I stare at the spreadsheets on my monitor, but the numbers refuse to make sense. My mind keeps drifting back to the smudge of dirt I wiped from Aria’s cheek this morning. I suspect she’s trying to contact her sister, but the confirmation sits like lead in my stomach. The DeLuca twins are digging into their past—the very past my family buried in blood decades ago.
I rub my temples, feeling the onset of a migraine. The ledgers show a healthy profit margin across all our legitimate businesses, but I can’t focus on them. Not when my wife is sneaking out in the dead of night, risking everything—her safety, perhaps even her life—for answers I pray she never finds.
“I’m more than just your wife,” she had said, her chin tilted in that stubborn angle I find both infuriating and endearing. “I’m a DeLuca.”
If only she knew what that name means to my family. What it means to bear that name in a world where Bianchis still rule.
My phone buzzes with a security alert. Someone has entered the main gate. I tap the screen to bring up the camera feed, my body tensing as I recognize the sleek black Bentley winding its way up the driveway.
My father.
I stand, buttoning my jacket, feeling the turmoil churning beneath my composed exterior. I straighten my desk, close the ledgers, and clear my screen. Then I wait.
Two minutes later, the door to my office swings open without a knock. My father strides in like he has a right to me whenever he wants, however he wants. It’s his little way of showing me exactly who is in charge.
At sixty-three, Salvatore hasn’t lost an ounce of the intimidating presence that cemented the Bianchi family’s position at the top of the criminal world’s hierarchy. His eyes—the same deep green as mine—meet mine instantly.
“Marco,” he says, his voice carrying the slight rasp of decades of expensive cigars.
“Father. This is unexpected.” I gesture to the chair across from my desk, but he remains standing, forcing me to come around and greet him properly.
We embrace briefly, the practiced formality we’ve always had.
“A son should always expect his father,” Father replies with a thin smile. “Especially when that son has been missing important family meetings.”
I keep my face neutral. “I’ve had Gianelli handling the minor operations. The quarterly numbers are up fifteen percent.”
“I didn’t come to discuss numbers.” Father finally takes a seat, unbuttoning his jacket with practiced elegance. “I came to discuss rumors.”
A cold finger of dread traces my spine. “What rumors?”
He studies me, his gaze probing for weakness like a surgeon searching for a vein. “They say the DeLuca heirs are alive.”
The words hang in the air between us. My heart hammers against my ribs, but decades of training keep my breathing even, my expression mildly curious rather than panicked.
“After twenty-five years?” I scoff, walking to the bar cart in the corner. “Would you like a drink?”
“Macallan. Neat.” Salvatore watches me pour the amber liquid. “And yes, after twenty-five years. My sources are rarely wrong about such things.”
I hand my father the tumbler, then pour one for myself, though I have no intention of drinking it. I need the prop, the ritual, to buy time while my mind races.
“Your sources must be getting rusty,” I say, settling back into my seat. “The DeLucas are gone. Their line ended the night of your massacre.”
“Did it?” he swirls his whiskey, watching the light play through it. “Because there are whispers about the daughters. Emilio’s twin girls.”
I take a calculated sip of my drink, using the moment to compose my response. “That’s ancient history. Why the sudden interest in ghosts?”
He leans forward, setting his glass down with a soft clink. “Because ghosts have a way of becoming flesh when we least expect it. Someone’s stirring up questions about the old families, about loyalties buried for decades. Someone with a personal stake in the DeLuca massacre.”
My fingers tighten infinitesimally around my glass. “And you think it’s the daughters? Children who would have been, what, barely two months when their family was wiped out?”
“Children grow up,” he says softly. “They become women who ask questions. Women who might discover their birthright and decide to claim it.”
I force a dismissive shrug. “Even if they somehow survived, what does it matter now? The DeLuca territories have been ours for years.”
“And I intend for it to stay ours,” my father says, the word sharp as a blade.
There is something in his tone that chills me to the bone. A finality. A decision already made.
“What exactly are you planning to do?” I ask carefully.
His eyes grow distant, almost reflective. “It was a shame I had to slaughter them like animals,” he says, the casual cruelty in his words making my stomach churn. “Emilio was once a friend, you know. Before he tried to control me. He believed in peace—thought power came from making friends.” He locks his gaze on me. “His daughters? Should have been dealt with years ago. A clean slate.”
My blood runs cold. I think of Aria, asleep in her bed that morning—her blonde hair spread across the pillows, soft lips slightly parted. Her twin, somewhere in the city now, both unaware they’re being hunted by the most dangerous man I’ve ever known.
My hands tremble, but a burning weight settles in my chest—guilt mixed with a raw, primal fear for Aria. Fear that threatens to undo the control I’ve fought so hard to maintain.
