A dozen men on their side, rifles hanging loose. Half a dozen on ours, watching, silent.


    Business. That’s what it was supposed to be.


    I was in a good mood. Couldn’t remember thest time I’d said that. Yesterday had been the first day I’d felt it. Last night the first night. Emilia between us. Finally breathing.


    And now this.


    The bastards robbed us. Skimmed cash. Lifted crates. Cut corners like they thought we wouldn’t notice. Rome was home. Luca and I made him. The city had run us all into the ground. We’d wed it back. Earned one night of calm.


    And now they were stealing it again.


    Luca started. He didn’t raise it. Didn’t need to. Heid the numbers out, one by one. Territory lines, shipment counts, the ces the product had bled off.


    They tried to smile through it. Talk their way around it. Words like supply chains and shortages. Weak math and weaker excuses.


    Luca kept them talking. He always did. He’d let a man tangle himself in words until he didn’t know which way was up.


    Me—I watched their hands. Their eyes. The way they shifted in their seats when the truth pressed too close.


    The smirk across the tablended wrong. He leaned back in his chair like he thought the room belonged to him.


    That cracked my tolerance.


    I leaned forward. Palms t against the table.


    “Enough.”


    The smirk dropped, then tried to recover. “It’s just business, Crow.”


    “No,” I said. “Business is numbers. This is theft.”


    His eyes darted to Luca, like he might find softer ground. My brother gave him nothing. Just that steady cold stare.


    “So what then?” the man asked. “You gonna burn every deal over a few crates?”


    “Not every deal,” I said. “Just yours.”


    I stood. The chair scraped back. My hand went to the gun at my side, not to draw—just to remind.


    “You think we wed this city back to lose it over scraps?” I asked. “You think after yesterday, afterst night, I’m going to sit here and let you take from us?”


    He opened his mouth. Wrong choice.


    I moved before the first wordnded.


    The table flipped, crashing against his legs. Men shouted, rifles raised. Our side moved too, safeties clicking off.


    But my focus was locked. My hand fisted in his cor, dragging him up and across the wreck of the table. His eyes went wide, the smirk gone.


    “You don’t take from me,” I growled, low enough only he and Luca could hear. “Not when I’ve finally got something worth keeping.”


    He stammered, tried to speak, and I mmed him into the concrete wall. His breath wheezed out.


    “Yesterday I let this city live,” I said. “Today I don’t owe you that mercy.”


    The room froze.<fn1088> Fresh chapters posted on FindN0vel</fn1088>


    “Bastion.” Luca’s voice was calm. Not stopping me. Just pulling me back from the edge.


    I knew what he was doing. He wasn’t protecting them. He was protecting me. Keeping me from losing my moodpletely to the violence that always controlled me.


    I pressed my gun under the bastard’s jaw, close enough he could taste the steel.


    He whimpered. That broke him more than the steel.


    “Bastion.” Luca again, firmer.


    I inhaled through my teeth, slow. Emilia’s face flickered behind my eyes—this morning, curled in our bed, wearing one of our shirts.


    I pulled back. mmed him once more into the wall for good measure. Then dropped him.


    He copsed, coughing, scrambling to find his chair that was no longer there.


    I holstered my gun. Turned to the others. All watching.


    “Pick a side,” I said. My voice carried through the warehouse. “With us or against us. You’ve got one chance to make the right call.”


    Silence. Then slow nods. Eyes lowering. Weapons dropping back down.


    I looked at Luca. He gave me the smallest nod.


    I should’ve felt better, this was technically a win. But all I wanted was her. Back on that yacht. Back in our bed. Back where the world didn’t get to touch her.


    That was calm.


    This was noise.


    And I was already sick of it.<hr>


    The fallout dragged.


    Half an hour of breathing the same air as those men. My hands ached from holding back. My jaw too. The calm I’d carried fromst night was gone.


    We left them scrambling. Syndicate lieutenants falling over themselves to patch holes, swear loyalty, cough up double. Luca let them. He was better at the details. I didn’t hear most of it. Didn’t care.


    I was already gone. Back on the yacht in my head. Back in our bed. Back where the world didn’t get to touch her.


    The car door shut. Luca slid in across from me. Our phones buzzed almost at the same time. Another call. Another text.


    Problem after problem.


    Holdings being tested. Crews shifting territory lines. A truck held up at the docks. A cop who’d decided to grow a spine.


    Our men were trying to keep pace, but every call was the same: the city wanted us back in it.


    I turned my phone over. Face down. Didn’t matter. It still vibrated against the leather seat, every buzz another reminder that nothing we built stayed still without blood to hold it.


    Luca lit a cigarette. He leaned back, took a drag. He wasn’t any calmer than me.


    I could see it in the way he inhaled too deep, exhaled too slow. He looked like calm, but he was fraying just as bad.


    I knew the weight in his chest. The burn behind his eyes


    The phones wouldn’t stop. My chest wouldn’t stop tightening.


    I looked at him. “We should’ve left.”


    Luca’s eyes flicked to me. “I thought that the moment she stepped on the dock.”


    I pushed back against the seat, jaw locked, fists tight on my thighs. “I want her home,” I muttered. “I want her in our fucking bed. We leave shit like this, and we go home to her.”


    I reached out, took the cigarette from his fingers, dragged the smoke deep until it burned my lungs.


    I wanted our peace back with our girl.