CHAPTER 7
ANGELO
I keep her wrists ground into the damp concrete.
My knees are bracketed tight on either side of her hips, pinning her completely under my weight.
The friction of her silk slip riding up my thighs is a direct hit to my nervous system, a fucking massive annoyance I don’t have time to process.
Her chest is heaving. She’s staring up at me, trapped, a dark halo of disheveled chestnut hair spread over the gray floor, her breath still coming fast from the remains of her little performance.
She actually thought she could fuck her way out of this bunker. She thought she could bat her eyes, arch her back, and grab my weapon while I was distracted by her skin.
I let the silence grow heavy. I let her feel the exact, oppressive weight of my body pressing down on hers.
I lean down until my nose brushes hers. The scent of her expensive gardenia perfume hits me, sweet and panicked, and it pisses me off how much my body responds to it even now.
I deliberately shift, grinding my weight down into her hip bones to remind her exactly how much stronger I am.
"Did you think that would work, principessa?" I ask, keeping my voice dead flat.
"Get off me," she snaps, but her lip quivers.
"Your skin is soft, but your tactics are transparent. Stop breathing like I’m going to kiss you again.
" I release one of her wrists, but only so I can catch her chin in my hand. I tilt her head back at a punishing angle, exposing the long line of her throat. "You’re an amateur playing a professional’s game. "
She glares, trying to summon that aristocratic Silvestri venom, but her chest is shaking.
I trace the delicate line of her collarbone with my rough thumb, watching the skin pebble with a mix of fear and unwanted awareness.
"You think your sex is a master key? Cazzo, you’re delusional.
I’ve seen better acting in a Palermo brothel.
Men might fall for that look out in the real world, but I’m not men.
I’m the ghost of the family your bloodline buried. "
I haul her up in one singular, violent motion.
She stumbles, her legs weak from the sudden shift in blood pressure.
I don't wait for her to find her balance.
I drag her by the arm, marching her toward the far corner of the bunker where the server rack hums. Her bare feet slap against the cold stone.
It's a pathetic, helpless sound. She tries to resist, grabbing wildly at a stack of wooden crates as we pass to slow me down.
I don't stop. I yank her forward harder, the sudden force making her shoulder joint pop audibly.
She gasps, stumbling over her own feet.
"Walk, or I’ll drag you by that pretty hair," I tell her, my grip tightening on her bicep. "Save your strength for what’s coming. You’re going to see the truth now, whether you want to or not."
I shove her down into the metal rolling chair stationed at the surveillance desk. The wheels screech against the floor. The air smells like warm plastic, ozone, and electricity from the server fans, blowing straight onto her bare, shivering shoulders.
She wraps her arms around herself, glaring up at me, the blue glow of the monitors reflecting in her honey-amber eyes. "Alessio will burn this mountain to find me."
I almost laugh. "You’re a dead man, Ferraro," she spits, her voice cracking. "You just don't know it yet. He loves me more than his own life."
I step in close, looming right behind her chair.
My shadow swallows her completely. I lean over, caging her in by planting both my hands flat on the desk on either side of her.
I'm so close my chest brushes her back. I can feel her spine stiffen against the chair.
My scent—tobacco, gun oil, and old sweat—wraps around her.
I reach out and casually brush a lock of hair away from her ear. She flinches like I burned her.
"Don't look away," I murmur, my voice dropping to a low, predatory rumble. "Listen carefully, Fiorella. This is the sound of your world ending. You wanted a show? Here it is."
I type the password into the encrypted laptop with clinical precision.
The screen brightens, the harsh glare illuminating the deep, ragged scars across my knuckles.
I pull up a hidden directory labeled with the Silvestri crest. I’ve been sitting on this shit for months, waiting for the perfect time to detonate it.
"I’ve been in your brother’s system for months," I tell her, watching the Windows startup sound chime through the speakers. She flinches at the mundane noise. "He thinks he’s secure. He thinks he’s a god. Let’s see what the god says when he thinks no one is listening."
She frowns, her brows knitting together in confusion and mounting dread.
