Chapter Twenty-One SANTINO #2
Aurora was out there. Pregnant with my child. Carrying the future I never thought I’d have.
And someone had taken her from me.
Rage and fear fused into something lethal, colder than any kill I’d ever made. I would burn the city to the ground. Tear Edoardo apart piece by piece. Hunt down every last soldier, every informant, every shadow that had ever whispered his name.
Hours blurred into a storm of violence and dead ends.
My men tore through the city like a plague of locusts, shaking down every contact, every lowlife who owed me favors, every rat who had ever whispered secrets in the shadows of back alleys and smoky bars.
Warehouses were raided. Safehouses burned. Fingers were broken, knees were shattered, and screams echoed through the night as I demanded answers that no one seemed able to give.
Edoardo’s soldiers were moving like ghosts in the machine, slipping through cracks we couldn’t seal fast enough, but no one knew where he was keeping her.
The pregnancy changed everything. If he found out she was carrying my heir, he’d use it as the ultimate leverage. Or worse, he’d destroy it to break me completely, to rip the last piece of light from my black soul and leave nothing but ash.
I stood in the war room deep beneath the estate, maps and surveillance photos scattered across the heavy mahogany table like the remnants of a battlefield. Red pins marked known Edoardo strongholds.
Blood stained my knuckles from the last interrogation, a low-level capo who had begged for mercy before I put a bullet between his eyes. The metallic tang still lingered in the air, mixing with the sharp scent of gun oil, sweat, and expensive whiskey that no one had touched.
Marco watched me carefully from across the table, his face etched with exhaustion and something close to concern. He’d been with me through hell before, but this was different. This was personal in a way even Angelo’s death hadn’t been.
“We’re hitting walls,” he said quietly, voice rough from hours of barking orders. “Edoardo’s gone underground. He knew we’d come for him the second she disappeared. He’s been planning this.”
I slammed my fist on the table with enough force to crack the thick wood down the center.
Papers scattered. A glass of whiskey shattered on the floor.
The sound echoed like a gunshot through the concrete bunker.
My chest heaved, rage and terror twisting together into something feral that clawed at my throat.
“Then we go bigger,” I snarled, the words scraping out like gravel under boots. “We burn every fucking bridge if we have to.”
Marco hesitated, his broad shoulders tensing under the weight of what I was suggesting. “You know what that means, boss.”
I did. I knew exactly what it meant.
It meant swallowing every last shred of pride I had left.
It meant crawling to the one man I’d spent years resenting with every fiber of my being, the cousin who had stepped into the power vacuum after Angelo’s death and claimed the Five Families like they were his birthright.
Leo Moretti. The Serpent.
The cold, calculating bastard who now ruled this city with an iron fist wrapped in velvet poison. The man whose name still tasted like betrayal on my tongue, even if blood bound us.
I hated it. Hated the idea of owing him. Hated that after everything, after Angelo, after the snakes, after years of carving my own path through blood and fire, I had to lower my head and ask for help.
But for Aurora… for the child growing inside her… I would do it. I would kneel in the dirt if that’s what it took. I would burn every bridge, every alliance, every piece of my fractured soul.
“She’s pregnant, Marco,” I said, my voice dropping to something raw and broken I barely recognized. “Carrying my baby. My heir. I’ll kneel if I have to. I’ll beg. Whatever it takes.”
Marco’s eyes widened slightly, the first real crack in his usual stoic mask. He knew what this cost me. He’d been there the night Angelo died. He knew the history between me and Leo. But he nodded once, sharp and decisive.
“Call him,” I ordered, voice like gravel grinding under pressure. “Tell Leo I need a meeting. Tonight. Neutral ground. No games.”
Marco pulled out his phone without another word. The call was made in tense silence. I paced the war room like a caged animal while my men watched, their eyes flicking between me and the cracked table.
Leo’s voice came through the speaker. Cold, calculating, laced with that familiar serpent’s amusement when Marco explained the situation. He agreed. Of course he agreed. The Serpent didn’t pass up opportunities to collect debts.
The meeting was set for neutral ground: an old warehouse on the docks where Moretti blood had been spilled before. A place heavy with ghosts and salt air and the memory of old wars.
I arrived first, flanked by my best men.
The sea air smelled of salt and rust and decay, the kind that clung to your clothes for days.
Waves crashed against the pilings below, a relentless roar that matched the storm raging inside my chest. Floodlights cut through the darkness, casting long shadows across cracked concrete and rusted shipping containers.
My soldiers formed a perimeter, weapons ready, eyes scanning every shadow. I stood at the center, hands clenched at my sides, the weight of Angelo’s absence heavier than ever.
When Leo’s convoy pulled up, blacked-out SUVs gleaming under the harsh lights, he stepped out alone at first, then a guard fell in at his side like a loyal shadow.
Leo’s gaze met mine across the distance. No warmth. No familial greeting. Just cold recognition of the blood we shared and the grudges that still simmered between us.
“You called,” he said flatly as he approached, voice carrying over the wind and waves. “Must be bad if you’re willing to swallow your pride and come to me.”
“Edoardo took her,” I said, cutting through the bullshit. No pleasantries. No posturing. “Aurora. She’s pregnant with my child. I need your help to get her back. Resources. Intelligence. Men. Whatever you have.”
Leo studied me for a long, heavy moment. The Serpent didn’t offer favors lightly. His eyes were sharp, unreadable as they flicked over my bloodied knuckles, the tension in my shoulders, the raw desperation I couldn’t fully hide.
Family, twisted and poisoned as ours was, still meant something in this world. Even to a man like Leo.
“Blood for blood,” he said finally, his voice low and final. “We end your father together. Permanently. No half-measures. Then you owe me. A debt I will collect when I choose.”
I nodded without hesitation. “Done.”
For Aurora, I would burn every bridge. Even the ones to family. Even the ones soaked in Moretti blood.
Leo’s lips curved into the faintest hint of a cold smile. “Good. Then we have work to do.”
The alliance was sealed in the shadow of the warehouse, with the sea bearing witness and old ghosts watching from the dark. I didn’t care about the cost. I didn’t care about the debt. All that mattered was getting her back before Edoardo could destroy the only light left in my world.
And God help my father when we found him. Because between me and Leo, there would be nothing left but blood and ruin.