Page 5 of The Silent War

“They’ll test you,” I said.

“They’ll test all of us,” Luca corrected. “Power shifts fast if it isn’t managed. We lose one street, one club, one shipment—they’ll smell blood and pick us apart.”

“Then we don’t lose.”

We were barely staying ahead of collapse.

The cousins were circling. Hungry for promotion they wouldn’t get. Damius was watching every slip, every bruise.

It wasn’t about control anymore. It was survival.

And survival meant ruin before rest.

The bruises, long nights and the endless bodies. We carried it all for one reason.

And I wasn’t going to die bloody the same month Emilia was finally returning to Villain.

Chapter Three

BASTION

Some nights the city felt like it was killing me.

And tonight I had to remind myself why the fuck we kept getting back up.

So I told the driver to take me to the only place that hadn’t turned on me yet.

Her penthouse. The one we were building from scratch. One floor beneath the clouds, high enough to own the skyline. The crown of the city.

Her crown.

It wasn’t finished. The elevator wasn’t wired yet. I had to climb the final level by foot, stepping over cable and unpolished marble.

Now I stood in the center of what would be her bedroom. Our room.

The glass panels framed Villain like it was a painting. Full spread. City lights for walls.

This penthouse was why I hadn’t burned the city to the fucking ground.

Luca and I had planned it to perfection.

We had the bed custom built to the same size as the onewe’d taken her on three years ago. Even the acoustics mattered—because when we fucked her in this room, we wanted her to hear everything.

Luca had coded the walls to move around her like a shadow. The vents shifted when her pulse rose in the night, cooling the room before she even woke. The glass tinted the second her feet touched the passage in the morning so she wouldn’t be blinded by the sun. Even the lights rose soft with her breathing.

My work was in the bones. Blackout blinds that dropped without a sound when the city grew too loud for her. Floors layered so no fall would ever bruise her. A bath wide enough for all of us, always warmed to the degree she liked.

A spa wing that carried the scent of jasmine through the vents. The pool set into the rooftop garden, water heated the moment she walked on to the deck, glass walls turned dark so no one else could see her swim.

I’d carved out balconies that didn’t hear the city, planted with roses and lavender because she once said they smelled like home.

A wardrobe built with mirrored walls that never cast a harsh shadow. Because I’d never let shadows hurt our girls mind.

The fireplace was built low, so she could read a book and still see the skyline without the light burning her eyes.

Even the panic room had been rebuilt. If she ever had to step inside, it would feel soft. Like a shelter, not a prison.

Because this wasn’t just a home. It was a love letter written in architecture. Luca’s code. My hands.