Page 90

The room smells like cigar smoke, espresso, and something darker, something that clings to men who’ve killed and made peace with it.

Maps stretch across the conference table in front of me. Trade routes. Shipment schedules. Movement patterns of soldiers that aren’t ours.

Dante’s voice cuts through the static in my mind. Calm. Focused. Delivering the latest recon like gospel.

“They’ve reinforced the ports in Catania. That means one of two things, they’re either expecting retaliation… or preparing to strike first.”

I nod, fingers steepled beneath my chin.

Around the table, men shift. Wait. Watch.

But I’m barely hearing them.

Because my phone buzzes on the table. Once. No sound, just the sharp flicker of the screen.

1 new message: Safe. Lobby. Checked in 08:07. Uniform pressed. No contact. Eyes on.

A photo follows. Candid. Blurry, but enough.

Jordyn.

Hair up in a ponytail. Black heels. A silver tray in her hand and a look on her face that says she thinks she can handle this.

God help anyone who thinks they can touch her.

I let the screen go dark and shift in my chair.

Dante notices. Of course he does. He doesn’t comment, just continues.

“The Mancini’s are quiet. Too quiet. We need eyes on Giana’s brothers, especially Silvio and Santino. They’ll be the ones moving first, if anyone does.”

I nod again. “Double the surveillance. And anyone even remotely tied to them, I want names, routes, habits. We lock the city down from the inside out.”

I pause for a beat.

“And no one gets within a mile of her,” I add, quietly.

No one questions who I mean. Dante just dips his chin. “Already on it.”

I reach for the espresso in front of me but don’t drink it. My hand hovers for a second too long, and the silence stretches.

Because I’m not thinking about the Mancini’s.

I’m thinking about her.

About the way she looked this morning when she kissed my shoulder to wake me. About how she whispered “Buona fortuna, Bestia” against my skin like I was the one walking into something dangerous.

My phone buzzes again. I ignore it this time.

But the fire’s already there, gnawing in my chest. A heat I know how to channel. Into control. Into strategy. Into the kind of calculated brutality that keeps empires from falling.

I set the espresso cup down without drinking, then lean back in my chair.

“Give us the room.”

Chairs scrape. Papers shuffle. No one argues.

Within seconds, it’s just me and Dante. The door clicks shut behind the last man, and the silence that follows is heavier and more suffocating than before.

Dante crosses his arms, gaze still on the map.

“You’re not just prepping for defence,” he says. “You’re planning to strike.”

I nod once. “Luciano made his move when he tried to hand me off like livestock. The Moretti’s made theirs the second they thought they had a claim on her. Now it’s my turn.”

Dante tilts his head. “You going scorched earth?”

“I’m going surgical,” I say, voice low. “Every weakness they have, we exploit. Every ally they’ve grown too comfortable with, we turn or break. I don’t want noise, I want precision.”

His eyes narrow slightly, considering. “And Luciano?”

I look at the red marks on the map. Pins. Lines. Supply chains.

“He’s still a step ahead politically. But not emotionally. He’s counting on me being impulsive. So we give him the opposite.”

Dante nods. “Controlled chaos.”

I glance at my phone again, still dark now.

“She started work today,” I mutter.

He lifts a brow. “You sure it’s smart letting her go off like that?”

“I don’t like it, but she needed something that wasn’t this,” I say. “And I needed to see if our leash on her safety is tight enough.”

“Is it?”

“It better be.”

I pause, then lower my voice. “I want eyes on her every second of the day. Around the clock. The best we have.”

“I already assigned four of my top men,” Dante replies. “They’ll track her like shadows. Never seen, never felt. She won’t even know they’re there.”

“Good,” I murmur. “I don’t want her spooked. But if anyone so much as looks at her the wrong way?—

“They won’t live to do it twice,” he finishes.

Silence settles again, thick with something heavier than threat. Anticipation. Something that smells like war.

Dante leans against the edge of the table, arms crossed.

“So, what’s next?”

I look up at him, the answer already carved into my spine.

“Next,” I say, “we burn every name off that map that still thinks they can use her against me.”

The meeting room is empty now, just silence, static, and the faint hum of fluorescent lights overhead. I don’t move. Not yet. I stare down at the map, but all I see is her.

Dante disappears for a few minutes and returns with a secure tablet. He doesn’t say anything, just places it in front of me and slides it across the table like a loaded weapon.

“She’s been in the lobby most of the morning,” he says. “No threats. No contact. Just rich assholes and overpriced martinis.”

