Chapter Twenty
Matteo
The second the elevator doors closed on her, I stood in the hallway with her ring clenched in my fist and the taste of her last kiss on my mouth. The knife with her blood sat on the dresser like it was waiting for me to acknowledge what I had done.
I called Santino first. He answered on the second ring, voice rough with sleep. “This better be important.”
“She left.”
Silence. Then a quiet curse. “Morena?”
“Yes. She put a knife to her own fucking throat and walked out. Her little sister is missing. Her bastard of a stepfather moved her. I need everything you have on After Dark’s old networks. Drivers. Girls who talk. Anyone who ever moved product or people for Dario Rizzo.”
Santino was quiet for a second. I heard sheets shift. “You’re in war mode.”
“I’m past war mode.”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
“Make it ten,” I bit out.
He made it in fifteen.
I was in the study with two phones going and a map of the northern industrial routes spread across the desk when he walked in.
Black shirt. No tie. The same sharp, restless energy he always carried when something threatened family.
He took one look at my face and shut the door behind him.
“Jesus, Matteo. You look like you haven’t slept in days. ”
He dropped into the chair across from me. “Tell me everything.”
I did. Santino listened without interrupting, elbows on his knees, eyes dark. When I finished he let out a long breath. He studied me for a moment. “You’re not dragging her back.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Not yet,” I said. “If I pull her in before I have Camilla, I lose her. She made that clear.”
Santino nodded slowly. “Smart. Painful. But smart.”
He pulled out his own phone. “I’ll lean on the After Dark girls. A few of them owe me favors. If Dario used any of the old routes, someone will talk.”
“Do it.”
He made three calls right there in front of me. Short. Sharp. The kind of conversations that ended with people moving fast because the alternative was worse. When he hung up the last one he looked at me again. “You’re not thinking clean. That’s dangerous.”
“I’m thinking clear enough.”
“No. You’re thinking like a man who just watched his wife put a blade to her throat because he lied to her.” He sat back down. “There’s a difference.”
We worked in silence for a while. Calls. Updates. Names. One of Santino’s contacts from the club came through first. A former dancer who moved in the lower circles. She had seen Morena near an air strip after midnight. Alone.
Santino relayed it without softening it. “She’s moving. Asking quiet questions. Looking for the same ghost you are.”
I stared at the map. “Keep eyes on her. Soft. No approach.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
He watched me for a long second. “You’re giving her space while you burn the city down for a little kid. That’s either growth or suicide. I can’t tell which yet.”
“Find me Dario and we’ll decide later.”
By late morning we had the first real break. Santino’s phone lit up. He answered, listened, then put it on speaker.
A low male voice. One of the After Dark drivers who used to run side jobs. “Rizzo used the north airstrip two nights ago. Private. Kid was with him. Little girl. He had help scrubbing the cameras. Not his usual people. Cleaner work.”
I leaned forward. “Who helped him?”
“Don’t know. But the scrub job was professional. Family-level professional. Someone with access.”
Santino’s eyes met mine. The same thought moved between us. Someone inside.
I ended the call myself. “I want names. Every operator who can darken a camera grid that clean. Pull them in.”
Santino was texting. “On it.”
We spent the next hours burning through the list. Two men in a warehouse on the east side. One of them broke faster than I expected. The other needed more convincing.
By the time we left, I had a partial confirmation: the help had come from someone connected to one of the other families. Close enough to smell like a test.
Santino wiped blood off his knuckles with a handkerchief and glanced at me as we got back in the car. “You’re colder than usual.”
“Good.”
“No. It’s not. You’re going to make a mistake if you don’t get some of that out of your system,” he hissed.
I looked out the window. “The only mistake I made was letting my wife walk out on me.”
Afternoon brought the secondary location. A short-term safe house near the industrial airstrip. Santino’s people flagged it. We hit it hard and fast. Empty.
A mattress. Signs they had been there and moved again before dawn.
I stood in the middle of the empty room. Santino stepped up beside me. “We’ll find them.”
“We will.”
“Morena is out there chasing the same trails. My guys spotted her near here an hour ago. Alone, still.”
My jaw tightened. “And?”
“And I told them to keep watching. Soft. Like you ordered.” He paused. “You want me to bring her in?”
“No.”
“Matteo.”
