Page 127

Bea doesn’t pull away again. She just holds me, her hands moving gently over my back, like she’s trying to piece me back together.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” she says softly, but there’s no certainty in her voice.

The world’s never going to be okay again. Not until I understand what’s happened. Not until I make sense of everything.

Chapter Twenty-Five – Bugatti

“…Can’t even believe it’s working so well myself.”

I exhale through my nose, fingers pinching the bridge.

“Everything’s aligned,” I continue.

Static hums.

Then finally—low, sharp, amused: “You sound confident, Bugatti.”

I smile into the quiet. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

The guard steps in. “Sir. The Tavano brother is outside.”

“Send him in.”

The door closes. The sound barely fades before it opens again.

Riccardo walks in.

“I was so worried. I was going to call you,” I say quickly, voice light, feigning relief. “How did it go?”

He closes the door behind him.

“I returned the girl.”

My smile falters. Not enough for him to catch.

“You what?” Then—masking the tremor—I add, “What do you mean?”

Riccardo pitched it to me as a perfect mark. He was all fire. The kind who breaks things before asking why. The kind who worships justice when it’s shaped like revenge.

When Vieri went to prison, I approached Riccardo as a dealer. He loved what I gave him, I fed him a lot of it, it was part of the buffer. When I built a bridge, I offered Riccardo a story dressed in just enough truth to taste real. I told him about the diamonds, the gold—the inheritance from The Six. I told him Vieri was hiding it. Hoarding it. That he’d taken their father’s share and built his empire on it, keeping the rest of them in the dark.

And Riccardo believed it, because deep down, he’d always feared it.

What I never told him? That I worked with Desmond to execute Lena and Vasco. That I stood beside Desmond when he silenced Mother J. That after her funeral, her son came knocking on doors, piecing together things no one wanted unearthed. That I had him taken, silenced like the rest.

Except he got away. And before disappearing, he found the girl.

Lunetta.

I had no intention of splitting anything with Riccardo. He was just the knife I meant to throw. After I promised him half the stash, I moved the crates. The real plan was to keep it all. But then Mother J’s son vanished, and I panicked. If the girl knew—even fragments—she had to go.

Vieri came out just in time so I turned him loose on her. Fed him trails, half-truths wrapped in loyalty. My men watched the girl until I led him to take her. My plan? He would kill the girl, Riccardo would finish him off for it. One brother gone. Then the other.

And I’d be the last one standing.

But now Riccardo is standing in front of me. And the way he’s looking at me…

“I have a feeling,” he says slowly, “that you’ve not been honest with me.”