Chapter 40 Isabella
The docks smell like salt and oil and rust and the faint, sour memory of things that used to move through here under the cover of night.
The city skyline is a jagged line of light behind us; in front, the river stretches out, black and slow, swallowing reflections whole.
There is a whole lot of Mancini history here, and most of it is bad.
We park two blocks away, behind a row of derelict warehouses. From there, the old Mancini dock is a short walk, hidden until the last second by the curve of the river wall.
Nico checks the gun at his hip, movements efficient, eyes scanning the shadows.
He offered me one; I said no. I’ve written about shootings.
I’ve tended the aftermath. The idea of pulling a trigger makes my stomach knot.
It’s the first time I’ve seen him with one, and I can’t say that I like it.
But it’s part of the man he was and is, and I love that man, so I’ll deal.
What I can do is see. Listen. Remember.
“I stay behind you,” I say, before he can repeat it.
He nods once, jaw tight. “Only step out if I tell you. Or if something goes very wrong, then you run and you don’t look back, no matter what.”
“That seems like it would be implied,” I say, but I don’t like it.
He doesn’t smile, but his hand squeezes mine briefly. “Then let’s go.”
We move along the path, keeping close to the corrugated wall. The air is damp, mist hovering low over the water. Somewhere a foghorn sounds, long and mournful.
The warehouse comes into view, a long, low building, brick sagging in places, windows boarded over or broken. Light spills out through a gap in the big sliding door, a warm, false glow.
Inside, voices, men speaking in low, angry tones.
We edge closer.
“—always yours.”
That’s Adi, his tone cool but edged in controlled anger.
“Don’t insult me,” another voice says, rich with disdain and nicotine. Domenico. “You three have been dining out on my work for years. You sit in your clean offices and pretend what I did doesn’t exist. What Enzo did. What this dock meant.”
We find a crack in the brickwork, just wide enough for me to see through if I press my eye to it. Nico leans over me, a shield even here.
Inside, the space is mostly empty. A few old crates are stacked near the back wall, dusty and forgotten. Rusted hooks hang from beams above. The floor is slick in patches with old oil and what might once have been something darker.
In the center of it all: three men.
Adi stands with his hands loose at his sides, suit immaculate, expression carved out of stone. Matteo is half a step back, weight balanced, his usual easy grin long gone. His eyes flick constantly, taking in exits, angles, the half-dozen men scattered around the space.
Opposite them, Domenico holds court.
He wears a dark coat, open over a charcoal suit, the same one he had on in the penthouse and at the cottage. He looks perfectly at home here, legs apart, hands gesturing as he talks, like this is an old stage and he knows every board.
Orlov stands just behind him to the right, hands clasped over a walking stick that I’m ninety percent sure isn’t decorative; he had it at the cottage, too. His face is calm, watchful, like he’s at a play and waiting for the climax.
“Enzo did what needed doing,” Domenico goes on. “Then he got squeamish about the cost. He dragged you boys into offices and pretended that it made you clean, but the money stayed the same. My money. Our money. You think that absolves you?”
“It changed what we did with it,” Adi says. “And how we made more. There’s a difference between building condos on the river and running people through them at night.”
Domenico laughs, delighted. “Listen to you. You sound just like your mother. ‘We can be better, Dom. We can be different’.” His smile curdles. “She forgot whose name she married into.”
“She reminded him,” Matteo says, “every day of who he could be.”
“And he still died with blood on his hands,” Domenico snaps. “Because he owed me. Because he never paid me back for what I built.”
“What you built?” Adi’s brows go up. “You didn’t build this on your own. You rode his coattails and then got offended when he wanted out.”
“He couldn’t have taken that step without me,” Domenico snarls. “My contacts. My muscle. My willingness to do what had to be done.”
“You mean killing people who got too close?” Matteo says. “Like Isabella’s father?”
My breath stops.
Nico’s hand finds the small of my back, steady.
Inside, Domenico doesn’t even bother to deny it.
“He was a footnote,” he says. “A lesson. You boys were children. You didn’t understand the stakes.
Enzo did. He knew what it would cost to break from the old guard.
The Mafia, the unions, the politicians who liked their envelopes thick.
He knew if he called me out, it wouldn’t be my body in the street; it would be all of ours.
And worse, it would have broken his wife’s heart. ”
“So he protected you,” Adi says, voice quiet now. “A man who would kill an innocent to make a point.”
