Luca turned a page that did not need turning. Inside, every part of him was coiled tight around the same question: Had Marco found Nonnina?

"Now you are just bragging," Renato drawled.

Luca might have answered with another insult. But then the sign he had been waiting for finally came. His phone vibrated in his pocket.

Just once. That was enough. A small smile touched Luca’s mouth again. He had what he needed.

"I walked in here calmly," he said, "and you didn’t think for one second what I could be up to." His gaze held Renato’s with cold amusement. "Did you really think you could have one up on me? Luciano? Me?"

"What can you do, Luca?" Renato asked. "I have you where I want you. You have no way out of this unless you give me Commissioned."

"Oh," Luca said softly. "But I do."

What happened next unfolded so fast the room barely had time to understand it. In one violent burst of motion, Luca flipped the desk.

Wood crashed. Glasses shattered. The guards jolted in shock, their rhythm broken for the single second Luca needed.

He was out of the chair immediately, moving with brutal speed, all that contained stillness exploding into action. He launched himself over the upturned desk, drove one of the men back with a hard kick, and before Renato could fully react, Luca had closed the distance between them and drove the pen hard into his shoulder.

Renato cried out as Luca seized him and dragged him back into his own chaos, yanking him into place as a human shield.

Luca held Renato tight against him, the pen pressed dangerously at his neck, blood spilling from the hole in his shoulder.

Renato’s breathing turned ragged, blown apart by pain and disbelief. "You’re dead!" he snarled. "Your fucking nanny is dead."

Luca’s grip tightened. One of the guards on the right raised his gun a little higher. Luca turned his head just enough to look at him, and whatever the man saw in his face made him hesitate.

The overturned desk lay between them and the doorway. Papers were scattered. A chair had gone over.

And in the middle of all of it stood Luca Genovese, unarmed by their standards and still somehow the most dangerous man in the room.

"See?" Luca said, breath steady, grip brutal, Renato held tight against him. "Confronted by idiots. I have my nanny, Sherlock," Luca continued. The calm in his voice made it all the more terrifying. "Now tell your men if their guns are still pointing at me in three seconds, you’re dead."

Renato’s chest heaved once. "Put the fucking guns down, you fools!" he shouted.

The men scrambled at once. Their weapons hit the floor with ugly clatters, suddenly small and useless in the middle of the room’s wreckage.

Luca smiled again, this time victoriously. "I am the devil, Renato," he said. "Better men than you have fucked with me and failed."

Renato’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing. Blood still seeped from the puncture in his shoulder.

"I’m going to walk out of here," Luca went on, "and you and your little men are going to let me." He tilted his head slightly, the pen never leaving Renato’s throat. "Or fire and brimstone will rain down on your little establishment here." His eyes moved once over the guards, then back to Renato. "Do we have that clear?"

"Fuck you," Renato spat.

Luca answered by slamming Renato’s face into the foot of the overturned desk. The impact cracked through the room. Renato screamed. Luca leaned in close, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "Do we understand?"

"Yes!" Renato gasped. "Yes! You fucking asshole. Get out of my office!"

Luca sent Renato flying into the desk, clutching at his shoulder and face, breathing raggedly, while Luca stepped away. He flicked his jacket straight with one hand, smoothing it down over his chest.

Then he looked at the two men.

"Gentlemen," Luca said with impeccable courtesy. "Have a great day."

No one moved. No one dared. Luca’s face hardened again the second the words left his mouth. The mockery vanished. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

He turned and walked out of Renato’s office, leaving blood, splintered pride, and the unmistakable aftertaste of humiliation behind him. "Get me a fucking doctor!" Renato boomed, clutching his bleeding shoulder with one hand while rage and humiliation fought for space across his face. "Fucking asshole!"

He shouted again. He had been played. By a man he had believed cornered. Renato lay in the middle of the wreckage and felt something bitter and hot rise in him. His shoulder throbbed viciously, blood soaking into his shirt, his face still stinging where Luca had introduced it to the foot of the desk.

He wanted nothing in that moment more than to bash Luca’s face in with his own hands.

Even beneath the fury, Renato knew Luca well enough to take the threat seriously. Fire and brimstone, he had said. The dramatic bastard. Renato would have laughed if the man’s threats had not come with such a statistically irritating history of materializing.

"How?" Renato snarled.

How the hell had Luca found the fucking nanny so quickly? Had one of his own men betrayed him?

Had they been followed? How? How? The puzzle kept knocking around inside his skull, louder with every pulse of blood from his shoulder.

*****

By the time Luca got back to the house, he had no patience left. He moved through the halls quickly, Marco keeping pace beside him as they spoke in low, urgent tones.

"She should be in a hospital," Luca said. He didn’t slow down as he said it, but the strain in his voice was obvious now. The adrenaline was wearing thin in places, revealing the raw edges beneath.

Marco glanced at him once. "She refused."

"Of course she did."

"She says she’s fine," Marco added. "And that she just needs aspirin for a headache."

Luca made a sound under his breath that could have become a full curse if he had not already reached her door. "Stubborn..." he muttered.

Then stopped himself before the word could fully land, suddenly and absurdly afraid she might hear him insulting her.

He pushed the door open and stepped inside. Nonnina looked very small in the bed. The plaster on the side of her head looked obscene against her skin, a tiny thing and somehow enough to make something murderous twist low and hard in his chest all over again.

Luca crossed the room and dropped to his knees beside the bed at once. "Nonni..." he called softly. His hand came up and brushed gently over the little plaster at her temple, the touch careful enough to make it clear he was trying very hard not to let his anger touch her too.

Nonnina opened her eyes slowly and smiled the moment she saw him. "I knew you were coming," she murmured. "I knew you would save me."

He managed a faint smile, crooked with feeling. "I didn’t," he said. "Marco did."

That only made her smile wider, the old woman clearly unimpressed by his attempt to hand off the credit.

"I love you so much," she said softly. "So very much."

Luca swallowed once and nodded. "I love you too." His hand stayed near hers, touching enough to reassure himself that she was here, breathing, whole. "Did they hurt you?" he asked.

Nonnina made a small dismissive sound through her nose. "No. No. Bunch of spineless fools."

"I don’t know what I’d do without you, Nonni," he said.

"You have Zuccherino now," she said. "I don’t have to worry."

"Get some rest," he said. "I’ll get her here in the morning. She is very worried about you."

At that, Nonnina’s face tightened with immediate concern. "Don’t let her worry. Bad for the baby."

"I know... I know." Luca leaned forward then and kissed her forehead first, then her hair.

Only after that did he get to his feet. Marco was waiting by the door, quiet as ever, giving the moment all the room it needed without intruding on it. Luca cast one last glance at the bed, making sure Nonnina’s eyes had closed again, that her breathing had settled.

He stepped out into the corridor. His face hardened as he walked. "I still want her checked out," he said.

Marco nodded immediately.

"Get the doctor here in the morning."