Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
The alarm jerked Antonio awake. His breath was ragged. Sweat clung to his neck despite the cold air. This was his second dream in the same night. The dream was already slipping away, but its weight lingered—heavy, choking, insistent.
He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, fingers raking through his hair. Footsteps. A gunshot. A voice—his own: Another one. Just another one.
Sleep had become an endurance test these last few months. Every time he closed his eyes, the past dragged him back: dark alleys, blurred faces, a gallery of the dead he was tired of curating. His hands trembled as he lit a cigarette. Smoke curled into the pale dawn, but it offered no comfort.
You’ve already lost count, the voice whispered in his head. Tonio clenched his jaw. Why the hell was he allowing the things he did to protect his family to rattle him? Why did each dream weigh heavier than the last?
A fragment of the dream surfaced: not an alley, but the club’s back office from last night. Marco Ricci’s pale, sweating face, his voice frayed with panic. “Tonio, please. It was a mistake. My boy, he’s sick—”
The memory ended at the sharp crack of Tonio’s pistol against Ricci’s teeth.
It wasn’t the violence that haunted him, but the silence afterward.
The way Marco looked at him, not with anger but with a broken, shattered understanding, as he broke the fingers of his right hand one by one.
A necessary message. A just punishment. Yet the man’s quiet, wet sobs echoed louder than any scream.
Tonio had done what needed to be done. He had been precise, controlled.
And still...the sound lingered, pressing against him long after the memory faded, a reminder that even justice had a cost.
He had also taken thirty thousand dollars from his safe and knocked on the man’s door a day later. Ricci’s eyes had filled with pleading, and his wife had hurried to his side, her gaze wide with fear. Tonio held out the envelope.
“Take it for the boy’s hospital fees.”
Ricci went still, shock and gratitude warring in his eyes. When his wife snatched the envelope, Tonio turned and walked away without another word.
He ground out the cigarette, annoyance snapping through him. “Why the fuck am I even dreaming about them?”
As the second son, that was his role in the Valachi family—not the strategist like his brother Luc, but the blade. And a blade couldn’t afford to doubt the hand that wielded it. Loyalty was the only thing that made the blood on his hands mean something.
Tonio moved to the window, his reflection a ghost in the glass.
Luc could charm and negotiate; Tonio’s job was to make sure the threats behind those negotiations were never forgotten.
In meetings, Tonio stayed a step behind, quiet while Luc talked circles around men twice his age.
A simple look from Luc, a slight nod, and Tonio would shift the tension, reminding everyone who enforced the rules.
It was a division of labor he never questioned.
His loyalty wasn’t born of fear, but of shared blood, love for his family, and an unspoken code.
Tonio frowned. He had also dreamed about Oliver Dawson. Luc had called Tonio. A supplier was skimming off the books, double-dealing with a rival crew. Small potatoes until it started cutting into the family’s cash flow.
“Make sure the message is understood. Not just by him, but by everyone.”
Tonio had tracked the man to a parking garage near Roosevelt.
The scene played out with cold clarity: the man froze when he saw him, the stark realization in his eyes.
Everyone knew the meaning. The man blubbered that he had a baby on the way.
Tonio’s response was professional—two rounds from his silencer to the center mass.
A clean, clinical solution to a business problem.
Later, in a diner bathroom, Tonio had stared at his hollow-eyed reflection.
Somehow, the echo of the shots lingered in his bones.
A waitress set down a coffee he didn’t remember ordering. He drank it anyway.
He never told Luc about the man’s kid. Part of him wondered if he should have—if admitting it would have made him less a soldier, more human.
But the truth felt fragile—a crack in the precise world the family had built around themselves.
That boy’s existence didn’t belong in conversation.
It belonged in memory, in the quiet, gnawing weight that followed him into every room.
Luc never asked. Tonio never offered. He was trusted to do his job.
He carried something dark and cold anyway and once again arranged for money to be wired to the baby's mother’s account.
Tonio made a soft sound of irritation, raked his fingers through his hair, and padded to the bathroom.
After a long, cold shower to clear his head, Tonio dressed and grabbed his phone.
One message stood out—from Luc: Call me. Need you to take care of something.
He lifted a brow and hit call. It barely rang before Luc answered.
“You took your time.”
“Just got out of the shower. What’s up?”
“I need you to handle a situation.”
