Chapter 28 Enrico
ENRICO
The lights buzzed overhead, flickering like nerves.
A man sat in the center of the ring, bound to a chair with a strip of duct tape pressed against his mouth.
His nose bled sluggishly, dripping onto the mat.
Marco drug him here an hour ago, and patience had been wearing thin ever since.
I stepped closer, slow, deliberate. My reflection shivered in the metal post of the boxing ring—black suit, wet cuffs, the faint glint of a gold chain at my throat.
“Remove it.”
Marco peeled the tape away, and the man sucked in a ragged breath. “I didn’t—I don’t know—”
My palm came down on the ring post, hard enough to echo. The sound cut through his words like thunder.
“Then start.”
He flinched, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “It wasn’t me! I just—I just delivered a message!”
I circled him, my shoes whispering across the mat. “Delivered from whom?”
His silence was a dare. It lasted three seconds too long.
I leaned down, letting the edge of my tone cut where my hands didn’t. “You think I’m asking. I’m not.”
A tremor ran through him. Then, the words spilled out.
“Gallo! It was Gallo! He said—he said it was a warning. Said you were slipping. That your father would’ve never allowed this chaos—”
Gallo. Old rival. Former ally. One of my father’s original lieutenants who’d once kissed his ring. So this wasn’t random. This was legacy bleeding back through the cracks.
I straightened. “Where is he now?”
“I don’t know! They move every few—”
Marco’s phone buzzed. He silenced it with a thumb and met my eyes. “Warehouse’s been cleaned out. Whoever tipped him off knew we were coming.”
Of course they did. I’d made too much noise. Blood on the docks carried its own signal. “Handle it.”
Marco nodded. The man in the chair shook, mumbling pleas I ignored as I walked toward the door. Rain fell harder, turning the streetlights into blurs of gold.
I could feel my father’s ghost in every step I took. He would’ve burned the whole block for the insult. He would’ve called it justice. But justice had a cost, and mine was waiting at home, sleeping in silk sheets, bruised from the world I’d dragged her into.
The drive back to the estate was in silence.
The city’s lights rolled by in ribbons, bleeding across the windshield.
My thoughts were jagged, circling Gallo’s name.
By the time the gates opened, dawn was pressing against the horizon.
I killed the engine, sat for a moment in the stillness, and forced my breathing to match the rain.
Inside, Mia’s voice drifted from the study when I stepped inside.
“You’re finally home. Can we talk, baby? Why are you shutting me out?”
Her tone was soft, but it cut through me.
I stopped, half in shadow, watching her through the doorway.
She stood by the window, hair spilling loose over her shoulders, the faintest trace of tiredness around her eyes.
The bruise near her collarbone had faded to a pale lavender, a ghost of what had been done to her.
“I’m not,” I said finally. My voice sounded foreign, scraped raw.
She turned. “You think I don’t notice when you disappear? When your phone lights up and you step outside to answer it like I’m too fragile to handle the truth?”
The accusation in her eyes made something in my chest twist. I took a slow breath, closing the door behind me. “There are things I can’t tell you. Not yet.”
“Not yet?” Her laugh was short, humorless. “You mean never.”
Her words found the fractures I tried to ignore. “Mia.” I crossed the room. “If I tell you everything, you’ll hate me for it.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But at least it would be honest.”
Silence. The kind that pressed against the ribs, waiting to break something. I reached for her hand. She didn’t pull away—but she didn’t move closer either.
“They came after you because of me. Because someone wants to remind me what kind of man my father raised. And because they think I’m losing control.”
“Are you?”
Her question was a knife, clean and curious. “No.” I caught her chin. “But I might have to become someone you don’t recognize to end this.”
She swallowed. “Then don’t forget who you are when it’s over.”
Her words—so simple—landed deeper than any threat.
I kissed her, once. She trembled. When I pulled back, I saw the question still in her eyes. The one I didn’t want to answer.
Later, when she’d gone to bed, I stayed in the study. Marco came in. His shirt was damp, his expression grim. He handed me a folded slip of paper.
“Found this taped to the gates. No cameras caught who left it.”
I unfolded it. One sentence scrawled in dark ink, sharp and deliberate.
Your father’s sins were never buried. Neither will yours.
The paper trembled between my fingers. Not from fear—never fear. From recognition. The handwriting wasn’t just familiar. It was identical to letters my father received years ago, right before his own right-hand man vanished.
Gallo wasn’t alone. This was deeper. Older.
I let out a slow breath and sat the paper on the desk. My reflection wavered in the dark glass of the window—black suit, gold cufflinks, the faintest smear of Mia’s lipstick near my jaw. A man divided between two worlds.
“Mia’s still awake,” Marco said. “She heard us come in.”
“Let her think I’m working,” I murmured.
He hesitated. “Enrico—there’s more. Someone’s been watching the house. We caught a car parked a block away last night. Same one tonight.”
I turned, the weight of the words grounding me in something cold and certain. “License?”
“None. Plates are fake.”
“Good. It means they want to be seen.”
Marco nodded once and left.
I stood there for a long moment, listening to the rain. Then, from the hallway, the sound of bare feet—soft, uncertain. “Enrico?” Her voice. My undoing. I turned. Mia stood in the doorway, wearing another of my shirts, her hair spilling wild over her shoulders. The sight nearly unmade me.
“Couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Every time I close my eyes, I see their faces. And then I see you. The two things overlap until I don’t know which scares me more.”
I crossed the room slowly, stopping just short of her. “You should be resting.”
“So should you.” Her gaze flicked to the desk, to the note. “What is that?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You always say that before something explodes.”
“Mia—”
“No, don’t Mia me.” She stepped closer, her voice trembling—not with fear, but with exhaustion.
“You can’t keep shouldering everything alone.
If this is about your father, or the person responsible, or whatever vendetta’s bleeding through the cracks—tell me.
Don’t lie to me to keep me safe. That’s not safety. That’s control.”
The word hit like a whip. Control. My father’s favorite word. His gospel.
I exhaled through my teeth and leaned in, pressing my forehead to hers. “You want the truth?”
“Yes.”
I opened my mouth—but the sharp buzz of my phone cut through the air like a blade.
Mia froze. “Don’t answer it.”
“I have to.”
I stepped away, picking up the phone from the desk and putting it on speaker. The number was blocked. My pulse slowed, every instinct shifting.
“Di Fiore,” a distorted voice said. “How’s the wife?”
I didn’t answer.
“She’s lovely, by the way. Reminds me of her mother.”
My blood turned to ice. “Who is this?”
A low chuckle. “A ghost. One your father failed to bury from his past. Tell Mia we’ll be seeing her soon.”
The line went dead.