HIS POV – The Next Morning
I woke before her.
The bedroom was dark—heavy curtains, no light yet. She was curled against my side, one hand on my chest, her breath slow and even. For a long moment, I didn't move. I just lay there, feeling the weight of her, the warmth, the impossible reality that after twenty years she was finally here. In my bed. In my house. Safe.
The phone on the nightstand buzzed.
I reached for it without shifting her. Nico.
Kenji Tanaka was the one who arranged the warehouse meeting twenty years ago. He's been feeding intel to the Yakuza ever since. Still active. Still protected.
I stared at the screen.
Kenji Tanaka.
The name was a ghost I'd been chasing since I was ten years old.
I typed back: Everything. I want everything. Meeting in one hour.
Then I slipped out of bed. Vivienne stirred but didn't wake. I pulled on clothes in the dark, paused at the door to look back at her. The sheet had slipped, exposing the curve of her shoulder. The edge of the tattoo. My name.
Twenty years ago, I pulled her out of a burning building. Now I was walking into another fire.
Some things never changed.
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THE STUDY
Nico stood by the window when I walked in. Dante was already seated, a file open in front of him. Neither of them looked like they'd slept. The air in the room was stale—old coffee, cigarette smoke, the residue of a long night.
"Talk," I said.
Dante turned. He was younger than me, but he'd been in this life since he was sixteen. His face was sharp, unreadable. He had a scar running from his left ear to his jaw—a souvenir from a job gone wrong in Naples. He never talked about it.
"Kenji Tanaka. Fifty-eight. Japanese-Brazilian. Operates out of Milan but has properties in Tokyo, São Paulo, and Zurich. He's a broker—weapons, information, people. He doesn't get his hands dirty. He connects buyers with sellers and takes a percentage. Fifteen percent, usually. Sometimes more if the cargo is high-risk."
"Yakuza connection?"
"He's been their European liaison for three decades. He set up the warehouse meeting. He knew it was a trap." Dante's voice was flat, but I heard the edge. "He sold out your father, Aldo, everyone. For a fee. We traced one of the payments—two million euros, routed through a bank in the Caymans. Pocket change for what he delivered."
My hands went cold. "Who paid him?"
"Still working on that. The money trail goes through six shell companies and three dead accountants—one of them literally dead, car accident in Monaco last year. Convenient." Dante flipped a page. "But the Yakuza faction that executed the hit was led by a man named Hiroshi Takeda. He's dead now—killed in a turf war six years ago. Shot in his own bathtub by a rival family. Tanaka is the last living link to what happened that night."
I walked to the window. The estate stretched out below—green lawns, high walls, armed guards at every gate. It looked peaceful. It wasn't.
"Where is he now?"
"Milan. He owns a restaurant in Brera. La Luna Rossa. High-end sushi. Reservation-only. Lives in an apartment above it. He's careful—private security, limited public appearances, no digital footprint beyond what he wants seen. He uses a different name for his legitimate business. Kenji Mori. His mother's maiden name."
"He has family?"
"A daughter. Lives in London. She's clean—works in finance, no connection to his business. He visits her twice a year. Flies commercial, no security. He's careful not to draw attention to her." Dante paused. "She doesn't know what he is."
I turned back. "I want surveillance on the restaurant. I want to know every person who walks in and out. I want his schedule, his habits, his weaknesses. Does he have a mistress? A gambling problem? A favorite barista who sees him every morning? I want everything."
Nico shifted. "You're going after him."
"He's the reason my parents are dead. He's the reason Elena is dead. He's the reason Aldo raised a daughter without a mother and a boy who wasn't his son." My voice was low. "Yes. I'm going after him."
Nico and Dante exchanged a glance.
"There's more," Nico said. "Tanaka isn't just a broker anymore. He's been expanding. The word is he's building something new—a network of old enemies. People who lost power when the old families fell. He's gathering them."
"Gathering them for what?"
"I don't know yet. But the timing is interesting. You consolidated power three years ago. Aldo stepped back. The Moretti-De Luca alliance is stronger than ever. Tanaka might be trying to build a coalition to challenge it. Or he might be preparing for something else entirely."
I thought of Vivienne asleep upstairs. Of the tattoo on her skin. Of the warehouse and the smoke and the baby crying in my arms.
"He doesn't get to challenge anything," I said. "He doesn't get to breathe the same air as her."
"If he's building a network, we need to know who's in it before we strike. Cut off the head, the body dies. But if the body has already grown new heads..." Dante let the sentence hang.
"I know." I walked to the desk. "Full surveillance. I want a report every twelve hours. And Nico—find out who paid him twenty years ago. I don't care how many dead accountants you have to dig up. Find them."
Nico nodded. "There's one more thing."
"What?"
"Tanaka has been asking questions. Quiet ones. About Aldo. About you." He paused. "And about Vivienne."
The room went very still.
"What kind of questions?"
"Where she studies. Who she sees. Whether she's protected. If she ever travels alone." Nico's voice dropped. "Lorenzo, he knows she exists. He's been asking for months. He has someone watching her in Moscow. We confirmed it last night—a private investigator, former FSB. Retired, but still connected."
I didn't move. Didn't breathe.
Months.
