Page 123 of Pietro

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

PIETRO

The compound gates close behind me like a tomb sealing shut. Blood crusts my jacket where the bullet tore through my shoulder.

My shoulder screams, but the pain is a whisper. A ghost. The real wound is a hollow space in me, a vacuum where Nora’s next breath should be.

Nora.

Her name pounds in my skull with each heartbeat. The image of her walking toward Declan burns behind my eyelids.

I slam through the front doors hard enough to rattle the crystal chandelier.

"Conference room. Now." My voice cracks through the house, a command that shatters the silence.

Lorenzo appears from the kitchen. Nico emerges from the security office, tablet in hand. Vittoria rushes down the stairs, her face pale with worry. Liam follows me in, closing the heavy doors behind us.

No one breathes. Lorenzo’s fingers are white where he grips his phone. Nico stares at a fixed point on the wall. The air is so heavy it feels like a physical weight pressing down. I plant my palms on the table, leaning forward.

"We're getting her back." The words come out raw, scraped from somewhere deep in my chest. "Whatever it takes."

Lorenzo and Nico exchange glances. That silent communication between brothers that says everything without words.

"Pietro—" Lorenzo’s voice is smooth, diplomatic. It’s like oil on fire. My skin crawls.

"Don't." I straighten. My gaze is flat, dead. The kind of look I give a man before I sign his death warrant. "I know what you're thinking. All of you."

Vittoria shifts in her chair. "We just want to make sure you're thinking clearly?—"

"Clearly?" A bitter laugh tears from my throat. "She's gone. Taken by that Irish bastard who already tried to kill her once. You want me to think clearly about that?"

Nico sets his tablet on the table. The soft click is the only sound in the room. "Blame won't bring her back. We need strategy."

"Strategy." The word is grit and dust in my mouth. "Fine. Here's the strategy. We mobilize every soldier we have. We find where Declan's holding her. And we burn everything in our path until she's back."

"That's not a strategy, that's suicide." Nico's logical tone cuts through my fury. "The Irish have the numbers in Chicago. If we go to war?—"

"Then we go to war."

"Pietro." Vittoria stands, approaching me as if I’m a wounded animal that might bite. "We all want Nora back. But getting yourself killed won't save her."

"Meeting's over." I pull away from my sister. "Liam, double the compound security. No one gets in or out without my authorization."

I stride from the room before anyone can protest further. My office door slams behind me hard enough to rattle the frames on the walls.

The security monitors glow blue in the darkness. I drop into my chair, ignoring the spike of pain from my shoulder, and pull up the footage from this morning. Before everything went to hell.

There. The timestamp reads 11:47 AM. Nora enters my office with a stack of files.

"You have the Ferretti meeting at two," she says in the recording, her voice carrying that hint of Boston accent she can never quite hide.

Past-me barely looks up from his computer. "Cancel it."

"You've canceled twice already."

"Then they'll understand a third time."

She rounds the desk, and the camera catches her profile. "Pietro."