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The villa door clicks shut behind me, but I don’t move right away.

I stand on the front step, eyes scanning the shadows that stretch across the courtyard like they’re hiding something. Maybe they are.

My hand slips into my coat pocket, fingers closing around my phone. One tap, and the screen lights up.

A single red dot glows on the map.

She’s where she’s supposed to be.

I zoom in. The bracelet’s signal is strong. Stable. Secure.

Still, it’s not enough.

Not when someone got close enough to take her once.

I shove the phone back into my pocket and descend the stairs, every step measured. Every breath controlled. I can’t afford cracks now.

Dante’s waiting by the gate. His eyes flick up when he sees me, already falling into step beside me as I pass.

“She settled?”

“For now.” My voice is low. Cold. “But I want the perimeter doubled. No blind spots. No rotation gaps. Pull everyone from the east wall and shift them to the villa.”

He nods without question.

“What about the safehouse?” he asks.

“One hour.”

I don’t stop walking. “Sweep it twice. No one in or out without my say. When it’s ready, we move her.”

“Do we tell her?”

A pause.

“No.”

Dante doesn’t push.

But just before we reach the SUV, I stop. I turn to face him, fully.

“You’re staying with her.”

His brows pinch. “I thought?—”

“Not up for debate.” I cut him off. “She doesn’t leave your sight. Not for a second. If anything happens?—”

I lock eyes with him. “—you protect her with your life.”

A beat of silence then Dante nods, his mouth setting into a hard line.

“Always. You know that.”

But then, quieter, grudging: “I don’t like that you’re going without me.”

“I don’t either.”

I glance toward the treeline. “But this doesn’t wait. If someone inside gave Jordyn up, I’m going to rip their spine out and feed it to their boss.”

He huffs, but doesn’t argue.

“Bring me something to shoot when you're done,” he mutters.

I offer a ghost of a smile. “If I find what I’m looking for, I’ll bring you a dozen.”

“Ares,” Dante says, placing a firm hand on my shoulder. His grip isn’t just caution, it’s loyalty, tension threaded through flesh and bone. “Take Vincenzo with you. He’s solid. You can trust him. I need to know you back is covered, fratello.”

“Ho la tua ragazza. Tu pensa a restare vivo.” I’ve got your girl. You focus on staying alive.

I meet his gaze, and lick my lips before I speak again. “Se mi succede qualcosa… sai cosa devi fare.”

If anything happens to me… you know what you need to do.

Dante rubs his jaw. His nod is small but resolute.

“Farla sparire. Lo so.” Make her disappear. I know.

We reach the armoured SUV. I slide into the back, the door slamming shut like a gunshot. Dante gestures with his head and Vincenzo Barone, one of close protection guard’s slides into the passenger seat.

He’s lean, quiet, and sharp-eyed, ex-military, with a knife always strapped to his boot and a reputation for getting the job done without leaving a mess.

He doesn’t speak unless it matters. His loyalty is absolute, his presence easy to miss until it’s too late.

He’s the kind of man who blends into a room until someone draws a weapon, then he’s the last one standing.

The moment we’re moving, I pull up the files on my tablet, names, timestamps, access logs.

I don’t trust Luciano. I sure as hell don’t trust Enzo. And if the mole isn’t one of them, they’re covering for whoever is.

Someone opened the gates. Someone killed our cat. Someone handed Jordyn over like she was currency.

I swipe through the data, heart rate steady, but my throat is tight. When I find them, and I will, I’m not just going to interrogate them.

I’m going to make them wish they had never been born. Their screams will echo longer than their names ever did.

The butcher shop hasn’t been open in years, but the scent of iron and rot still clings to the walls like it’s waiting for someone to bleed.

I step through the back entrance, past rusted hooks and empty bone-saws, down three flights of crumbling concrete. No guards. No eyes. Just the soft hum of the underground and the weight of silence that tastes like secrets.

The door at the bottom groans open beneath my hand.

It’s not a bar in the traditional sense, just a forgotten cellar lit by a flickering neon strip and the faint orange glow of a cigarette burning too close to the filter.

Gallo Ricci sits in the far booth, hunched forward, cigarette twitching between his fingers like he’s trying not to shake. He’s all bones and borrowed bravado, jacket too big, skin too thin, nerves shot to hell from years of blow.

He sees me and stiffens. Catches himself. Pretends he’s not about to piss himself.

I pick up the stench of his fear the moment I stepped through the threshold. Good, he should be scared.

I cross the room in silence, boots thudding low against the concrete, and slide into the seat across from him.

He stubs out the cigarette, but the smell clings. Old tobacco and sweat.

