63. Chapter 63
Chapter sixty-three
Alex
The air in my lungs stalls to breathe and my heartbeat pounds on overdrive, the beat echoing in my ears.
“I’m dying,” he says. “Cancer. Fast and very aggressive. It’s already everywhere.”
He exhales, slow and controlled. “A fitting end, perhaps. A long one. Painful.”
Shivers run up my spine.
Then his gaze shifts—not to me, but toward the door. Toward the men waiting outside. His voice lowers, urgency threading through it now.
“Nico is in danger,” he says. “Not from rivals. From inside.”
My jaw tightens.
He hesitates again, then adds, quieter, “There was an attempt on Nico’s life.”
For one suspended heartbeat, the world narrows to those six words.
“An extraction,” he clarifies. “Clean. Professional. Someone tried to take him off the board.”
My hands curl into fists. “And?”
“He survived,” my father says. “Barely. He’s home recovering. He would be here otherwise.”
I release a breath through my nose. “He wouldn’t come for me.”
My father’s gaze flicks to me. “You’re wrong.”
“I doubt that,” I say flatly.
Something tight passes through my father’s expression.
“He named his son after you,” he says.
The words don’t land right away.
“What?”
“Alessandro,” he repeats. “Six years old. Nico’s firstborn.”
My chest locks.
“Did he know I was alive?” I ask.
“No,” my father agrees. “He didn’t.”
A quiet moment exists between us, heavy and charged.
“I told him after the attempt,” he continues. “When it became clear that the ground beneath us was no longer stable. When lies stopped being protection and started being liabilities.”
I stare at him. “You let him believe I was dead.”
My father doesn’t argue. “I let him believe you were gone. That there was no way back.”
“And how did that go over once you told him the truth?”
A muscle jumps in his jaw.
“He was furious,” he admits. “Not at you. At me. For taking the choice away from him. For letting him grieve someone who was never actually lost.”
This space seems more cramped now.
“He wants to see you,” my father says. “Very much.”
“After everything—you expect me to believe—“
“I expect you to understand blood,” he cuts in. “Even when it’s complicated. Even when it’s broken.”
He studies me carefully. “He didn’t ask for the life I built. He’s been trying to survive it the way you did—by doing what he thinks is right.”
I glance down at Lina again. At the quiet strength in her presence. At the life I’ve chosen.
“Someone in the family has been operating outside my authority,” he continues. “Running…business I did not sanction.”
That word lands wrong. Business.
“What kind of business?” I ask.
He hesitates.
Just a fraction too long.
“Discreet,” he says. “Off-books. Transactions that don’t pass through the usual channels. Payments that move too cleanly for legitimate work.”
His mouth hardens.
“Problems handled quietly. No questions asked. No trails left behind.”
I already don’t like where this is going.
“Human trafficking and contract killings,” he says.
My pulse spikes.
Beside me, Lina goes still.
“I did not approve this,” he says firmly. “I would never allow something so reckless. It draws attention. It destabilizes everything I’ve spent a lifetime building.”
I search his face.
He’s telling the truth. Or at least he believes he is.
The puzzle remains incomplete.
But pieces are sliding into place. Slowly. Inevitably.
Then he looks back at me.
“I found you years ago,” he admits. “I knew where you were. Who you became.”
Lina stiffens beside me.
A strange silence breezes over the table, and I study him carefully.
“Who I became?” I ask.
My father holds my gaze. Briefly, I believe he intends to retreat. Deflect. Give me one of his carefully crafted half-truths.
Instead, his words come out low and rough. “The Wraith.”
The name lands like a stone, sending quiet ripples through the room.
Lina’s breath catches.
I don’t move. Don’t react. Years of practice make that easy. But inside, every instinct sharpens.
My father watches me with the same measured calm he’s always had.
“You were not difficult to find, Alessandro,” he says. “At least not at first.”
A wry smile touches his mouth.
“The man Alex Lombardi was. But not the vigilante.”
My jaw goes taut. He knows.
“I heard the stories years before I found proof,” he continues. “Criminals disappearing. Smugglers abandoning routes. Men suddenly deciding retirement was in their best interests.”
His eyes narrow slightly.
“Bodies never found. Witnesses terrified to speak. Entire organizations changing behavior because they feared a ghost in the darkness.”
I listen intently.
“You built a reputation.”
Beside me, Lina remains perfectly still.
“I dismissed it at first,” my father continues. “Every city has its legends. Men invent monsters when they need something to fear.”
His gaze never leaves mine.
“But the stories kept appearing. Different countries. Different organizations. Different victims.”
He leans back slightly.
“The methods changed. The targets did not.”
A chill crawls down my spine.
“Traffickers. Predators. Men who profited from suffering.”
His mouth tightens. “The kind of men you always hated.”
I remain silent.
“Then, my people began noticing something else.”
His expression darkens. “Whenever The Wraith surfaced, certain operations disappeared and information found its way to authorities.”
His eyes sharpen. “It wasn’t random.”
No. It never was.
“You weren’t hunting.”
His voice is calm now. “You weren’t expanding territory. You weren’t building and taking power.”