“Dealt with?” I keep my voice calm. “You’re talking about hunting women who might not even exist, based on whispers. You could end up killing the wrong people.”
“They exist,” Salvatore says with certainty. “I feel it. A loose end from the only job I ever failed to finish properly.” He drains his whiskey. “I’ve put my best men on it. We’ll find them.”
I set my glass down, mind racing. I need to stall, to dissuade, to protect—without giving away my hand.
“Before you start another war,” I say carefully, “consider the consequences. The DeLucas still have families loyal to them—families that were too insignificant for us to bother with when we took over.”
Salvatore’s eyebrow arches. “You seem well-informed about these ‘insignificant’ families.”
“I make it my business to know our enemies, past and present,” I counter smoothly. “Those smaller families have grown in the last fifteen years. Consolidated. If they unite behind the name again, we could face substantial opposition.”
“Opposition?” He laughs, a harsh sound like stone scraping against stone. “I built this empire on their bloodshed. I’m not afraid of spilling more.”
“Times have changed,” I insist. “We have legitimate businesses now. Political connections. A blood feud could jeopardize everything we’ve built.”
He studies me, a new sharpness in his gaze making me deeply uneasy. “Marriage has made you soft,” he says at last, his words dripping with disdain. “I warned you. A wife is nothing but a distraction—a potential weakness.”
“This isn’t about Aria,” I say, the words coming out more defensive than I intend.
“Isn’t it?” Salvatore stands, buttoning his jacket. “You’ve missed three family meetings since the wedding. Gianelli reports you’ve been distracted, preoccupied. Now suddenly you’re concerned about diplomatic relations with families we crushed decades ago?” He shakes his head. “A wife is a pawn in our world, Marco. A means to an alliance, a vessel for heirs. Nothing more. You’re allowing yourself to be compromised by a pretty face.”
I feel anger rise in my throat, hot and dangerous. “My marriage is my business. The family finances are thriving under my management. Don’t mistake strategy for weakness.”
“Then what exactly are you trying to protect?” Salvatore asks, his voice dropping to a dangerous purr. “Because you’ve never questioned my methods before. Not even when I had you pull the trigger on Venucci as a boy.”
I stand as well, matching his stance. “I’m protecting our future. Blood feuds are bad for business.”
Something shifts in Salvatore’s expression—a subtle tightening around his eyes, a calculating reassessment. “Very well,” he says finally. “Handle the business as you see fit. I’ll take care of the matter of those missing children personally.”
“Father, listen, I don’t think that’s wise because—” I begin, but he raises a hand, cutting me off.
“What has gotten into you, Marco?” he raises his voice. “I’d think you’re afraid.”
I rise from my chair, the anger simmering through me. “I am NOT!”
“Don’t you dare raise your voice at me, son!” he roars now. “You’re hiding something. I’ve never known you to be afraid. What is it? Got that wife of yours pregnant, did you? Since when have you been afraid of war at our doorstep?”
“She is not pregnant,” I scream back, unable to hold myself. “I am not afraid. I’m only asking for restraint.”
“And there will be none,” my father says. “The plan is already in motion. My men are tracking down leads as we speak. If they are alive, we will find them. This isn’t open for discussion.”
He moves toward the door, then pauses, looking back. “Your wife should join us for dinner this Sunday. My daughter-in-law has been notably absent from family gatherings.”
The implied threat couldn’t be clearer. I incline my head in a short nod. “I’ll ask her.”
He looks at me quizzically. “I wonder why you’re so intent on keeping her from me.”
For that, I don’t have an answer.
When the door closes behind my father, I remain standing, my body rigid with tension, my mind racing. My father knows something—not everything, perhaps not even enough to connect Aria to the DeLucas yet—but he is hunting. And he never misses.
I cross to the window, watching my father’s Bentley wind down the driveway.
I have to warn Aria. Have to somehow convince her and Chiara to stop digging, to give up their quest for answers before those answers get them killed. But how can I do that without revealing my family’s role in their parents’ murder? Without losing Aria forever?
For the first time in my adult life, I have no clear strategy, no calculated move to make. There’s only one truth: The woman I’m obsessed with is being hunted by my own father, and protecting her could mean betraying everything I have ever been.
I think of her hand on my chest the night she told me she trusted me. How fragile her voice sounded. How much I wanted to deserve it.
And beneath it all, pulsing like an open wound, is the certainty that when Aria discovers the truth—not if, but when—she will look at me with hatred in those hazel eyes I’ve come to crave. She will never forgive me. Never understand that I have truly come to care for her, that the arrangement that brought her to me has somehow, impossibly, begun to mean everything.
The realization hits me like a physical blow. I have to choose. My family or my wife. My legacy or Aria. And whichever path I take, I will lose something irreplaceable.
I can survive losing my father’s empire. I don’t know if I can survive losing her.
