.” He swallows, lids drooping. “Said… time was up. Old ways… coming back. Whether you want them or not.”
The monitor’s beeping speeds up, jagged spikes across the screen.
“Rossi.” I squeeze his hand harder, as if I can anchor him. “Stay with me.”
“I told him,” he mutters, voice slurring now, “told him you’d never… stand next to him on that dock. Not after… what he did. Your father knew. I knew. We all—”
The rest of the sentence dissolves into a rough breath as his eyes roll slightly.
“Heart rate’s climbing,” the nurse says sharply. “We need to move him now.”
The doctor steps in, checking the lines, barking orders. “We have to take him back to the OR. You’ll need to wait outside, Mr. Mancini.”
Rossi tightens his grip one last time, dragging my focus back to him. “We were right,” he forces out. “It’s him. Finish it.”
Then the monitor screeches, a high, stuttering alarm that makes the back of my neck prickle. The room explodes into motion, nurses grabbing equipment, the doctor calling codes, the bed’s brakes released as they start to wheel him out.
I’m shoved gently but firmly aside, pressed against the wall as they rush him down the corridor, a tangle of wires and white sheets and urgency.
For a moment, all I can see is his hand slipping out of mine.
Then he’s gone around the corner, swallowed by the swinging doors of the operating theatre.
I stand there, pulse pounding in my ears, the card still crumpled in my fist.
Domenico was here.
He walked into this hospital, into our crisis, into the space where my man bled for me, and dropped a note like a calling card.
Legacy cannot be avoided.
If the name can’t step up, it can die.
There is a cost to silence.
He’s not hiding anymore. He’s done with shadows and whispers. This is a declaration. He stood on the sidewalk while one of his men attacked the woman I love. Family or not, he’s a dead man.
“You all right, sir?” the nurse asks cautiously.
No. “Yes,” I say.
I smooth the card out once, reading the lines again until they burn.
He wants us to step up?
Fine.
He’s going to learn what stepping up looks like when you’re a Mancini who chose the clean path and still remembers all the dirty turns.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out, half expecting the hospital again.
Instead, it’s a missed call from Adi.
Then another.
Then a text: Call me, NOW.
The cold inside me deepens.
I hit dial and start walking, already knowing, before he even answers, that whatever he’s about to say is worse than anything I just heard.