CHAPTER 250: SHAKING WILL
CHAPTER 250: SHAKING WILL
"What ex?" Giovanni scoffed, rolling his eyes. "No. That was just Bella’s friend. She’s staying at my place while Bella is out."
Tank looked at Giovanni, a massive, teasing grin breaking across his broad face. "There are two of them," Tank rumbled softly. "There are two of them!"
Giovanni burst out laughing, waving his hand at Tank to shut up as the rest of the room began pulling out map blueprints to transition into official business.
As Viktor began breaking down the territory supply lines, Giovanni’s mind briefly drifted back to Maria’s text message. He especially loved the way she had phrased it—when you bring your ass back home. She had called his apartment home. The simple word generated a sudden, quiet warmth deep in his chest.
Stop it, he sternly corrected himself, stiffening his posture as he locked his thoughts down. You are not doing this again. Why are you always so weak and cheap the second a woman shows a tiny bit of softness? Get your head straight.
He cleared his throat, forcing his focus back to the table. "All right, let's talk numbers. Alex and I met with two of Enzo’s underbosses two days age… Marco and Vane. Alex gave them a week to run their own investigation on who killed their old leaders. Their seven days are up in forty-eight hours."
"If we bring their foot soldiers over," Viktor conceded, "we control sixty percent of the lower grid without firing a single bullet."
"Exactly," Giovanni said. "So we wait until their deadline passes."
"We have an issue in the eastern docks district," Tank chimed in, tossing a notepad onto the table. "Enzo's remaining crew leaders are causing trouble. They want to see the Don personally before they hand over the keys to the warehouses. Ghost, your presence is needed down there tonight."
Chiara chuckled dryly, shaking her head. "Looks like you need to split yourself in two, Ghost, because my sector in the northern avenues wants to see the boss, too."
Viktor grumbled beneath his breath, "He’s not the Don."
"Well, he might as well be," Chiara muttered back, shooting Viktor a sharp look. "Alex barely steps onto the streets nowadays, so Ghost is running the show anyway."
"What about Antonio?" Nyra asked, her tone sharpening. "Is there any movement on his location?"
"Nothing," Tank replied, shaking his head in disbelief. "Is that guy a fucking machine or a magician? How does a man take two hollow-point rounds to the leg and shoulder and vanish into thin air? No hospitals, no private clinics, no black-market doctors have seen him."
Giovanni rubbed his jaw, his eyes darkening. "I just hope he's dead in a ditch somewhere, bleeding out into the mud."
"Amen," Tank muttered.
Giovanni checked his watch. With two territorial disputes flaring up on opposite ends of the city, he wasn't going to make it back to his apartment anytime soon. He would have to handle Tank’s eastern dock issue first, then drive straight across town to settle Chiara’s northern district.
It was well past two in the morning by the time Giovanni finally unlocked the front door of his apartment.
He was exhausted, his shoulders aching, his leather jacket smelling faint of rain and engine exhaust. But despite the brutal night he had just endured, he had still made a twenty-minute detour to the downtown district to pick up two heavy foil containers of hot Mediterranean lemon chicken and seasoned rice.
He pushed the door open quietly, stepping into the dark living room.
A soft, ambient light spilled from the kitchen island.
Giovanni paused, slipping his jacket off. Sitting at the kitchen table, her head resting on her folded arms, was Maria. She had fallen fast asleep.
In front of her lay her open laptop, its screen glowing with complex diagnostic code, network terminal windows, and scrolling data strings that Giovanni couldn't make heads or tails of.
Giovanni stepped closer, his heavy boots making no sound on the hardwood. He looked at her quiet, sleeping face. Her wild dark curls were scattered over her arms, her breathing soft and even.
He reached out, carefully folding the laptop screen down to relieve her eyes from the glare. Then, grabbing a small decorative throw pillow from the nearby armchair, he gently lifted her head by an inch and slid the pillow beneath her cheek.
Giovanni reached out, carefully folding the laptop screen down to block the glare. Grabbing a small throw pillow from the nearby armchair, he slid his hand beneath her jaw, lifted her head an inch, and slipped the soft cushion under her cheek.
Maria’s eyelids fluttered, but her eyes didn't open. She exhaled a long, soft breath against the fabric, turned her face deeper into the cushion, and pulled her knees up toward her chest on the chair, settling back into deep sleep.
A soft, helpless smile spread across Giovanni's face as he stared down at her, watching her shoulders rise and fall in the dim light.
“Stop staring like a pervert, you dumbass,” he whispered to himself.
He turned toward the kitchen counter to drop the takeout boxes near the microwave. As he set them down, his eyes caught a covered glass dish sitting on the stove, alongside a neat stack of clean, dry pots in the drying rack.
He stepped over and lifted the glass lid.
It was a fresh, warm dish of garlic pasta, made completely from scratch.
Giovanni looked at the pristine, empty sink. There were no dirty plates.
She hadn't even eaten her own dinner but she had cooked a full meal, cleaned every single pot, and sat at the table waiting for him to come back until her body simply gave out from exhaustion.
Giovanni stood motionless in the quiet kitchen, staring down at the warm pasta, then looking back toward the sleeping girl at his table. A strange, suffocating warmth bloomed in his chest, making his throat feel suddenly dry.
He ran a heavy hand over his face, shaking his head as he let out a long, quiet breath.
"You're treading on dangerous ground here, Gio," Giovanni whispered softly to himself, looking at her motionless form. "You're treading on dangerous ground."