Tonio pocketed his wallet and keys. “How bad?”
Luc’s voice was calm, but strain threaded underneath. “Not bad yet. But it will be if we
don’t get ahead of it.” A brief pause. “You good to go?”
He ignored that last part. “Where?”
“The Hamptons. Be there in an hour.”
The line clicked dead. Tonio slipped his gun into its holster, grabbed his jacket, and left.
Tires crunched over cobblestones as he pulled up to the Valachi estate.
The place was a fortress and a home, with cameras and men stationed just out of sight.
Tonio had lived here for years with his mother, his cousin, and his brother before finally deciding to get a penthouse where he could unwind and be alone with his thoughts.
Despite his fierce love for his family, he sometimes craved the stillness and peace that came with silence.
A guard opened the door before he knocked. A nod. Permission granted.
Inside, the foyer smelled of furniture polish and cigars. The sharp rhythm of heels on marble drew his eyes up.
His sister-in-law, Mia, appeared first—pregnant, poised, amused. “Hi, Tonio. You look awful.”
Tonio chuckled. He was genuinely happy for Luc.
He liked Mia—her gentleness was a good match for his brother’s ruthlessness.
But theirs was a world he visited, not one he lived in.
Hell, he doubted he had ever even glimpsed it, because Tonio had never loved a woman with the depth his brother felt for Mia.
Luc followed, sleeves rolled, eyes dry with humor. “You do look like hell, actually.”
Tonio didn’t bite. “Good to see you, Mia.”
Luc gestured toward the study. “Come on. We need to talk.”
Mia walked over to her husband and wrapped her arms around his nape. Luc lowered his head and brushed his mouth over hers. “I’ll be back soon to walk along the sand with you.”
“You’d better,” she said softly. “I’ve arranged a picnic for us.”
Luc nodded, and Tonio smiled, grateful she was in his brother’s life. She gave Tonio a warm wave before slipping out. He and Luc walked down the long hallway toward the main study.
“Is Mother here?”
“She went shopping with Gabriella.”
Tonio made a low sound. He would never understand how the women in his life shopped so frequently. Once a year, he updated his wardrobe and considered that more than enough.
The study was a storm of papers, a half-empty glass, and the thick smell of whiskey and cigars. Luc dropped into his chair, motioning for Tonio to sit. “We’ve got a problem.”
Tonio dropped into the open chair, hands folded in a relaxed manner, eyes steady, though a tightness coiled in his chest. Every “problem” like this carried weight and came with blood. “Tell me,” he said quietly.
“Our senator is compromised,” Luc began, low and even. “An affair from his early days produced a daughter. The mother was paid to disappear, and she did. The daughter is now grown, digging into the past and asking questions that could ruin him.”
“Fuck,” Tonio said.
Luc sighed. “If this surfaces, it doesn’t just end his career. It ends his marriage, connections, and his presidential bid. It ends him and our connection in the Senate.”
Luc’s eyes locked on Tonio, leaving no room for doubt.
“His downfall would be a complication for us, I would prefer to avoid. He isn’t just a friendly vote on the port authority.
He chairs the intelligence committee. He buries FBI field reports that would expose our operations.
More than that, he’s one of our key early-warning systems. The moment a federal task force whispers our name, he is the first call. ”
Luc leaned back in his chair. “Our job is to keep him clean. His job is to keep us in business. Simple.”
Tonio rolled the glass in his hand, watching the ice melt. “And what exactly does he want?”
Luc’s jaw tightened. “For us to handle it. Quietly. Permanently.”
The words hung between them like a noose.
A coldness whispered through his senses. Tonio’s internal code was clear: women and children were a line he’d promised himself he’d never cross. Yet here it was again, a life dangled like a test of loyalty.
Tonio’s eyes narrowed. “We don’t touch women. Or kids.”
“I’m not asking you to kill her,” Luc said. “Just… steer her off. Find out what she wants—money, answers. Be generous enough that she leaves willingly. If she doesn’t, make her want to leave.”
“You mean scare her.” Be merciless enough that she would run and never look at the senator again. Tonio emptied his whiskey glass, letting the burn slide down his throat. “We’ve done a lot of things,” he said, low, “but we’ve never crossed that line.”
Luc’s silence was its own answer.
“You’re asking me to cross it,” Tonio said, his voice rough. “Once I do, I don’t come back from it.”