Chapter 43: CHAPTER 43 — POV MAT

The brownstone felt too small for the war gathering inside it.

Men moved through the halls silently but with charged energy—checking weapons, securing windows, reinforcing doors, coordinating routes, scanning camera loops. Every room buzzed with low voices, the smell of gun oil, the metallic click of magazines loading.

But in the war room, everything stilled.

I stood at the head of the table, staring at the frozen last frame of Petrov’s video on the wall monitor—Arman tied, beaten, eyes swollen shut. The bastard had been loyal to me once. My right hand once. A brother, even, before his ambition rotted him from the inside.

Now he was the spark.

And Petrov was holding the match.

Lilianna entered quietly, her steps soft but certain. Every man in the room straightened when she stepped inside—even Louis, who’d been with me since I was seventeen. She carried a presence sharper than a blade.

She looked at the monitor, her jaw locking.

“He’s trying to lure you into a kill box,” she said.

“No,” I corrected. “He’s trying to lure us.”

Her eyes flicked to mine, a storm of fire and steel. “Then we go in smart.”

“We go in lethal,” I said.

Louis cleared his throat. “Boss, we should wait for intel from the syndicate contact. He said he’d send something by midnight.”

“That was an hour ago.”

“He could be—”

“Dead,” I finished. “Like the rest of them.”

Silence fell heavy.

I approached the table, the map spread across it—a blueprint of the warehouse Petrov had broadcast from. High ground on three sides. Entrances wired. Water access in the back. The ideal place for a massacre.

But he was sloppy tonight.

Too proud.

Too sure.

That arrogance would kill him.

“Where’s Dante?” I asked.

“Downstairs interrogating Valenti,” Louis replied.

Valenti—the Syndicate lieutenant we’d dragged in half-dead from the docks. The only one who didn’t run when the trap sprung.

I exhaled hard. “Bring him.”

Louis disappeared and dragged the bruised, limping man into the room minutes later. Valenti looked like hell—one eye swollen shut, lip split, half a tattoo on his neck burned off.

But he was alive.

Barely.

He collapsed into the chair with a grunt.

I knelt in front of him. Quiet. Too quiet.

“Valenti,” I said softly. “Look at me.”

He didn’t.

So I grabbed his chin and forced his gaze up.

“Who gave Petrov the Syndicate codes?”

A long breath. “Arman.”

The table erupted.

Dante cursed. Louis slammed a fist against the wall. One of my soldiers punched the table so hard the wood cracked.

But Lilianna remained utterly still.

Arms crossed.

Eyes narrowed.

Calculating.

“And who gave Arman the codes?” she asked.

The room froze again.

Valenti swallowed.

The bruises on his throat pulsed with his heartbeat. His mouth opened, closed. Fear trembled down his spine.

Finally, he whispered:

“He already had them.”

That hit harder than a bullet.

“What do you mean ‘he had them’?” I asked.

“Arman wasn’t part of the Syndicate… not originally. He was placed there.”

Lilianna stiffened.

“So he was planted,” she said slowly.

Valenti nodded.

By who?

Every man in the room was thinking it.

I said it.

“Petrov.”

Valenti shook his head. “No.”

“Then who?”

He hesitated—and that hesitation was enough to make my stomach drop.

He wasn’t protecting Arman.

He was protecting someone bigger.

Someone closer.

Finally, with a shuddering breath, he whispered the one thing I didn’t expect:

“He was placed there by someone in your family, Costello.”

Silence slammed into the room like a hammer.

My vision went white around the edges.

Louis cursed under his breath.

Dante reached for his gun.

Lilianna stepped closer to me, subtle but deliberate—grounding me.

I forced myself to speak. “Who?”

Valenti’s lip quivered. “Your cousin.”

I exhaled slowly.

Which one?

I only had one cousin left in the life—Rafaele. A ghost since the Chicago war. A man who believed loyalty was currency and betrayal was strategy. A man who’d always hated me being chosen over him.

But a man I’d never believed would stand with an enemy.

Until now.

“I see,” I murmured.

Valenti lifted trembling hands. “I swear, Matteo, I swear—Arman kept saying everything would return to balance. That the old order was coming back. That Petrov and Rafaele—”

Dante snapped. “Petrov and Rafaele what?”

Valenti swallowed. “They made a pact. Years ago. When the Genovese war started.”

Lilianna tensed at my side.

“Which war?” she asked quietly.

Valenti’s eyes flicked to her. “The one your father died in.”

The air left my lungs.

Lilianna froze beside me. Her fingers curled against her arms.

“My father’s death,” she said slowly, voice dangerously soft, “had nothing to do with Costellos.”

Valenti dropped his gaze. “Not directly.”

I stood.

