125
125
VINCENZO
My phone rang again. Answering it immediately came Camilla’s voice, frantic and broken.
“Enzo… They took him… they took Enzo.”
He froze.
“What?”
“They shot Rancho. He’s… he’s gone. And they took your son.”
Silence.
The phone slipped from my hand.
I didn’t even feel it fall. My mind had gone numb the moment Camilla’s voice cracked through the line.
“They took Enzo. They shot Rancho…”
Rancho.
Enzo.
I felt my heart stop—just for a second—before it slammed back into my chest, harder, faster. My ears rang with silence. Rage spread through me like poison in my veins.
Pedro bent down, picked up the phone, and glanced at me.
“Boss?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
I was already moving.
“Get the car,” I said, my voice quiet—too quiet. “Now.”
“Where are we going?” Pedro asked, already at my side.
I turned my eyes on him. “We’re going to burn the world.”
In the car, en route to the Brione estate, the engine purred like it knew what was coming. I stared out the window, jaw clenched so tightly it hurt.
Rancho.
They shot him.
He was family.
He gave his life for Enzo—for my son. My hands curled into fists, nails digging into my palms.
“We’ll find them,” Pedro said from the front. “We’ll bring Enzo back.”
“I’m not just bringing him back,” I muttered, voice sharp enough to cut steel. “I’m erasing whoever did this. One by one.”
I pulled out my phone.
“Marco,” I snapped. “Lock down every road, port, and airstrip out of Tuscany. Nothing leaves. Not a goddamn bird without my say.”
Another call.
“Charlie, I want drones in the sky within the hour. Heat signatures, traffic feeds, satellites. I don’t care. My son is missing—find him.”
Pedro looked back at me through the rearview.
“You think this was Don Ceballos?”
“No.” I shook my head. “He wouldn’t be this messy. This was personal. This was Antonio. And Alejandra.”
Thirty minutes later, we were already at the Brione estate.
The tires hadn’t even stopped before I was out of the car.
Blood on the steps.
I felt something crack in me.
Camilla stood in the hall, her eyes red, tears streaking her face. Kadie was slumped on the couch, holding something in her hands, her body trembling.
I walked straight through the door and stopped.
It was Rancho’s jacket.
Blood-soaked.
Her hand hovered over the tiny stuffed giraffe Enzo had dropped before he was ripped away. She reached for it like it was all she had left—because it was.
“Where did they take him?” I asked the room, but no one answered.
“Where—” my voice broke, and I caught myself. I forced it through gritted teeth. “Where the hell did they take my son?”
Kadie looked up at me, eyes swollen, face pale.
“I… I tried to fight them. I screamed. He screamed… Vincenzo… “I let them take him…” she whispered. “I tried to fight—God, I tried—”
I crossed the room in seconds and pulled her to me, wrapping my arms around her trembling frame.
“This isn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it is,” she choked. “I should’ve run. I should’ve left months ago. I should’ve—”
I dropped to my knees in front of her. My hands found her cheeks, trembling as I tilted her face up to mine. I could barely breathe through the pain in my chest.
“I swear to you,” I whispered, forehead against hers, “I will bring our boy back. And I will bury whoever touched him.”
She nodded faintly, tears sliding down between us. And I held her—for a breath. Just one.
Because then I stood.
And everything in me turned to war.
Pedro had sent me a message: “The gate locks were tampered with from the inside. Someone opened the gate for them, and we've found the last person that was seen there before the attack.” The message read.
After calming her, I headed out to the basement of my warehouse. Pedro and the rest of my men were waiting there.
The room smelled of sweat, gasoline, and fear.
I stood at the edge of the dimly lit basement, watching the man tied to the chair squirm under the weight of his guilt—or maybe it was the cable ties cutting into his wrists. Either way, he knew he was screwed.
He should be.
He was one of mine—a driver who’d been in and out of our compounds for years. Trusted. Paid. Protected.
And now? Now he’d been indicated as the last man leaving the gate, and he was caught with a burner phone and a wad of unmarked cash.
“You’re going to tell me everything,” I said, rolling my sleeves up, slow and deliberate, “or I’ll make you wish I left you in the warehouse fire.”
He flinched.
Pedro stood behind me, arms folded, silent.
The man—his name was Gino—spat blood out the side of his mouth and gave a weak, nervous laugh.
“You don’t scare me, Vincenzo.”
I stared at him. Confused at the energy his tone and glare had.
Then I punched him across the jaw.
Not fast. Not hard.
Just… surgical.
His chair rocked, and he gasped as blood filled his mouth again.
“That wasn’t to scare you,” I said calmly. “That was to wake you up.”
I crouched, eye-level now. My knuckles throbbed. My patience didn’t.
“You were seen leaving the gates, and minutes later, my son was taken away.”
“I don’t know anything—”
“You got paid, Gino. I don’t need your lies. I need the name of the person who paid you. Now.”
His eyes darted. He was cracking. I leaned in, letting my voice drop.
“They took a five-year-old boy. Shot the man protecting him. If I find out you knew that would happen…”
I stood up slowly.
“I’ll cut off your fingers and feed them to you before you die.”
That did it.
His chest heaved.
“It was Antonio …” he croaked. “He sent me the money. Told me to leave the gate unlocked. That’s all I knew—swear to God—he didn’t say anything about a kid…”
I closed my eyes for a second.
Antonio.
Of course it was him.
The betrayal wasn’t just professional. It was personal.
“And the driver of the van?”
“I don’t know—he said the boys were from out of town—just muscle…”
I nodded once, pulling out my gun and shooting him straight in the head. Gino's body fell to the ground with the ropes still hanging over his body.
Then I turned to Pedro. “Clean this up and join me.”
Pedro nodded wordlessly.
I was already on my way out. To find Antonio, I had been sparing him because he was family, but he had drawn the line.