He flinches, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement, but I see it. And for a second, I feel a flicker of something I don't want to name. It's not victory. It's not satisfaction.
It's just… sadness.
A wave of it, so sudden and so overwhelming it almost brings me to my knees.
Because this isn't a game. This isn't a battle I can win. This is just a mess. A big, ugly, heartbreaking mess.
And I'm in the middle of it.
I turn away from him for the last time and walk to the door. I don't look back. I can't.
I round the corner and step out into the hallway, leaving him behind in the silence of the room. Leaving behind the wine and the carefully constructed seduction and the lie that almost felt real for a little while.
Chapter Seventeen
Antonio
I’m back in my penthouse, and the place feels too clean and organized for the mess in my head.
I want to break something, shatter it into a million pieces across the floor.
I pace instead—shoes on stone, then wood, then back to stone—like I can wear a path into it if I go long enough. The city glitters beyond the glass, indifferent. My jacket is on the back of a chair, my tie is gone, and the quiet is loud enough to get under my skin.
Elsa’s face won’t leave me alone.
The moment her eyes went cold. The moment her voice sharpened. The way hurt sat underneath the anger like a blade you don’t see until it’s already cut. I keep seeing her in that black dress, the slit, the red mouth, the seduction act.
And I keep seeing her last night, too—softer, happier, turned on. Trembling under my mouth like she didn’t know whether to push me away or pull me closer.
I rake a hand through my hair and turn hard at the edge of the living area, catching my reflection in the dark glass. I look like a man who thought he had control and found out he was wrong.
Because I didn’t know.
I didn’t know Nilsson and Elsa were the same woman until she said it. Until she threw it right at me and watched me choke on it.
My stomach twists again, hot with it—shock turning into something uglier. The speed of her attack, the precision. The way she hit exactly where it would hurt.
I stop at the bar cart, stare at it without seeing it. There’s a decanter I’ve kept for years, something old and expensive, something I used to pour when nights went long, and the world felt simple. I don’t touch it. I don’t want anything dulling my thoughts. Not tonight.
Tonight, my thoughts are already a weapon—just pointed at the wrong damn target.
Because now I’m screwed on the deal.
I can hear Roberto’s voice in my head, the clipped tone, the warning wrapped in command.
Monday. A-game.
This acquisition cannot go to Bellandi. It can’t. If it does, it’s not a missed opportunity, it’s Chicago stepping onto our coast and planting their flag in our sand.
Bellandi Syndicate won’t “expand.” They’ll invade.
And if they get Northstar, they don’t just get contracts and clients. They get access. They get doors. They get security protocols and membership lists and the kind of credibility that lets them slide into rooms that used to be ours.
They move into our territory.
They start leaning on people. They start poaching. They start making examples.
We don’t let them.