The words seem to find him one at a time. “You were punishing who you thought were bad people.”
The words hang heavily between us.
“And I knew only one person stubborn enough to wage that kind of war.”
I can’t help the faint scoff that escapes me.
My father’s mouth twitches. “There are many dangerous men in this world, Alessandro.”
His gaze hardens. “But very few who believe they are doing the right thing by silencing the wicked.”
The silence expands until it fills every corner of the room.
For the first time since he arrived, I see something unexpected in his expression. Pride.
Because I became something he couldn’t control, something he couldn’t shape in his image. I became The Wraith.
“You never became me,” he says softly.
“No,” I agree.
A faint smile touches his lips. “No. You only became something far more troublesome.”
His voice softens as a hint of a smile forms.
“You never wanted any part of my operations. I knew that. So I gave you the choice you wanted.”
The admission lands heavier than I expect.
“But now,” he says, “I don’t have time. And I don’t trust anyone else to see what I’m seeing.”
He holds my gaze.
“Someone within our walls is selling death like a service.”
I stare at him. “Selling...contracts?”
He doesn’t answer immediately.
Understanding clicks into place. “A death broker.”
My father’s silence—and the single nod that follows—are answer enough.
My spine straightens.
Because that isn’t random violence. It isn’t a turf dispute. It’s infrastructure. A business model. A marketplace.
And it’s what Reese and I have been circling for years.
A knowing look crosses his face.
My pulse kicks into overdrive. “You know about it?” I ask him.
“I know enough.”
“How?”
His expression darkens. “I hired someone outside the organization. Someone nobody would connect to me. I needed eyes that weren’t compromised.”
He pauses. “What they found wasn’t a side operation.”
His jaw flexes. “It was something operating within my infrastructure, under my fucking nose.”
He exhales. “The contract on Lina was part of it,” he admits.
The words sink into my chest like shrapnel.
I don’t move. Don’t blink. Just stare at him.
My father watches me absorb it. “I had no part in it Alessandro. That is not the type of business I want to be involved in. But this operation is how I found you.”
My gaze snaps to his.
“The investigator followed the contract. The money. The approvals. Communications that should never have existed.”
His eyes lock onto mine. “Your name surfaced as a target obstacle in the contract, long before anyone knew who you were to me.”
A sardonic smirk appears. “You and I were investigating the same problem from opposite sides.”
I ease back against the wall with a slow exhale.
Of all the cities. Of all the people. Of all the fucking contracts.
My father nods once, as though he’s reached the same conclusion. “Fate,” he says.
I almost laugh. Because fate has never done me any favors.
Reese and I spent years chasing a network no one can seem to identify. A woman I love survives an attempted murder. My estranged father independently uncovers the same operation from inside his own organization. And somehow every road leads back to Lina. Back to Redwillow. Back to this table.
Fate. Or something far darker.
My father studies me, like he’s memorizing my face. Like time is something he no longer has the luxury to waste.
“Do not decide anything yet,” he says.
It’s not a command but a request. That alone is unusual.
“Think. Observe. You have always been good at that.”
He reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out a card, placing it on the table between us.
Thick stock. Minimal. His name printed in restrained lettering beside a local number.
“I’m staying at the Drover,” he says. “For now.”
I don’t touch the card.
He pushes himself to his feet, the weight of his body evident now in a way it never used to be. Age and illness have begun to collect their due.
Then he turns to Lina. And something unexpected happens.
His expression softens—not performative or calculated. Real. He looks at her the way a man looks at something rare he hadn’t known existed until it was before him.
“I am glad,” he says, his accent thicker now, his voice warm, “to see my son happy.”
He inclines his head to her, respectful. Sincere. “With you.”
Lina meets his gaze and nods, grace intact even in a moment that would rattle anyone else.
My father looks back at me once more.
Then he turns and leaves, his men falling into step behind him as the door closes in his wake.
Silence blankets the table.
He came with history. With unfinished business. And he left me with a choice I thought I’d already made. Only now, it’s no longer only about me.
The room echoes with his absence. I’m still staring at the place where my father stood when Lina turns to me.
Her eyes are steady. Clear. No fear in them. “Whatever you choose,” she says, “I’m with you.”
I stare at her.
“I’m by your side.”
There’s no catch waiting beneath the surface. Only choice. Only loyalty, freely given.
It hits me harder than anything my father said.
She doesn’t ask me to explain. She doesn’t demand promises or guarantees I can’t make yet. She doesn’t try to steer me away or pull me closer.
She only stands with me.
This is what family is supposed to be. Beyond obligation. Beyond blood. Beyond guilt disguised as duty. Just someone choosing you because they want to.
I pull her closer to me, my voice rough when I speak. “You don’t even know what that choice might cost.”
Her mouth slightly curves. “I know who you are.”
That’s all she says. And somehow, it’s everything.
I pull her into me. Firm enough to feel her heartbeat against my chest. To ground myself in the reality of her.
I’m not torn in two directions. I’m anchored.
Whatever comes next—whoever thought they could pull me back into the shadows—they’re going to learn one thing very quickly. Big fucking mistake.