I tap the screen and it lights up. Grainy security footage. High-end lobby. Polished marble floors. Jordyn appears in the top right corner of the frame, tray in hand, posture straight, moving with quiet confidence.

I bite down on the inside of my cheek.

She smiles at a guest, small, polite. Nothing flirtatious. Nothing inviting.

Still, my blood spikes.

Another feed. This one outside the staff entrance. Two men on rotation, mine. Leaning against a parked car like they're just killing time. Sunglasses. Earpieces. Shadows.

Exactly as instructed.

I scroll through stills. Timed shots. Wide-angle views. One from the elevator. One from the rooftop bar. She’s just a speck in most of them, but I still find her first every time.

I zoom in on one frame, she’s standing near the concierge desk, adjusting the strap of her shoe. Head tilted. Eyes narrowed. Unaware that I’m watching her from miles away and wanting to be closer anyway.

Dante stands at the window behind me. He hasn’t spoken since.

“She looks fine,” he says after a while.

“She looks vulnerable,” I correct. He doesn’t argue. Because he knows me too well by now. I scroll again, then stop. There’s a new image. Different angle. Tighter frame.

A man at the bar. He’s staring at her.

Not touching. Not speaking.

Just staring.

I swipe to the next image. He’s gone.

I glance at the timestamp. A minute later, Jordyn walks past the same bar, completely unaware.

I don’t say a word.

Just flag the image and forward it to Dante’s device.

He checks his phone.

“You want me to find him?” he asks.

I nod. “I want his name. I want his job. I want to know what room he’s in, where he’s from, and what he was drinking.”

“And when I have all that?”

“Then I’ll decide how deep he goes in the ground.”

I’m still staring at the paused image of the man at the bar when a soft knock sounds at the door.

It’s too light to be Dante, too rehearsed to be harmless.

I don’t look up when the door opens. I know who it is before she speaks.

“Ares.”

The voice is as poised as the perfume that follows it into the room, sweet, but laced with something sharper underneath. Giana Mancini.

I lift my gaze slowly.

She’s dressed in pale grey silk, the colour of ash before it turns to smoke. Her hair swept back in a clean, elegant twist. Everything about her is deliberate.

She closes the door behind her.

“No guards?” I murmur.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she replies.

“No,” I say, tapping the screen dark. “But you should be.”

Her smile doesn’t falter. It doesn’t reach her eyes either. “I thought we could talk,” she says, stepping closer. “Privately.”

I don’t offer her a seat, she doesn’t need one, she knows this isn’t a negotiation.

“You humiliated my family,” she begins, voice smooth. “You made a public spectacle out of a private agreement. And now you think you can simply choose someone else… and walk away clean?”

“I didn’t think,” I answer, standing, “I acted. There’s a difference.”

Giana lets that settle. Then tilts her head, eyes narrowing at the corners.

“She’s beautiful. I’ll give you that. Soft. Wide-eyed. A touch fragile, but that’s the appeal, isn’t it?”

I don’t respond. Just stare and she moves closer, lowering her voice.

“But we both know softness doesn’t survive here. Not for long. Especially when it gets in the way of legacies.”

I step forward. Just once. Enough to close the space between us.

“Careful,” I hiss, voice low.

Her lashes flutter, but she doesn’t back down. “I’m not threatening her, Ares. I’m informing you. Because I know how this works. You get to choose your weaknesses, but the world doesn’t forget your obligations.”

She leans in then, just enough that I feel her breath at my collar.

“If she dies… it won’t be by my hand. But don’t expect me to cry at the funeral.”

I grab her wrist before she can step away. Not hard. Just enough to make it sting.

“I don’t care who you were promised to, Giana. I don’t care what your family wants. If you so much as speak her name again with a fucking smirk—” I release her slowly, but controlled. “—I’ll make sure you never get another word out.”

Giana straightens her blouse with a soft, unbothered flick. Then she turns back to the door and pauses.

“You know, it’s sweet… how you look at her like she’s your whole world.” Her smile returns, soft and poisonous. “But the thing about worlds, Ares?—”

Her eyes meet mine. “—They burn.”

Then she leaves, the door shuts behind her with a soft, self-satisfied click.

I stare at it for a moment, breathing slow and even, because if I let myself feel the heat building in my chest, I’ll tear something apart.

Dante steps in without knocking. Always knows when to appear. Always knows when I’m one second from snapping.

“Should’ve let me put her in the ground months ago,” he mutters.

“She’s not the one pulling strings,” I reply.

He nods once. “Luciano?”

“She’s a blade he handed off. Pretty, sharp, but disposable.”

Dante walks further into the room and tosses a folder onto the table.