Page 39 of The Underboss's Secret Twins

I turn back to him, my gaze razor-sharp. "And Mancini?"

"Yeah?"

I step closer. "If youeverdisappear on me in the middle of a situation like that again, I won’t give a fuck what your excuse is. You’ll wish the Lombardis got to you first."

His throat bobs, but he nods. "Understood."

"Good." I step back. "Now get the fuck out of my office and find me something."

Mancini doesn’t waste another second. He turns, disappearing through the door, leaving me alone in the silence.

I stare at the phone on my desk, waiting.

I know they’ll call again.

Which means I need to set things in motion.

The thought lingers in my mind as I storm through the halls of the estate, my pulse a steady drum of frustration beneath my skin. The house is alive with movement—footsteps echoing against marble floors, murmured voices trailing from room to room, the scent of coffee and cigars thick in the air. It should be a day of victory.

The Salvatores won against the Rossis last night.

A war fought, a battle claimed.

And yet, all I can think about is Sofia, bound and gagged. Sofia, at the mercy of men who don’t leave loose ends. Sofia, waiting—if she’s even still waiting. If they haven’t already?—

I shove the thought away before it can form.

Not an option.

I don’t know why my feet carry me toward the back terrace, only that the house has become unbearable with its silence and its waiting and the feeling that everyone is watching to see what I’ll do next.

I take the stone steps two at a time and cut through the garden path, the gravel crunching beneath my shoes as I move without purpose, without direction, only with the kind of raw energy that has nowhere else to go. And that’s when I see Luca, standing alone near the reflecting pool, one hand tucked into his pocket, the other holding a lowball glass filled with whiskey, his face angled toward the water where the lights of the house ripple like ghosts.

He doesn’t startle when I stop, doesn’t flinch or shift or greet me, just tilts his head slightly like he’s been expecting me all along.

“You look like you haven’t slept in days,” he says quietly, his voice more observation than criticism, the kind of tone a man uses when he’s trying to offer something without admitting it’s comfort.

I don’t answer. Luca turns toward me fully, the gravel silent beneath his loafers, his movements slow, always controlled, like his thoughts come ten seconds ahead of everyone else’s. He takes a sip of his drink and studies me over the rim of the glass, his eyes unreadable in the dim garden light, but not cold.

“You’ve lost weight,” he says, and I can’t tell if he means it literally or if it’s his way of acknowledging what this week has taken out of me.

I move closer, just enough that I don’t have to raise my voice, and finally ask, “Have you heard anything?”

He doesn’t pretend not to know what I’m talking about. He nods once, slowly.

“We’ve confirmed the Lombardis have her,” he says, and the way he says it—like he’s reciting a business update—makes something in me crack.

“So what now?” I ask. “We wait? We do nothing? We send flowers when they send a body back?”

Luca finishes the rest of his drink in one smooth swallow and sets the glass down on the lip of the stone fountain behind him. “You need to keep your head, Marco,” he says, and the words are calm but firm, delivered not like a command but like a warning from someone who has watched too many men throw their lives away for less.

I stare at him, this man I have called brother all my life, and for a moment I hate him for being able to stand here so still, so clean, so untouched while everything inside me is unraveling.

“I can’t just let them keep her,” I say, and he shakes his head like I’ve missed the point entirely.

“I know what she means to you,” he says, and for the first time, I hear the edge in his voice, the crack of emotion that’s almost always buried beneath the weight of leadership. “But they’re waiting for you to act like this. They want you storming through doors without a plan, because that’s the only way they win. You go after her now, and you walk straight into a trap.”

I don’t answer right away. The words are rational, reasonable, and utterly unbearable.