Chapter 35: CHAPTER 35 — POV MATTEO

Sleep refused to touch me.

The hours after the meeting with my father had crawled by in a slow, suffocating haze. I’d put on the face of composure for Lilianna and Callum, pretended that everything was fine, that the enemy we knew was the only shadow lurking around us.

But now, as the city outside the brownstone drifted into a restless quiet, the ache behind my ribs sharpened into something else—foreboding.

Because the streets were too quiet.

The men stationed outside hadn’t checked in for almost ten minutes.

And my father’s warning kept replaying like a curse:

“Petrov was just the beginning.”

I wasn’t a man easily shaken. But tonight, something was off. The air itself felt wrong—dense, charged, the way it did right before a storm breaks and rewrites the world beneath it.

I stood on the balcony overlooking the street, the wind cold against my skin, my eyes fixed on the shadows below. The lampposts flickered—the kind of flicker that wasn’t caused by faulty wiring.

Interference.

Blackout-level tech.

Someone capable. Someone prepared.

Someone close.

Louis stepped out behind me, silent as death.

“You feel it too,” he said.

I nodded once. “Something’s coming.”

“You want the family inside the safe room?”

“Not yet.” I exhaled slowly. “Unless we have to. I’m not waking Callum unless it’s life or death.”

Louis didn’t argue. That alone told me how serious things were.

He scanned the street again. “You think it’s Bratva?”

“No.” My jaw clenched. “Petrov’s men are scattered and desperate. They don’t have this kind of precision.”

Louis answered with silence, which said enough.

This wasn’t amateurs.

This wasn’t revenge.

This was strategy.

Something shifted on the far end of the block—too subtle for the untrained eye. A silhouette blending with the dark, moving with military efficiency.

Then another.

Then—

“Matteo.” Louis’s voice was barely a whisper. “Left flank.”

I turned just as a third shadow appeared on the adjacent rooftop.

Three positions.

Triangulated.

Coordinated.

A hit team.

A high-end one.

My pulse hardened. “Move. Now.”

Louis vanished back into the brownstone while I slipped inside, shutting the balcony door quietly behind me.

I paused in the dim hallway, listening.

Callum’s soft breathing from the guest room.

Lilianna humming quietly in the living room as she flipped through an old photo album with a glass of wine. She was relaxed, soft, safe.

She had no idea what was waiting in the dark outside.

The sight of her—bare feet on the rug, hair falling over her shoulder, focus narrowed to a photograph of Callum as a newborn—nearly cracked something open inside me.

Because she deserved warmth.

She deserved peace.

She deserved a life untouched by blood and debts and vendettas.

But she loved me.

And loving me always came with a price.

“Matteo?” she said without looking up. “Everything okay?”

I swallowed the truth and walked toward her.

“Come with me.”

She blinked up at me. “What’s wrong?”

“We need to move.”

Her body tensed instantly, instincts sharp as a blade. She closed the album and stood. “Tell me.”

I touched her face, brief, grounding. “We’re not alone outside.”

Fear flickered in her eyes—but not panic. Never panic. She’d survived too much, learned too much.

“Callum?” she whispered.

“Still sleeping. I want you to wake him. Quietly.”

She nodded and moved.

Louis joined me at the front door, weapon holstered but ready, eyes hard.

“Two on the street, one on the roof,” he murmured. “Could be more.”

“Equipment?”

“Military-grade. Silenced lenses. Thermal-resistant suits. Whoever they are—they’re not cheap.”

Not mafia, then.

Not cartel.

Not Bratva.

This was professional.

Which meant someone with money—power—motivation.

Someone who knew exactly who we were.

And exactly what to hit.

A shadow passed the living room window.

Close.

Too close.

Louis and I froze.

Breaths shallow.

Then—

The lights cut.

Not a power surge.

A kill switch.

Everything plunged into darkness.

Behind me, I heard Lilianna’s sharp inhale—small, controlled—as she gathered Callum into her arms.

The world shifted into silent, lethal clarity.

Louis leaned close. “They’re going to breach.”

“I know.”

“Three seconds?”

“Four,” I corrected.

Because I could feel the rhythm of their approach in my bones.

Four breaths.

Four heartbeats.

Four chances to either live or die.

I turned, took Lilianna’s face in both of my hands in the dark.

“Stay behind me,” I whispered.

Her fingers tightened around Callum. “I’m not leaving you.”

“I know.” I kissed her—quick, fierce. “But your job is to protect him.”

She nodded once.

Then the first window shattered.

A flash of red laser sliced across the room.

Louis fired first—one clean shot into the dark. A body dropped with a dull thud.

Callum whimpered into Lilianna’s shoulder but didn’t cry. My son was brave. Braver than a child his age should ever need to be.

The second attacker hit the back door—silent, precise.

Louis spun, firing again.

I moved toward the kitchen, pulled the tactical knife from the magnetic block, and waited for the third shadow to slip through the side window.

The air changed.

The temperature shifted.

He was behind me before I saw him.

Fast.

Silent.

I ducked just as his blade sliced through the air where my throat had been.

He pivoted, expert, striking again.

I blocked with the knife, sparks flying as metal kissed metal.

Then I struck.

One sharp, brutal thrust.

The man gasped and crumpled, a dark stain blooming beneath him.

But more feet hit the porch.

More shadows.

More danger.

Louis shouted, “Two more!”

I grabbed Lilianna’s arm. “Downstairs. Now.”

She ran with Callum, her fingers clutching his small hand, guiding him toward the staircase that led to the reinforced basement.

I backed after them—

Then froze.

A red laser landed on my chest.

I didn’t breathe.

Didn’t blink.

The shooter was just outside the shattered window—hidden, skilled, steady.

If I moved, I died.

If I stayed, they got to Lilianna and Callum.

No good choices.

Only sacrifice.

My voice was low. “Go. Now.”

Lilianna shook her head violently. “Matteo—”

“GO!”

Louis slammed into me from the side just as the trigger clicked.

The bullet grazed my shoulder—hot, burning—before burying itself in the wall behind us.

Louis tackled me behind the kitchen island.

“Sniper!” he hissed.

My shoulder throbbed, but I was alive.

And Lilianna and Callum had made it to the basement door.

I shoved myself upright, ignoring the pain. “We need smoke. We need cover.”

“We need names,” Louis snapped back. “Because this attack? This precision? This isn’t random. Someone sent them.”

I knew.

I had known from the moment I felt the shift in the air.

But saying the name felt like dragging glass across my tongue.

Louis saw the recognition on my face. “Matteo—who?”

I swallowed, voice low.

“My brother.”

Louis blinked. “Alessandro?”

“No,” I said. “The other one.”

The one we didn’t talk about.

The one erased from family photographs.

The one who had disappeared twelve years ago.

The one my father always feared would return.

Louis went still. “You think it’s him?”

“I know it is.”

Because the precision, the silence, the brutality—those weren’t signatures of an enemy I didn’t know.

They were the signature of the man trained exactly like me.

Better than me.

More ruthless than me.

And he was alive.

He was coming.

And he wanted everything I had.

Everything I loved.

Downstairs, Lilianna shouted my name.

Callum cried for me.

I closed my eyes only long enough to find the center of myself, the part that had been forged in blood and sharpened in war.

Then I stood.

Because if my brother wanted war—

I would give him one.

But he would not take my family.

Not today.

Not ever.