Page 96 of The Silent War

“Yesterday I let this city live,” I said. “Today I don’t owe you that mercy.”

The room froze.

“Bastion.” Luca’s voice was calm. Not stopping me. Just pulling me back from the edge.

I knew what he was doing. He wasn’t protecting them. He was protecting me. Keeping me from losing my mood completely to the violence that always controlled me.

I pressed my gun under the bastard’s jaw, close enough he could taste the steel.

He whimpered. That broke him more than the steel.

“Bastion.” Luca again, firmer.

I inhaled through my teeth, slow. Emilia’s face flickered behind my eyes—this morning, curled in our bed, wearing one of our shirts.

I pulled back. Slammed him once more into the wall for good measure. Then dropped him.

He collapsed, coughing, scrambling to find his chair that was no longer there.

I holstered my gun. Turned to the others. All watching.

“Pick a side,” I said. My voice carried through the warehouse. “With us or against us. You’ve got one chance to make the right call.”

Silence. Then slow nods. Eyes lowering. Weapons dropping back down.

I looked at Luca. He gave me the smallest nod.

I should’ve felt better, this was technically a win. But all I wanted was her. Back on that yacht. Back in our bed. Back where the world didn’t get to touch her.

That was calm.

This was noise.

And I was already sick of it.

The fallout dragged.

Half an hour of breathing the same air as those men. My hands ached from holding back. My jaw too. The calm I’d carried from last night was gone.

We left them scrambling. Syndicate lieutenants falling over themselves to patch holes, swear loyalty, cough up double. Luca let them. He was better at the details. I didn’t hear most of it. Didn’t care.

I was already gone. Back on the yacht in my head. Back in our bed. Back where the world didn’t get to touch her.

The car door shut. Luca slid in across from me. Our phones buzzed almost at the same time. Another call. Another text.

Problem after problem.

Holdings being tested. Crews shifting territory lines. A truck held up at the docks. A cop who’d decided to grow a spine.

Our men were trying to keep pace, but every call was the same: the city wanted us back in it.

I turned my phone over. Face down. Didn’t matter. It still vibrated against the leather seat, every buzz another reminder that nothing we built stayed still without blood to hold it.

Luca lit a cigarette. He leaned back, took a drag. He wasn’t any calmer than me.

I could see it in the way he inhaled too deep, exhaled too slow. He looked like calm, but he was fraying just as bad.

I knew the weight in his chest. The burn behind his eyes