Page 2 of Pietro

The leather chair creaks as I lean back, staring at quarterly reports that blur together into meaningless numbers. My office radiates power. Windows overlooking the city I now control, Italian marble floors, artwork that museums would kill for.

All of it built on blood.

My hand moves without thought, pressing against my ribs through the fabric of my shirt. The tattoo throbs like a fresh wound, though it's been years since the needle carved his name and that date into my skin. November 15th. The day I stopped being Pietro and became this thing wearing his face.

Some days I trace the letters, trying to remember what his laugh sounded like. Other days I dig my fingers in hard enough to bruise, hoping the physical pain might drown out everything else.

"Would you be proud?" I ask the empty office, the question I pose to every decision. "Would you understand why I had to burn them all?"

The men who killed him died screaming. Their families scattered. Their territories absorbed. I became everything Giuseppe wanted—ruthless, efficient, feared. The perfect Don when Riccardo ate a bullet and died. The perfect Don when Bruno is at the fucking hospital unaware if he ever wakes up.

But here's what I know, what I've known since that night in the warehouse: Pablo would hate what I've become. He'd look at the blood on my hands, the emptiness behind my eyes, the women I fuck and discard because feeling nothing is better than feeling everything.

He'd ask me what the point of surviving was if I'm not actually living.

And I'd have no answer. Because the truth is simple and unchangeable as gravity.

I should have died in that warehouse thirteen years ago. Every breath since has been stolen time, borrowed from a better man who deserved them more.

The city lights glitter beyond my windows, Chicago spread out like a kingdom I never wanted. Somewhere out there, Giulia tends her garden and lights candles for her son. My brothers move through their own orbits, held together by blood and duty and the kind of loyalty that got Pablo killed.

I pour three fingers of whiskey, raise the glass to my reflection in the darkened window.

A ghost toasting ghosts.

"Here's to borrowed time, fratello.”

CHAPTER ONE

PIETRO

Ihurl the tumbler. It explodes against the wall, amber liquid streaking down the floor like tears I don't have in me to shed. The ghost of another secretary's perfume, sweet and scared, is already fading.

Liam stands in the doorway, resignation letter in hand. He doesn't flinch at the violence anymore. None of them do.

Liam Blackwood. Six-foot-even, perpetually dressed in tailored charcoal suits with subtle pinstripes. Not a hair out of place on his salt-and-pepper head.

He's pushing fifty but moves with the efficiency of a soldier. Which he was, once upon a time. British Special Forces before he traded government work for private sector. The only man besides my brothers I trust at my back.

"Three days." He sets the paper on my desk between shipping manifests and unpaid invoices. "That's a new record."

I don't look up from the numbers that refuse to add up right. Some dock worker in Newark fucked us on a shipment, or maybe it was the customs agent in Miami. Without properdocumentation, without someone who gives a damn about the details, everything bleeds money.

"What was wrong with this one?" My voice scrapes raw from last night's bottle.

"You threw a paperweight at her head."

"I threw it past her head. There's a difference."

A muscle jumps in Liam's jaw. Liam runs my life. He anticipates problems before they become problems. Handles the details I don't have patience for.

"We need?—"

"Another one. I know. Find me another one."

The October spreadsheet mocks me from the desk. Three hundred thousand missing. Maybe four. The numbers swim, and I pour another drink with hands that should be steadier. The Glencairn feels right in my palm, heavy crystal that could crack a skull if needed.

"The Irish hit two more shipments this week." Liam shifts his weight, tactical boots silent on marble. "Connor O'Sullivan's getting bold. Says we're weak without?—"