While I was telling myself she was safer in Moscow. While I was pushing her away. While I was pretending distance was protection.
Tanaka had been watching.
"Double her security," I said. "She doesn't leave this estate without me or Dante. No exceptions."
"She won't like that."
"She doesn't have to like it. She has to stay alive."
I walked to the door. Paused.
"One more thing. I want a file on Tanaka. Everything we have. Photos. Associates. Properties. The daughter in London. The FSB investigator in Moscow. Everything. Put it in my private study by tonight."
"The Yakuza are trying to breach Russia," Dante said.
Nico's eyebrows rose. "My territory?"
"They're looking for someone. They call her the Key."
"Key?" Nico said, shocked. "What the hell does that mean?"
"I tried finding intel on it, but only the top members have the information. Whatever—or whoever—the Key is, it's important enough that they're risking a move into Russian territory. That's not something they do lightly. The Bratva doesn't share."
I filed that away. Russia. Moscow. Where Vivienne had been living for three years. Where Tanaka had an ex-FSB man watching her.
The connections were starting to form. I didn't like the shape they were taking.
VIVIENNE POV
I woke up alone.
The bed was cold on his side. The room was unfamiliar—dark wood, heavy curtains, the smell of leather and something sharper. Cedar and gunpowder. His smell. I lay there for a moment, letting it sink in. I was in Lorenzo's bed. In his house. Because my father had said yes.
How the hell had that happened?
I got up. Found a robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door—silk, black, too big. His. I wrapped it around myself and walked out. The fabric smelled like him. I pulled it tighter.
The mansion was quieter than I expected. No staff visible. No guards inside. Just empty hallways and closed doors and the weight of a house that had seen too much. The floors were dark hardwood, polished to a mirror shine. The walls were bare in places—rectangles of lighter paint where pictures used to hang. Removed. Or hidden.
I wandered.
Past a library with floor-to-ceiling shelves. Leather-bound books. First editions. A rolling ladder that looked like it belonged in a film. Past a dining room that could seat thirty, the table dark mahogany, the chandelier dripping crystal. Past a window that looked out over the back gardens—roses, fountains, a stone path disappearing into trees. A gardener was trimming hedges near the fountain. He didn't look up.
And then I found it.
A door. Slightly ajar. Dark wood, heavier than the others. Older.
His study.
I pushed the door open.
The room was smaller than I expected. Not the grand office where he met with his men. This was private. A desk. A leather chair, worn at the arms. A fireplace, cold. And walls covered in photographs, maps, documents—a life's worth of obsession pinned to plaster.
I stepped inside.
The first thing I saw was a photograph on the desk. An old one, faded at the edges. A man and a woman, young, laughing. The man had Lorenzo's eyes—dark, intense, the kind that saw through you. The woman had his mouth. Full lower lip, a hint of a smile even in stillness. His parents.
My throat tightened.
I looked around. Maps of Milan. Red pins marking locations. Names I didn't recognize—some Italian, some Japanese, some Russian. And on one wall, a single photograph that made me stop.
A warehouse. Burning.
I moved closer. My heart was pounding.
Beneath the photograph was a date. Nothing else. Just a day, a month, a year—written in black ink, faded with time.
October 17.
I stared at it. The date meant nothing to me at first. Just numbers. Then I did the math.
Twenty years ago. October.
My mother died in October. I knew that much. My father never talked about the details—only that there had been an accident, a fire, and she didn't make it out. He never said where. He never said when, exactly. But I knew the month.
And here, on Lorenzo's wall, was a photograph of a burning building. Dated October. Twenty years ago.
My hands started to shake.
There was a file on the desk. Thick. Unmarked except for a single word written on the tab in sharp, angry handwriting: PORTO MARGHERA.
I reached for it—
"What are you doing?"
I spun.
Lorenzo stood in the doorway. Marco and Nico flanked him, and a third man I didn't recognize—sharp-faced, scarred, watching me with cold assessment. All three of them looked like they'd walked out of a war meeting.
I stopped breathing. "I was looking for you."
Lorenzo's eyes moved past me—to the wall. To the photograph of the burning warehouse. To the file on his desk. His expression didn't change, but something behind his eyes tightened. A door closing.
"Vivienne." His voice was low. Careful.
I didn't answer Lorenzo. Instead, my eyes slid past him and landed on Nico.
"Nico." My voice came out steady, almost casual. "Where's Katya?"
Nico's expression didn't change. "Guest room. East wing. She arrived last night."
I felt a rush of relief I didn't show. Katya was here. In this house. Safe. I should have known—after my father found out I'd lied about staying with her, after everything that happened, of course Lorenzo would have brought her in. Protected her.
I turned back to Lorenzo. Met his eyes.
"I want to see her."
"You will." His voice was low. Careful. "After we talk."
"Now." I held his gaze. "I'm asking permission. Nicely. Can I go see my best friend, or am I a prisoner here?"
Something shifted in his face. Not anger. Something else. The corner of his mouth almost twitched.
"Not a prisoner," he said. "But you walked into my private study uninvited. We talk first. Then Katya."
I held his gaze a beat longer. Then I nodded.
"Fine. Talk."
Lorenzo glanced at Marco. "Close the door."
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