I tap my index finger against the desk in a slow, rhythmic beat. Tick. Tick. Tick.
"You’re a debt, Fiorella. Nothing more," I say. "He’s not looking for you. Listen to the man you’d die for."
I hit play.
The audio file crackles to life. It starts with the heavy clink of glass and the splash of liquid being poured. In the background, there's a faint piano playing. Then, Alessio’s voice fills the room. Smooth. Arrogant. Chillingly indifferent.
I watch her profile. Her pupils dilate instantly. She recognizes the ambient noise of her own home.
"That’s the 18-year-old scotch he only drinks when he’s celebrating," I say quietly. "Wait for it. Listen to the ice in the glass."
On the recording, an underboss asks about the ransom demands. Alessio laughs. It's a bored, dismissive sound. Why would I pay for something that was already broken? he says. If the Ferraro mutt wants her, let him keep her. She was a headache I was tired of managing.
Fiorella doesn't move. She bites her lower lip. She bites it so fucking hard a bead of blood swells up against her teeth, but she just keeps staring straight ahead.
"He sounds bored, doesn't he?" I ask. "A headache. Is that what you were to him? Keep listening."
The underboss brings up the public optics. What about the press? What about the family image?
Alessio sighs. Tell the press she’s in mourning. By the time they realize she’s gone, she’ll be a memory. I’m not losing a single port for a sister who couldn't even manage to keep herself safe.
A small, pained noise escapes her throat. A soft no she doesn't even realize she said.
I lean closer, my chest pressing hard against her shoulder blades.
My own fingers dig into the edge of the desk, the sheer callousness of the Silvestri blood boiling my own rage.
"A memory. That’s all you are now. Hear that?
That’s the sound of a man who’s already moved on.
You’re worth less than a crate of contraband to him. "
The recording reaches the end. The kill order.
If she comes back, she’s a liability, Alessio says smoothly over the clinking ice. If the kidnapper kills her, he does me a favor. Just make sure he dies too. I don't like loose ends.
Fiorella’s head drops. Her neck just gives out, unable to support the weight of what she just heard.
"A favor," I whisper right next to her ear. "You’re a favor to me, Fiorella. He wants you dead. No ransom. No rescue. Just a bullet with your name on it."
I reach out and switch off the audio. The silence that follows is absolute.
It rings in the bunker, heavy and suffocating.
I step back an inch, watching the realization settle into her features.
She looks like a porcelain plate that just hit a tile floor—the cracks are spiderwebbing, the structure is gone, and the shatter is only a second away.
She reaches out with a shaking hand and touches the blank monitor, like she can push the words back inside the machine.
"It’s a lie," she whispers, her amber eyes glassy. "You faked it. You’re a monster, you’d do anything to break me. He wouldn't say that. Not Alessio."
I grab the back of her chair and shake it hard. "Wake the fuck up."
She shakes her head violently, her dark hair whipping around her face.
I reach over her and pull up the metadata of the file. The timestamps. The origins. The exact GPS coordinates of the bug. I point to the screen. "Did I know he called you 'uccellino'? Did I know about the garden he locked you in when you were ten? Look at the data. It’s him. It’s always been him."
She squeezes her eyes shut. I grab her cold hand, forcing her fingers flat against the screen where the audio file is listed. She tries to yank back, but my grip is iron.
"He’s replaced you already," I say, my voice cutting through her panic like a razor. "He doesn't miss you. You’re just a ghost haunting a bunker now."
I double-click the final image file.
Her eyes snap open, forced to look by the sheer command in my tone.
The screen fills with a high-resolution surveillance photo taken that afternoon.
The Silvestri estate terrace. The sun is shining.
Alessio is leaning against the stone railing, laughing with a blonde woman.
The blonde is wearing Fiorella’s favorite, unmistakable emerald necklace.
Fiorella’s breath hitches. It’s a sharp, broken sound that scrapes the walls of the small room.
"Isn't that your necklace, Fiorella?" I ask, stepping back, letting the visual completely wreck her. "He didn't even wait for the body to be cold. He’s celebrating your disappearance."
