Chapter 60: LX. CESARE ROMANO (POV)

⋄ CESARE ROMANO ⋄

I review the reports from the last legitimate inspection before Ventresca showed up with his men and their shady motives.

I’ve read these lines at least twenty times, and nothing seems out of place. We were informed, as we should have been. All the names are familiar and clean, with no suspicious ties or hidden connections. They didn’t find anything they weren’t supposed to at our docks.

Everything’s clean. Simple. Precise.

“Hm.” The sound rumbles low in my throat, unintentional in my solitude. My fingers tap slowly against the armchair in a steady, controlled rhythm, thoughtful.

The salty smell of the sea seeps into the air, mingling with the faint scent of old paper and polished wood. The clock on the wall ticks with meticulous, irritating regularity, mocking the answers slipping through my fingers.

I bring a hand to my chin, fingers brushing the stubble, eyes still fixed on the last line of the report, as I lean back, the chair creaking faintly as my weight shifts.

Ventresca’s name pulses in my mind like a half-healed wound.

The attack on Matteo makes something dangerous crawl beneath my skin, cold and unfamiliar.

What am I not seeing?

What’s right in front of me, yet still escapes?

I pick up the report again, expecting the words change shape, reveal themselves, or scream something they haven’t said before. But everything stays in place. No slip-ups, no contradictions, not a single comma out of tone.

But there has to be something. Between this inspection and Ventresca, who showed up unannounced weeks ago and was found dead the same day, something happened.

The discomfort at the back of my mind grows. Something’s trying to reach the surface but can’t quite break through. Not yet. Swallowed by the dark, in the spaces that have always been empty, long before I learned to hold a gun and kill men without blinking.

I’ve always known I was different.

Not broken by the world, like Matteo. Just built differently.

There are no jagged, shattered pieces—there’s nothing.

I’m not like Ottavio, who feels too much yet keeps it all locked beneath a mask of steel and careful, practiced self-control.

Not like Salvatore, either, who still finds room for tenderness when duty isn’t tightening its grip around his throat.

Or like Niccolò, whose ego sometimes speaks louder than reason and who enjoys other people’s mistakes—always playing the sharper, slicker one.

I’m something else.

I’m not cut from the same cloth as they are. What drives me isn’t pain, hope, or vanity—it’s absence. A space where something should be and never was. A space where rage should boil and fear should tighten the chest. But there’s nothing. Never has been. No heat, no cold.

And maybe that’s exactly why I can’t see what’s missing now.

I set the papers down, placing them on the desk with instinctive precision. Not deliberate, just natural, like breathing.

Like pulling a trigger.

Like measuring the space between a lie and the truth in a man’s eyes.

Like knowing when someone’s going to die before he even knows it.

Like smelling betrayal before it starts to stink.

Arturo’s words echo in my mind, drowning out the unease for a moment. If there really is a mind behind all of this, someone on the inside is pulling the strings, making us damn puppets.

And that—that’s what bothers me most. The possibility that someone is working from the inside, close enough to know how we operate and to see the blind spots we don’t even notice ourselves.

Someone with time, patience, and a steady hand. The kind of traitor who doesn’t make mistakes because he doesn’t act on impulse. The kind who isn’t driven by stupid motives like money or emotion.

People like that don’t fail. They don’t leave obvious traces. They don’t need to. They count on the arrogance of everyone around them, the comfort we find in routine, and the blind trust we give to those who share our roof, our weapons, our history. The same ink on our backs.

My head starts to ache. A steady pressure right in the center of my forehead, always there when I’m overthinking something that should be simple. Instinct. Still, it comes, along with that feeling—again—that something’s hidden behind a thick curtain.

I grab my phone and look at Luigi’s last message, sent from the new burner. He’s careful enough to switch numbers every month and sends regular reports on the Fratellanza’s internal movements. Always straight to the point. Not a man for small talk or fluff.

But this…

This borders me.

ㅤ

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

M. is in.

Contact with Target confirmed.

ㅤ

Two messages, and nothing else.

Two strangely vague messages.

Too vague for my taste, and for his usual standard.

My thumb brushes against the heavy ring, tracing the family crest carved into the gold, and my mind drifts again to places it shouldn’t go, bringing back memories that mean nothing yet somehow make my jaw clench...

Knockings slices through the images like a dagger, dissolving Marina’s face, her green eyes darkened by lust, as if they were an illusion.

My lungs burn, and I take a deep breath. I don’t know when I stopped breathing, but my voice comes out rougher and deeper than usual when I say, “Come in.”

The door opens slowly, with a steady firmness that lets me recognize him before I even see his face. Ottavio steps inside, closing the door behind him with a soft, deliberate click that says more than words—that whatever he’s about to say stays in Don’s office.

My younger brother’s face is serious, more than usual. His tension settles in my gut like something cold. Not quite dread, but the quiet realization that whatever’s coming, I’m not going to like it.

Ottavio doesn’t speak right away. He crosses the room with that tight, controlled calm and sits on the leather couch in the center, the one meant for casual conversations, but never for comfortable ones.

He rests his elbows on his knees, fingers laced, head bowed for a second, digging for the right words somewhere deep in his throat.

It’s not the kind of silence that comes from hesitation. It’s practical. Methodical. He’s measuring every breath, every movement. He doesn’t want the world outside to hear what he’s about to say.

When Ottavio finally lifts his eyes, so much like mine, but infinitely more human, they’re darkened by something I can’t quite read.

“I wasn’t sure at first, so I went to check it out,” Ottavio finally says, leaning back, but not really relaxing. He crosses his arms, stretching the tight black compression shirt across his chest. My eyes narrow, sharp, on the outfit, too casual for this place. But I let it slide, this time.

My fingers start tapping again, this time on the report.

Impatience rises, hot and bitter.

“What is it?”

Ottavio’s jaw tightens. Just once. Barely noticeable if you don’t know him the way I do. But it’s there—the muscle twitch, the flick of tension behind his left eye. He shifts in the seat, elbows pressing harder against his thighs before he speaks again, voice low, steady, laced with something that makes the back of my neck prickle.