The night was not over for Vitale.
Where the Cavelli estate drowned in silence and grief, his warehouse was alive with chaos. The air reeked of gunpowder and charred metal, the aftermath of the docks still clinging to the walls. Men moved in and out of the cavernous space, some limping, some carrying crates of weapons looted in the confusion, others laughing too loudly, drunk on survival and adrenaline.
At the center of it all sat Vitale, sprawled in a leather chair dragged into the middle of the concrete floor like a throne. His shirt was unbuttoned halfway, collar stained with someone else's blood, a tumbler of whiskey balanced lazily in his hand. The dim lights overhead cast long shadows that stretched behind him like wings.
On the floor, a Cavelli soldier knelt, wrists bound, face bruised and swollen. The man coughed, blood dripping down his chin, but Vitale barely glanced at him.
"Do you hear it?" Vitale asked, his voice smooth, carrying across the room.
The man blinked through swollen eyes. "H-hear what?"
Vitale leaned forward, his grin slow and serpentine. "The sound of Cavelli breaking."
He stood, circling his prisoner like a predator toying with prey. Around them, Vitale's men watched in tense silence. They had seen him like this before—this mixture of charm and cruelty, this game where pain was just punctuation.
"I burned his docks, gutted his men, sent his empire crawling home in ashes. And you…" He stopped in front of the prisoner, crouching so their faces were level. His voice softened, almost intimate. "You're proof of it. Tell me, what did your boss look like when he realized he was too late to save you?"
The man spat blood at his shoes. Vitale only laughed.
"Brave. Stupid, but brave." He rose smoothly, wiping his shoe against the floor. "Break his fingers. One at a time."
Two men stepped forward instantly, seizing the prisoner by the arms. The first crack echoed in the warehouse like a gunshot. The man's scream followed, raw and jagged, but Vitale only lifted his glass in mock salute.
"Music to my ears."
In the far corner, Rafa—the closest thing Vitale had to a consigliere—watched with narrowed eyes. Unlike the others, Rafa didn't cheer, didn't smirk. He simply observed, his expression carved from stone.
When Vitale finally tired of the spectacle, waving the men off with a flick of his wrist, Rafa stepped forward.
"We lost more than we took," he said flatly. "Half the crates burned before we could pull them. We don't have the manpower to guard every shipment, and the Cavellis will regroup. This isn't victory. It's noise."
Vitale turned slowly, his smile thinning. "Noise?" He poured another drink, letting the liquid slosh carelessly. "I gutted Cavelli in front of his own men. That's not noise, Rafa. That's humiliation."
"You underestimate him," Rafa warned. "A wounded wolf still bites."
Vitale's laughter echoed, cold and hollow. "A wolf without a pack starves. Cavelli lost men tonight—loyal men. You think loyalty grows back overnight?" He gestured at the bound prisoner still moaning in pain. "Look at them. They bleed like anyone else."
But Rafa didn't flinch. "You're not listening. He has something he didn't have before." His eyes flicked, just once, toward the memory of Lottie—Gabe's woman, the one Vitale had seen clutched too tightly, guarded too closely.
Vitale noticed. He always noticed. His grin sharpened.
"Ah. The girl."
Rafa's silence was answer enough.
Vitale swirled his whiskey, savoring the burn as he swallowed. "She is his crack, his fault line. He carries himself like a king, but kings fall hardest when their queens are stolen from the board." He leaned closer, voice dropping to a hiss. "And I will take her from him. Not with bullets. Not with fire. Slowly. Carefully. Until he watches her break."
Later, when the warehouse had quieted, Vitale retreated to his office upstairs. The room overlooked the floor below through a glass wall, giving him the satisfaction of seeing everything at once. He sat at his desk, papers scattered, maps marked with routes and smuggling channels.
But it wasn't the maps he studied. It was the photograph tucked in the corner. Grainy, snapped by one of his men weeks ago—Lottie stepping out of Gabe's car, her hair catching the light. Innocent. Out of place.
Vitale traced the edge of the photo with one finger, his expression unreadable.
"She'll undo him," he murmured. "And when she does, I'll be there to watch him kneel."
By dawn, the atmosphere had shifted. Where Gabe's men mourned their dead in silence, Vitale's celebrated. A feast had been laid out in the warehouse: bottles cracked open, music blaring, women draped over laps, laughter echoing against steel walls.
But beneath the celebration lay something else—fear. Vitale's men cheered because he demanded it, not because they felt victorious. They saw the same thing Rafa did: their numbers thinning, their enemies still standing.
Vitale, however, basked in it. He stood on a table, glass raised high, his voice booming over the din.
"To the Cavellis!" he shouted, a wicked grin cutting across his face. "May they bury their dead deep, because I'll keep sending them more!"
Cheers erupted, wild and hollow.
Rafa stood at the edge of the crowd, arms crossed, watching. His eyes flicked toward Vitale and then toward the shadows that pooled at the edges of the warehouse. He knew this wasn't triumph. It was arrogance dressed as glory.
And arrogance had a way of bleeding a man dry.
When the feast dwindled and the music softened, Vitale sat again in his chair, the warehouse littered with broken bottles and discarded cards. He looked out across his men—some asleep, some drunk, some whispering in corners.
And then he spoke to no one in particular, his voice a low growl.
"Cavelli thinks he's mourning. He thinks grief makes him strong. But grief rots. And when it does, I'll carve him from the inside out."
His hand tightened around the photograph of Lottie until the edge cut his skin. A bead of blood welled, bright against his pale knuckle.
He smiled.
"Soon."
The war had two faces now: one shadowed in mourning silence, the other painted in hollow laughter.
And between them both, Lottie's name hung unspoken, like the blade that would decide who bled last.