Chapter 149 Rocco
The smell of her lingered long after she was gone, jasmine and smoke, clinging to the sheets, the walls, my goddamn skin. I'd woken to silence, not the soft rhythm of her breathing beside me, not the faint rustle of her turning in her sleep. Just silence.
And her side of the bed was cold.
Something inside me went rigid.
By the time I'd checked her phone tracker, the signal was already miles away, along the eastern coast. The one place she'd promised to stay away from.
I didn't tell anyone right away. Couldn't. The thought of her out there, alone, with Phillipe's cryptic message gnawing at her, made my blood hum with fury and fear in equal measure.
Rafael and Riccardo were already in the strategy room, going over shipment ledgers and intel reports. Their voices bled through the half-closed door: low, sharp, impatient.
“She’s not answering?” Rafael asked the second I stepped in.
I didn't respond. I just grabbed my jacket and my gun.
Riccardo looked up from the table, his eyebrows pulling together. “Where the hell are you going?”
“To bring her back.”
Rafael exchanged a look with Riccardo, that silent brotherly communication we'd perfected since childhood, then pushed away from the wall. “I'm coming with you.”
“No.” My tone was rougher than I meant. “If I don’t come back in two hours then you come.
One look from me and he opened his mouth to argue, then thought again.
The drive was a blur. The city bled into wilderness, asphalt giving way to rock and wind and salt. Every turn along the coast tightened something in my chest.
When I found her car outside that ruin of a church, I nearly tore the door off its hinges.
She stood in the center of the broken aisle, her hair whipping around her face. Leo was hovering just a few steps behind her. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused, haunted. She didn't even hear me until I said her name.
“Fiorella.”
Slowly, she turned then, the phone in her hand trembling.
“Rocco…”
The soft, guilty, wrecked way she said my name cut a lot deeper than any bullet.
“What the hell were you thinking?” My voice echoed through the hollow walls. “You came here alone?”
“Not alone,” she said, looking at Leo.
“That’s not the point.” I stepped closer, every muscle in me vibrating with the effort not to grab her and shake some sense into her. “You disappeared. No note. No call. You think I wouldn’t come looking?”
“I had to,” she whispered. “They are hurting her, Rocco.”
I stopped. The words hit the air like a gunshot.
“What?”
She showed me the phone. The screen was still glowing faintly. “I found this here. She left a message. My mother, she's chained somewhere. She asked me to save her.”
For a second, everything inside me went still. Then the fury drained out, replaced by something heavier. I took the phone from her, played the video.
By the end of it, my hands were shaking.
“She’s alive,” repeated Fiorella as tears traced her cheeks. “All this time…”
I exhaled slowly, forcing my jaw to unclench. "We'll find her," I said, voice low. "But next time, you don't go chasing ghosts without me."
She looked away, swallowing hard. “I couldn’t sit still, Rocco. You don’t understand—”
“I do,” I said quietly, stepping close enough so her breath mingled with mine. “But I can’t protect you if you keep walking into traps laid by the man who wants to see you broken.”
The only sound, for a heartbeat, was the sea roaring beyond the broken walls.
Then she whispered, “He left a note.”
I frowned. “Who?”
“Camillo. Or Phillipe. I don’t know which any longer. On the car.”
I followed her outside. The paper was still there, white against the black hood, those taunting words cutting through me: Did you like the show?
I crushed it in my fist.
Leo watched us in silence. The tension was so thick, it was hard to breathe.
“Let’s go,” I said finally. “We’re done here.”
⸻
The ride home was quiet. She sat with her hands clenched tightly in her lap, her gaze out the window. I could feel her walls going up, a tangled blend of guilt and fear and determination.
I took her back to the De Luca estate, the sun had dipped below the horizon, turning the sky into liquid gold and ash.
Rafael was pacing near the balcony as we came in; Riccardo stood by the map table, his arms crossed. Both turned as the door opened.
“Where did you find her?” Riccardo asked, his voice sharp but laced with worry.
“Eastern coast,” I said flatly. “Old sanctuary.”
Rafael's eyes narrowed. "You found something."
Fiorella nodded, holding out the phone. “My mother.”
They watched the video. No one spoke until it was done. The static faded into silence.
Riccardo moved first. He breathed out, long and low. “So that’s what Phillipe was hiding.”
“Not just Phillipe,” I said, dragging a hand through my hair. “There’s someone else, the name got cut off in the video. Nek something. But she said they’re not who you think they are.”
Rafael leaned on the table, knuckles white. "Then it's bigger than Phillipe."
“Yeah.” I looked up, my voice dropping. “And Camillo’s in it, up to his neck.”
At the sound of that name, the air thickened.
Camillo. The reason half our shipments were gone and three of our men buried. He’d taken what wasn’t his, our network, our connections, and old it to outsiders.
“Enough,” Riccardo said, his tone steel. “We’ve played defense long enough. It’s time we take back what’s ours.”
Rafael nodded. "Agreed. The docks, the safe houses, everything he touched, we clean it out. We hit hard, fast, and quiet."
I walked around the table, studying the map-the red pins marking what we'd lost. "He thinks we're bleeding," I said. "Good. Let him think that. We use it. We lure him in."
Standing by the window, quiet and still, Fiorella listened. Pain and resolution swirled in her eyes in layers, like glass.
Riccardo's finger tapped a point on the map. "His last shipment came through Bari. If we intercept there—"
“No,” I interrupted. “He’s expecting that.”
Rafael looked at me. “Then what?
I pulled out my phone; the glow of the screen cut through the dim room. "We do what he won't expect."
They both waited.
I opened the message app and scrolled until I found his name: Camillo.
I stared at it for a long moment, remembering all the times we'd sat at this same table, laughing, planning, swearing loyalty that meant nothing now.
Then I typed.
Come out of your shadows.
We end this face to face.
No more games.
I hit send.
The only sound in the room was the soft buzz as the message was delivered. Rafael smiled wryly. “You really think he’ll show?” I looked up, meeting his gaze.
“He won’t be able to resist.”
A grim smile curved Riccardo's lips.
"Then let's make sure he regrets it."
Outside, thunder rumbled over the sea, distant but growing closer; it was the sound of a storm finding its way home.
And I knew, deep in my bones, that by the time it broke, one of us wouldn't walk away.