“He protected you,” Domenico corrects. “From the fallout. He kept the old men from tearing you apart before you could learn how to stand. He made his own bargains. He wasn’t the hero you keep painting him as. He was one of us.”
“And you’re proud of that,” Matteo says.
“Of course I am.” Domenico spreads his arms, encompassing the warehouse, the river, the city beyond.
“This is legacy. This is what you’re so eager to throw away.
You sit there in your glass tower and pretend that a board of weak men and weaker women run your company.
But when things got difficult, who did your father call? ”
“Rossi,” Adi says.
Domenico’s mouth twists. “He called me first. When the unions threatened his ships. When the Bratva came sniffing around his warehouses. When certain board members whispered about replacing him with someone who still believed in the old ways. I smoothed it all out. I kept your seat warm. And when he died, did you come to me? Did you ask for my counsel? No. You shut the door in my face and pretended you’d made it here without me. ”
“You also tried to undermine him at every turn,” Adi says. “You took kickbacks from his enemies, you ran side deals through shell companies, you used his resources for your own gain.”
“That’s called being efficient,” Domenico snaps. “I kept us alive. You boys would be a smear on the dock without me. And this is how you repay me? You cut me off. You freeze me out. You sit on top of the empire I helped build and tell me I should be grateful for scraps.”
“You were cut off because you couldn’t stop,” Matteo says. “Papà gave you chances. You spat on every one of them.”
Domenico’s eyes glitter. “He gave me nothing that wasn’t mine first. I’ll take back what Enzo abandoned and rule it properly.”
“And that’s why you went to Orlov,” Adi says, nodding toward the Russian. “Why you used him to leak to the press, to stir up trouble, to send men to our doors. Why you picked Isabella as a target.”
“She was useful,” Domenico says. “A sharp little knife. A ready audience. I dangled a story in front of her, and she did exactly what she was built to do. It was almost too easy.”
“You didn’t use her,” Adi snaps. “You built a trap around her and waited for us to walk into it.”
“You killed her father,” Matteo says. “You trapped her into writing a story that nearly destroyed us. You kidnapped her and tried to burn her alive. You know what that makes you?”
“Efficient,” he repeats.
“A dead man.”
Nico steps through the warehouse door like a ghost, the light behind him cutting a hard line around his shoulders. I follow half a step behind, staying in his wake, my heart thundering.
All eyes swing to us.
Domenico’s face shifts, shock, anger, something like weary amusement, all in a flicker. “Ah,” he says. “The prodigal finally arrives. I was beginning to think you’d lost your nerve.”
“Apparently not,” Nico says.
His hand is loose at his side, but the gun is already there, held low but ready. Matteo and Adi don’t look surprised; they must have heard our approach, counted the footsteps, trusted it was us.
Orlov’s eyes narrow. “She was supposed to be indisposed,” he says.
“Turns out I’m very stubborn,” I say.
He gives a small, almost respectful nod. “So I see.”
Domenico takes us in, gaze lingering on the soot on my face, the singe marks on my sweater, the way Nico stands slightly in front of me.
“You just can’t follow instructions, can you?” he says. “I set the stage, I give you a choice, and you come early through the back door.”
“You kidnapped my woman and tried to kill my friend,” Nico says calmly. “You don’t get to complain about my entrance.”
“She walked out of that fire,” Domenico says, almost admiring. “I underestimated you, Isabella.”
“Everyone does,” I reply. “It’s my favorite thing about me.”
“And you.” He looks at Nico. “You walk in here with a gun, thinking you’re your father, ready to make the hard call. Do you even know what that looks like? What it costs?”
“I’ve spent my whole life learning what it costs,” Nico says.
“I buried him. I buried Ma. I buried men who followed us into a new life because Papà promised them it would be better. I’ve watched you peel pieces off that promise, one by one, because you can’t stand that he built something without you. ”
Domenico scoffs. “He didn’t build anything without me.”
“He did,” Nico says. “He built us. He and Ma. They raised us to aim for something else. You were the reminder of everything they didn’t want us to be.”
“And yet here you are,” Domenico sneers, gesturing to the gun. “Pointing that at your uncle like any good son of the house.”
Nico steps closer, slow, deliberate. His eyes are dark, but there’s a clarity in them I haven’t seen before, like something has settled instead of snapped when he glances my way. “You’re not my uncle,” he says quietly. “Not anymore. Maybe not ever.”
Domenico’s jaw tightens.