“What do you mean?” I demanded.

He dragged in a shaking breath.

“Your cousin fed Petrov information. Petrov attacked the Genovese shipment line. Your father was guarding it. Wrong place, wrong time. But Petrov used the intel Rafaele gave him.”

Rafaele.

Fucking Rafaele.

The cousin who’d smiled at my father’s funeral and told me the streets would always remember him.

Lilianna’s face was white-hot fury and heartbreak tangled into one.

“So my father died because of your family’s traitor?” she whispered.

I didn’t speak.

Couldn’t.

Not until I had control of the rage clawing at my ribs.

Louis moved like he’d tear Valenti apart, but I raised a hand.

“Not now,” I said.

Lilianna turned to me. “This changes everything.”

“It does,” I agreed.

Because now it wasn’t just a war with Petrov.

It was a war inside my own bloodline.

I placed both hands on the table.

“Valenti,” I said quietly. “Where is Rafaele now?”

He hesitated.

Wrong move.

Lilianna stepped in front of him, her tone like glass slicing skin:

“If you lie, you don’t walk out of here. If you tell the truth, you live.”

Valenti didn’t even blink before breaking.

“He’s with Petrov. At the warehouse.”

Louis swore again.

Dante kicked a chair.

I closed my eyes, inhaling once.

This wasn’t just a trap.

It was a coronation.

Petrov wanted me dead.

Rafaele wanted my chair.

And Arman was the sacrificial offering.

Classic Syndicate strategy.

Destabilize the leader.

Bleed out the loyalties.

Break the alliances.

Unseat the throne.

But they underestimated something.

Someone.

Lilianna stepped closer to the table, studying the map with the kind of intelligence that made men like Petrov choke on their arrogance.

She tapped the far corner of the blueprint.

“There,” she said. “That’s how we go in.”

Louis frowned. “That access point leads into the drainage corridor.”

“And the drainage corridor leads right under the central loading dock,” she said. “Petrov thinks you’ll come from the east and south. He’ll have his snipers there.”

I stared at her.

“How do you know that?”

She lifted her gaze.

“My father survived Petrov for twenty years,” she said quietly. “And he taught me everything. Including how to outthink him.”

Silence spread through the room.

Commanding.

Certain.

Deadly.

Louis nodded. Dante nodded.

Even my soldiers murmured in agreement.

I stepped closer to her.

“You think you can get us in under his radar?”

“I know I can.”

Her confidence hit me like a pulse of electricity.

“Then we follow her plan,” I said.

No one argued.

Not one.

I reached for her hand under the table—subtle, hidden from everyone but her.

She squeezed back.

It was all the grounding I needed.

“We leave in thirty minutes,” I said.

Men scattered instantly, preparing gear, checking comms, gathering weapons.

Lilianna lingered, eyes on the blueprint.

“You’re shaking,” she murmured.

I hadn’t realized I was.

“It’s Rafaele,” I admitted. “I should’ve seen it.”

“No,” she said. “You trusted him. That’s not a weakness.”

“It is in our world.”

She stepped in front of me, her hand settling on my jaw, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth.

“Then let’s change our world,” she whispered.

I leaned my forehead against hers.

“If he touches you,” I murmured, “if Petrov harms you, if they try to use Callum—”

“They won’t,” she whispered. “Because we’ll kill them first.”

I kissed her once.

Hard.

Final.

A promise forged in blood.

Louis appeared at the doorway. “Boss. The men are ready.”

I pulled away slowly.

Lilianna grabbed a bulletproof vest, strapping it tight, grabbing knives like she’d done it a thousand times.

Because she had.

I watched her, pride and terror twisting inside me.

“Lilianna,” I said.

She turned.

“Stay close.”

Her lips curved.

“I wasn’t planning on being anywhere else.”

We stepped into the hallway.

The lights flickered once.

Then the entire brownstone filled with the roar of engines outside.

Our convoy was ready.

Louis opened the door.

“War time.”

I took Lilianna’s hand as we walked toward the waiting SUVs.

Not hidden.

Not discreet.

A statement.

The world didn’t get to break us apart anymore.

Tonight, we broke the world.

As we stepped outside, a cold wind cut across the street.

And so did a voice from the shadows.

Slow.

Mocking.

Familiar.

“Well, well,” the man drawled. “Look who’s finally coming out to play.”

Every gun snapped up instantly.

My blood turned to ice.

Because stepping out from behind a parked truck…

Was Rafaele.

Alive.

Grinning.

Wearing a Phoenix Syndicate crest on his jacket.

“Hello, cousin,” he said lightly. “Ready to lose everything?”

Lilianna’s hand tightened around mine.

And I smiled.

A lethal, cold, perfect smile.

“No,” I said.

“You are.”