“I said no.” I turned to face him fully. “She walks back when the little girl is safe. Not before. I won’t take that choice from her again.”
Santino studied me for a long moment. Then he nodded once. “Alright. We do it your way.”
He handed me a small pink jacket.
“There’s another lead,” he said.
I looked at the address he pulled up on his phone.
Solid.
“We hit it before dawn,” I said.
Santino nodded. “I’ll get the teams ready.”
He clapped me once on the shoulder, harder than necessary.
“Then let’s go get the bastard,” he said. “Before you burn the rest of the city down.”
I followed him out. But for the first time since she walked out, I had a direction. And a friend willing to walk into the fire with me.
“Estate first. We re-arm, we use the secure lines, and you get ten minutes that are not pure blood and concrete,” he said. “Non-negotiable.”
I did not argue. Another few hours of pure momentum and I would start making the kind of mistakes that got people killed.
The Moretti estate was quiet when we pulled in.
Security nodded us through. The main house glowed with warm light against the dark.
I could hear the high, bright sound of small voices somewhere deeper inside.
Santino glanced at me as we walked up the steps. “Aurora knows the broad strokes. I texted her on the way. She’s not going to be soft about it.”
“It’s fine. I don’t need coddling right now.”
“Good. Because you’re not getting it.”
We stepped into the foyer and the sound of the girls got louder. Three sets of small feet pounding down the hallway. Then they were there. Francesca in front, as always, dark curls wild, followed by Angelica and Elisa like a tiny, chaotic formation.
“Uncle Teo!” Francesca launched herself at my legs without hesitation. “You’ve got blood on your shirt again. Mama said you’re not allowed to be bloody in the house.”
Angelica stopped short and stared at my hands with wide eyes. Elisa, the quietest, just reached up with both arms.
I crouched because there was no other option. Angelica patted my cheek like she was checking for fever. Elisa climbed into my lap without asking and put her small head against my chest, right over the place that felt torn open. Santino watched the whole thing with a look I could not quite read.
Aurora appeared at the end of the hallway. Bare feet. Soft black sweater. Hair pulled back. She took in the scene in one sweep: the girls all over me, the blood on my shirt, the way Santino was standing just behind my shoulder like he was ready to catch something.
She did not smile.
“Girls,” she said, voice calm but firm. “Go find the cook in the kitchen. Tell her Uncle Matteo needs coffee and something with sugar.”
Francesca looked ready to argue. Aurora raised one eyebrow.
The three of them peeled off in a storm of complaints and small feet, Elisa pausing just long enough to pat my face one more time before she ran after her sisters.
The second they were gone, Aurora crossed her arms.
“Where’s the baby?” I asked lamely.
“Selena is asleep,” my sister said. “Where’s your wife?”
I stayed silent.
“She left.” It was not a question.
“Yes.”
Aurora looked at Santino, then back at me. “And you’re not dragging her back.”
“Not until I have her little sister.”
She studied me for a long moment. The same sharp intelligence that had once stared down Santino in a bloodstained wedding dress was fully present now.
“Good,” she said finally. “If you had said anything else I was going to hit you with something heavy, maybe a pancake pan”
Santino made a low sound that might have been a laugh.
Aurora ignored him. “She’s not like us, Matteo.
She wasn’t raised in money. She doesn’t have the armor.
I didn’t either, once. You keep treating her like a problem to contain and she will keep choosing the knife.
The same way I almost did. You bring her the little girl first. Then you get on your knees if you have to. Clear?”
“Clear.”
She nodded once, sharp, then turned to Santino. “You’re both covered in someone else’s blood and you smell like a warehouse. Shower. Change. The secure room is ready. I’ll keep the girls occupied.”
She walked away without waiting for an answer. Santino watched her go, something soft and permanent in his expression, then looked back at me. “I married a terrifying woman.”
“You did.”
“Come on. Before she comes back with actual weapons.”
The secure room in the lower level was all concrete, monitors, and clean weapons. We stripped out of the ruined shirts, cleaned up, and re-armed in silence for a few minutes. Santino tossed me a black long-sleeve and watched me pull it on.
Then he did something I did not expect.
He reached for my left wrist, unfastened the watch he had given me months ago, and turned it over in his hands. Angelo’s watch. The one with the thin scratch on the underside that never polished out.
“You remember why I gave you this?” he asked quietly.
I did. But I let him say it anyway.