A single tear slips down her cheek. She doesn't wipe it away.
"You pushed me away because you thought my bloodline made me a liability," she whispers, her voice trembling with emotion.
"I pushed you away because I was a fucking coward," I correct her. "I was looking for an excuse to put distance between us because the thought of losing you paralyzed me. I thought if I treated you like an enemy, it wouldn't hurt when the bullets started flying. I was wrong."
I lean forward, resting my forehead against hers. "I am sorry, Noemi. I am so fucking sorry I shut you out."
"Don't do it again," she demands, her hands gripping the lapels of my black shirt. "I don't care how bad it gets. I don't care who betrays us. You don't get to handle it alone."
"Never again," I promise.
I capture her lips in a deep, consuming kiss, fueled by the bleeding honesty we just poured out onto the floor of my study. She opens her mouth to me, her tongue sliding against mine, tasting like champagne and fierce devotion. I wrap my good arm around her waist, pulling her flush against my thighs.
She kisses me back with a desperate hunger, her fingers tangling in my hair, pulling me closer. The pain in my shoulder fades into the background, eclipsed entirely by the burning heat spreading through my veins.
When we finally break apart, we are both breathing heavy. Her lips are swollen, her dark eyes blown wide and glassy.
"We have work to do," I murmur, my thumb brushing her lower lip.
"We do," she agrees, a sharp, dangerous smile curving her mouth. My queen is back, ready to burn the world down with me. "Where do we start?"
I look back up at the illuminated map of the port on the wall. The red and blue lines. The billions of dollars in cargo. The territory that Dario Lombardi tried to steal from me.
"We start with the rat," I say, my voice dropping to a grim, calculating pitch. "Dario thinks he got away with it. He thinks Salvatore is going to protect him because there is no hard proof."
"Then we give them proof," Noemi says, her eyes following my gaze to the map. "He is greedy, Cassio. He tried to pull me off the terrace to save me, which means he's emotional. Emotional men make mistakes."
"Exactly," I grin, a vicious, predatory expression that matches the dark thrill in my blood. "We flush him out. We make him panic. And when he runs to his Russian handlers for help... we bury them all in the same grave."
Noemi doesn't flinch at the violence. She doesn't look away from the map. She stands beside me, her shoulder pressing against my chest, staring at the empire we are going to build together.
25
Noemi
The heavy manila folder hits the mahogany desk with a sickening slap.
"The offshore accounts were buried deep," Matteo grimly announces upon his return to the study. He taps a thick finger against the glossy bank statements spilling out of the file. "But they weren't buried deep enough. The Russian money was routed through three different shell companies in Cyprus before it landed here. In an account controlled by Bastiano."
Bastiano. My father’s right-hand Capo. The man who has eaten at our dinner table for the last fifteen years, the man who bounced Lucia on his knee when she was a toddler. He is one ofOrlando Genovese’s most trusted earners. And he is the rat who fed Cassio’s convoy route to the Bratva.
Cassio is standing on the other side of the desk. He is still pale from the blood loss, his right arm bound tightly to his chest beneath a loose black dress shirt, but the violent storm brewing in his eyes eclipses any physical weakness. He stares at the bank statements.
"Bastiano," Cassio whispers, the word dripping with unadulterated venom.
He turns away from the desk. He walks straight to the locked safe in the corner of the study, punching in the code with quick, jerky movements of his left hand. The heavy steel door swings open. He reaches inside and pulls out a spare 1911, checking the chamber with a sharp, mechanical click.
"Assemble the men," Cassio orders Matteo, not even looking back. "We are going to the Genovese estate. I am going to drag Bastiano out of Orlando’s house by his fucking hair, and then I am going to burn the entire compound to the ground."
"Cassio, wait."
I step away from the bookshelves, crossing the room until I am standing directly between him and the study doors.
He stops. His jaw is clenched so tight the bone looks like it might snap. The beast inside him is pacing against the bars,demanding blood for the bullet that tore through his shoulder, demanding retribution for the ambush that nearly took my life.
"Move, Noemi," he warns.
"No." I step closer. I don't shrink away from the danger radiating off his frame. I reach out and place my hand directly over the cold steel of the gun in his grip. "You are still bleeding through your sutures. If you walk into my father's house with an armed hit squad, Orlando will see it as an act of war. The treaty will shatter, and the Bratva will get exactly what they wanted."