She doesn't scream. She doesn't fight. She simply collapses inward.
The violent trembling starts in her hands and radiates through her entire body.
Her shoulders slump, the defiance leaking out of her in one long, ragged exhale.
She covers her face with her hands, her fingers digging deep into her cheeks, and lets out a low, guttural moan of pure, unadulterated grief.
She starts rocking slightly back and forth in the chair, a primitive, desperate motion.
"How could he?" she chokes out between muffled sobs. "I was the only one who loved him. I have nothing. I have no one."
I should be throwing a fucking parade. This is exactly what I wanted.
Instead, my gut tightens like I just kicked a wounded stray.
I walk around the desk, grab the armrests, and swivel the chair violently so she’s forced to face me.
Her hands fall away from her face. She looks entirely ravaged.
Her eyes are red-rimmed, hollow, completely empty.
I step between her knees. I use the side of my heavy combat boot to kick her legs wider apart, asserting total, territorial dominance over her space, pinning her in the chair.
"Look at me," I order.
She stares at me, completely blank.
"The princess is dead. You’re just Fiorella now.
There is no one else, do you understand?
" I grab her jaw, my grip dark and intense.
I run my thumb under her eye, wiping away a hot tear, pressing hard enough that the gesture feels more like a brand than comfort.
"I am your world now. You belong to the man they abandoned you to. Tell me who you are, Fiorella."
She doesn't answer. She just watches my lips.
I lean in until our foreheads touch. I force her to share the exact same air in this cramped, concrete tomb. "I’m the only honest thing you’ve ever known. They loved the image of you. I see the reality. Your brother wanted a funeral. I gave you a cage. Which is kinder?"
I move my thumb down to her lip, pressing into the soft flesh where she bit herself. A drop of her blood smears against my skin.
She doesn't pull away. God damn it, she actually leans into the pressure. An infinitesimal shift toward my hand, an instinctual, pathetic reflex for warmth because I am the only solid thing left in her universe.
"You have nowhere else to go," I whisper. "I’m the only one who’s ever going to touch you again. Do you feel that? That’s the only truth you have left."
She breaks completely.
She slumps forward, her head coming to rest heavily against my stomach. The quiet tears turn into ragged, heaving sobs. She grips my black shirt with her fists, the fabric bunching tight in her hands as she weeps. Her hot tears soak straight through the cotton to my skin.
"Please," she gasps into my stomach. "I don't want to be alone. Everything is gone."
My hands hover over her shaking shoulders for a long, heavy second.
I lock my jaw. I finally let one hand drop, coming to rest on the back of her head.
I tangle my fingers in her dark, messy hair.
I don't do it gently. I do it with a possessive, anchoring grip.
I dismantled her, and now I own the pieces.
"You’re mine now," I tell her to the top of her head. "Not for a debt. Not for a port. Just mine."
I let the reality of it sit there for a second before I force my resolve to harden.
I pull her face away from my stomach, breaking the contact abruptly.
The sudden drop in temperature between us is a shock, but I step back anyway.
I wipe my hand roughly down the side of my jeans, trying to scrub away the phantom feeling of her hair.
"Enough," I say, my voice cold again. "Tears won't change what’s on that screen. Get up. You’re not done yet."
I reach over and slam the laptop shut. The loud crack echoes like a gunshot. She jumps, pulling her knees up to her chest in the dim, amber twilight of the bunker.
I reach into my pocket, pull my folding knife, and flick it open. The blade catches the low light. "Get used to the shadows. No one is coming for you, Fiorella. You’re a ghost now. Start acting like one."
I turn my back on her and walk toward the exit.
My boots thud heavy on the concrete. She stays curled in the chair, a small, dark silhouette completely swallowed by the corner of the room.
I grab the handle of the heavy iron door and pull it shut behind me.
I slide the deadbolts into place. One, two, three. Finality.
I rest my forehead against the cold metal of the door for exactly one second. I listen to the dead silence on the other side. Then I push off, turn down the hall, and head upstairs to clean my guns.