“You came alone,” he says, voice rough.

I lean back, arms stretched across the booth like I own the shadows.

“If I didn’t trust myself, I wouldn’t still be breathing.”

Gallo swallows. His eyes flick to the door like he’s calculating escape routes.

He won’t need one. Unless he lies or doesn’t give me the information I need.

“So, I hear you’re looking for a leak.”

“I’m looking for the reason someone crossed my line and walked out alive.” He licks his lips. Fingers twitch once on the table.

“There’s been talk… movement. Someone’s been leaking gate schedules. Security rotations. Minor stuff at first, routes, weak points. Nothing you’d notice unless you knew what to look for.”

“Who?”

He hesitates, shifts awkwardly in his seat. “Word is… Nicolai’s got someone close to your circle. Not just staff... Blood .”

I lean forward slowly, letting the silence between us stretch like a blade.

“Name.”

“I don’t have one.” My eyes narrow. “Yet,” he adds quickly, voice hitching.

I let the tension hang, sharp and suffocating, then sit back. Crack my knuckles one by one beneath the table.

“You have seventy-two hours.” My voice is quiet, measured and final. “After that, I start pulling fingernails.”

He opens his mouth and then closes it again. “There’s something else,” he says, barely above a whisper.

“Spit it out.”

“Nicolai…” His eyes dart around the room. “He’s not just watching the girl anymore. He’s planning something public. Something bigger.” He takes a pull from his cigarette. “He doesn’t want her dead, Ares. He wants her owned. ”

The word lands like a slow detonation.

Owned.

My hands curl into fists under the table. Heat rises in my throat, thick and bitter.

He thinks she’s still within reach. Still, something he can take and keep and twist into submission.

No. I rise without a word, the chair scraping back slow and deliberate.

Gallo stays frozen, eyes wide.

“Do not make me come back here.”

And then I walk out, because if I stay one second longer, I won’t leave anything behind but a corpse and ash.

The street outside is slick from a recent rain, puddles catching the dull glow of sodium lights like blood smears under amber glass. I don’t head straight for the car. I walk. Let the cold air cut through the heat simmering under my skin.

Owned.

The word doesn’t leave my head. Not because it scares me. Because it dares to exist at all.

Nicolai thinks she’s property. Something he can put in a dress and chain to a chair. Smile at while carving up the city behind closed doors. He doesn’t understand yet, that kind of mistake doesn’t come with a second warning.

I reach the car. Vincenzo is waiting by the door, hand resting on the butt of the pistol holstered at his ribs.

“Problem?”

“Yeah,” I mutter, getting in. “And it’s about to become his.”

He shuts the door behind me. I don’t speak again until we’re halfway down the road, the engine growling low as the city peels past us in streaks of shadow and concrete.

“Contact Leo at the docks,” I say. “Tell him I want a name by morning. Anyone who’s moved money for Nicolai in the last six months. Shell companies, fake IDs, unmarked vehicles, everything.”

Vincenzo nods once, pulling out his phone.

“And get a crew on standby,” I add, watching the streetlights flash like gunfire across the windows. "Somebody’s going to bleed for this."

I thumb the screen of my phone again, pulling up the tracking feed.

Still there, still steady. She’s safe, for now.

But safety is temporary, and vengeance…vengeance is permanent.

By the time I reach the villa, the sky’s just starting to bleed open at the edges. That soft, ash-grey light that doesn’t know if it wants to be night or morning.

The guards at the gate straighten when they see me, but they don’t speak. They don’t dare.

I’m still wearing the same black shirt, sleeves rolled, the cuffs soaked dark and crusted at the edges. There’s blood on my knuckles, some on my neck. A line of it dried beneath my jaw like a warning written in silence.

I don’t wipe it off, let them see it. Let them remember what happens when someone touches what’s mine.

Inside, the villa is quiet. I walk the halls with purpose, but the floor creaks like it’s trying to announce me anyway.

Dante’s voice comes low from the kitchen. “You get what you needed?”

I nod once, still walking. “Is it done?”

“It’s started.” He doesn’t ask any more. He doesn’t need to.

I climb the stairs slowly, fingers brushing the carved wood of the bannister out of habit. The guest bedroom door is cracked. Light from the bedside lamp spills into the hallway, dim and warm. She left it on. She hasn’t been able to go into my bedroom since that night.

My chest tightens.

She’s curled under the blankets, one hand fisted near her cheek, lashes dark against her skin. Still wearing that bracelet.

That’s my girl.

I lean against the doorframe, watching her breathe. Steady. Safe . Completely unaware that hours ago, I had a man begging at my feet before the truth spilled from his throat with his blood.