The Cavelli estate pulsed like a heart too close to bursting.
Corridors once lined with quiet portraits and polished wood had become arteries of war. Men moved through them with a soldier's discipline, their boots heavy against the marble, voices low but urgent. Weapons gleamed under the dim chandeliers, rifles slung across shoulders, knives tucked into belts, pistols checked and re-checked until the air smelled of oil and steel.
The dining hall, once a place of laughter and deals, now bore no resemblance to its former life. The long oak table, where Daniel once sat cracking jokes and Charlotte once sipped wine, was buried under maps and rifles. Crates of ammunition were stacked in neat rows along the walls, their stenciled markings half obscured by dust and fingerprints. Maps papered the far wall, red ink scrawled across them like wounds. Every line, every arrow, was a possible path to blood.
But at its center, Gabriel Cavelli was stillness.
He sat in his office with the door cracked just enough to hear the hum of men preparing for battle. His jacket was discarded across the chair, shirt sleeves rolled up, his forearms tense as steel. A cigarette smoldered between his fingers, ash curling downward but never falling until he tapped it away. Before him, a file sprawled across the desk: intelligence Marco had scraped together from bribes, broken teeth, and whispered betrayals. Names, dates, routes, all connected into something that resembled a plan.
To any other man, it would look like power. To Gabe, it felt like inevitability.
Still, for all the ink and fury, something in him resisted movement. His eyes snagged not on the maps but on a smaller photograph half buried under the paperweight. Daniel. His brother's grin caught mid-laugh, the corners of his eyes crinkled with mischief.
You always wanted the war to end, didn't you, Dani? Gabe thought bitterly. You believed we could walk away, that we could build something clean out of dirt. Look where it got you.
The door clicked open, cutting through the thought. He didn't look up until the faintest whiff of rose and smoke brushed the air.
Charlotte.
She stood at the threshold like a shadow he could never quite shake—arms folded, sweater hanging loose, hair falling untamed around her face. There was exhaustion there, the kind that dug deep lines into a person, but her eyes held sharpness, unflinching.
"You're leaving tomorrow," she said, her voice steady, though it wasn't a question.
Gabe ground the cigarette into the ashtray, the hiss sharp against the silence. "Three nights," he answered, the words clipped. "Tomorrow's the third."
Her gaze fell to the maps scattered across his desk, then back to him. "And you think killing him fixes everything?"
His head lifted slowly, eyes locking with hers, as cold and cutting as glass. "It fixes enough."
Her hands tightened around her elbows, nails pressing through the knit of her sweater. "Daniel thought like that once."
The name cracked through the room like a gunshot. For a second, neither of them breathed. Gabe rose, slow and deliberate, his voice low, edged with a fire that burned from somewhere far older than grief.
"Daniel believed in too much. That's what got him killed."
Charlotte flinched as though struck, but anger kept her rooted. "No," she whispered fiercely. "What killed him was this—" she stepped forward, gesturing sharply at the chaos on his desk, the maps, the rifles, the cigarette smoke clinging to the air "—this obsession with fighting shadows until there's nothing left of you. He didn't want this life to define you, Gabe. He wanted you free of it."
His jaw clenched, a muscle ticking like a clock counting down. For a moment, his hand twitched as if to reach for her—just one touch, one tether—but the don in him overruled the man. He turned away instead, shoulders rigid, staring out the window at the black city skyline.
"I don't have the luxury of believing in anything else."
The silence stretched taut, thick with things unsaid. Charlotte's chest rose and fell, a war of her own raging inside. She wanted to scream, to shake him, to drag out whatever fragments of Gabriel Cavelli still hid beneath the armor he wore. But instead, she whispered the only truth she could bear.
"Then I'll be here when you come back. If you come back."
The door closed behind her with a soft click, but to Gabe it might as well have been the crack of a rifle.
Downstairs, the men had gathered in the makeshift war room. Marco stood at the head of the oak table, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, a cigarette burning low between his fingers. The air was thick with tension, the kind that clung to every shoulder and sharpened every glance.
"We move at dawn," Marco began, his voice steady, carrying through the room. "Two convoys. One hits the warehouses on the south docks—Vitale's supply routes. The other covers Cavelli as he goes straight for Vitale's throat. No mistakes. No hesitation. You lose focus, you don't just risk yourself—you risk all of us."
The men nodded, some with fire in their eyes, others with grim acceptance. Marco's gaze swept over them, pausing on the youngest among them. Boys, really. Barely out of their twenties. Too much bravado, not enough scars. He wondered which of them would see another sunrise.
When the briefing ended, the men dispersed to their tasks, the shuffle of boots fading down the hallways. Marco lit another cigarette and stepped out into the courtyard.
The night was cool, stars veiled by a haze of smoke from the city. Gabe was already there, leaning against the stone railing, staring at the scattered lights below as though they might arrange themselves into answers.
"You sure about this?" Marco asked after a long moment, his voice quieter than he'd ever let the men hear it.
Gabe didn't turn. "If we don't end it now, he will."
Marco exhaled a long stream of smoke into the dark. "Then we make sure it's him, not us."
They stood there in silence, two men bound by blood and violence, until the cigarette burned down to nothing.
Across the city, Richard Vitale was raising a glass of scotch in his warehouse, where shadows pooled like ink.
The map before him mirrored Cavelli's, down to the routes marked in bold strokes. But where Cavelli saw paths to strike, Vitale saw bait. He traced the red lines with a fingertip, a slow smile curving his lips.
"They'll come," he said, voice smooth, almost reverent. "Cavelli won't hide. He can't. Pride won't let him. Desperation won't let him. And when he does…"
Rafa stood nearby, arms folded across his broad chest. "And when he does?"
Vitale's smile widened, a blade's edge gleaming in the dim light. "We bleed him. Not in alleys. Not in whispers. In the open. So every man who ever doubted me remembers why the Vitale name still rules this city."
From the shadows, Veronica Caruso emerged. The silk gowns were gone; she wore leather now, her long dark hair tied back, steel glinting at her hip. Her wound had healed into a scar, pale and jagged across her ribs, but the fury in her eyes burned hotter than ever.
"And the girl?" she asked, her tone dripping venom.
Vitale swirled the scotch in his glass, watching the amber whirl like liquid fire. "She stays alive. Cavelli needs her. So long as she breathes, he'll expose himself."
Veronica's lips curved into a cruel smile, her voice low. "Then I'll make sure she keeps breathing. Until I don't."
Vitale said nothing. He only raised his glass to the map, to the war he had carefully painted stroke by stroke.
Tomorrow, fire would consume the city.
And only one name would walk out of the smoke.
Night deepened.
At the Cavelli estate, men sharpened knives, cleaned rifles, and whispered prayers into the hollow air. In her room, Charlotte lay awake, her body restless beneath the covers, her mind refusing the solace of sleep. She could still see the hardness in Gabe's eyes, hear the finality in his voice. And in his office, Gabriel Cavelli stood over the maps one last time, cigarette smoke curling into the lamplight, the storm gathering behind his gaze.
Tomorrow, dawn would break not with light but with fire.
And blood—Cavelli's or Vitale's—would mark the city forever.