Page 3 of Pietro

"Without Riccardo." The whiskey burns less than the truth. "Yeah, I heard."

“You're fucking this up, Pietro.”

He's the only one who speaks to me this way. The only one who calls me Pietro instead of Boss or Don Sartori. Even my brothers maintain a certain formality in the office.

But Liam has earned the right to plain speech. He's pulled my ass out of the fire more times than I can count, cleaned up messes that would have brought the feds down on us, and never once judged the blood on my hands.

Liam’s thumb swipes across his phone. He turns the screen to me. A photo of Connor O’Sullivan clinking glasses with two redhead Irish bastards who work with him. "They're gettingcomfortable," Liam says. "They know we're bleeding. Without someone managing the legitimate front, the whole operation?—"

"I'll handle it."

But we both know I won't. Can't. The numbers blur together. Shipment dates, customs codes, bribes that need paying. Riccardo understood this shit. Bruno would have managed it through sheer will. Me? I'm the spare son who got promoted past his competence because the good ones are dead or dying.

Liam's phone buzzes. His face tightens as he reads. "The dock workers are threatening to strike. They haven't been paid in two weeks because?—"

"Because the payroll secretary quit." I drain the glass. "Or was it the one before her?"

"Both, actually."

The laugh that escapes me makes Liam smile too. Of course it was both. They come in all doe-eyed and eager, thinking they've landed some corporate dream job. Then they see what we really are. What I really am. They run.

Smart girls.

"I'll make some calls." Liam heads for the door, then pauses. "Pietro, you need to ease up on them. We can't keep?—"

"What? Can't keep what?" I stand too fast, the room tilting. "Can't keep hemorrhaging money? Can't keep losing territory? Can't keep failing the family?"

"That's not what I?—"

"Get me another secretary, Liam. One who won't fold at the first sign of blood."

He leaves without another word, smart enough to recognize a lost cause. The office feels bigger with him gone, all these windows showing a city I'm supposed to control but can barely see through the haze.

I sink back into the leather chair, manifests scattered across the desk like accusations. Every error costs us. Every delayweakens us. Every moment I sit here drinking instead of leading proves what everyone already knows.

I'm not Riccardo. I'm not even Bruno.

I'm just the guy who lived when better men died.

NORA

Three weeks earlier. Boston.

The floorboards dig into my spine, splinters through the thin fabric of my blouse. Declan's weight crushes my chest, his hands around my throat, thumbs pressing into my windpipe with methodical pressure. The engagement ring—my grandmother's ring that he'd placed on my finger six months ago—cuts into my cheek as he forces my head to the side.

"You stupid bitch." His breath reeks of Jameson and rage. "You couldn't just leave it alone."

Black spots dance at the edges of my vision. My fingers claw at his wrists, nails breaking against his skin. Below me, a glossy photograph of him shaking a Murphy’s hand is smeared with my blood. Proof of his betrayal mixing with my own blood.

"Three years." His grip tightens. "Three fucking years I played the perfect soldier for your father. And you had to go digging."

My hand scrambles across the floor, searching. The lamp base. My fingers close around it just as the world starts going dark.

I swing hard.

The crack of crystal meeting skull echoes through the apartment. Declan's hands loosen as he staggers back, blood running from his temple. I roll away, gasping, my throat on fire. Every breath feels like swallowing glass.

"You're dead." He wipes blood from his eyes, reaching for the gun at his waist. "Your whole family is dead when I tell them what you've done."