(Leonardo POV)
My office was a tomb. Marble floors, shadows that ate sound, walls lined with books nobody read. Behind those books sat the safe that kept my empire's secrets.
This room had seen confessions pulled with pliers. Blood cleaned from marble worth more than houses. But it had never been violated.
Until tonight.
The safe opened with German precision. Steel door swinging wide to reveal compartments lined in velvet. Blackmail photos. Account numbers. The deeds to souls I'd bought and paid for.
The small velvet box in the corner sat empty.
The absence hit like a scream.
My mother's locket. The only thing in this world that belonged to me, not the business. Gold that had rested against her throat. She wore it when she told me stories about saints and sinners, back when I thought there was a difference. Last time I kissed her forehead, that locket caught hospital light like a prayer.
Twenty-seven years I'd kept it safe. Through raids that left my men in body bags. Through wars that painted Little Italy red. Through the climb over other men's bones to build this throne.
Now it was gone.
The rage came cold. Heat was for amateurs and dead men. Mine crystallized in my veins, sharp enough to cut steel. Methodical. The kind of cold that stopped hearts.
"Rico."
I never raised my voice. Never needed to. He appeared in the doorway like smoke. Six-foot-two of muscle and scars, suit hiding the Glock at his ribs. The only man who'd seen me bleed and lived to forget it.
His eyes found the empty safe, then my face. His jaw set.
"It's gone."
"Impossible." His hands reached for the security tablet. "No one gets past—"
"Don't insult me."
He stopped cold. My men gathered in the doorway. Matteo, Sal, the new kid. They smelled danger like animals smell storms. The air turned electric.
Rico's fingers worked the screen. Security feeds scrolled backward through the night. Hours became minutes. Guards yawning. Cigarette breaks in shadows. Carelessness that would cost more than jobs.
Then movement. A figure slipping through corridors that should have been sealed. Past cameras that should have caught him. Into my sanctuary.
The image froze on a face.
Marco Rossi.
The name tasted like ash. A nothing. A bookkeeper who'd been skimming from neighborhood businesses for years. Never worth the bullet it would take to erase him. A gambling addict with more debts than sense.
But my mother's locket gleamed in his hands.
Something cracked inside my chest. Not broke. Breaking was weakness. This was controlled demolition of the last piece of my humanity.
I turned to Matteo. Forty-two years old, three kids, wife who made Sunday gravy. The lieutenant who'd drawn the graveyard shift. Who had failed me when failure meant death.
"You let him pass."
"Don Torrino, I swear I never—"
His denial died when I moved. Three steps closed the distance. My hand found his wrist. Not grabbing. Just resting there like a promise. Then I twisted.
The crack echoed like a gunshot. Cartilage tore. Bone splintered. Matteo hit his knees, clutching his ruined hand, breath coming in animal sounds.
"You were trusted with my house." Each word carved from winter air. "With my sanctuary. With what mattered most."
"Please." Tears mixed with sweat. "I have children."
"And now you have a reminder." I let him cradle his wrist like a broken bird. "Every time you look at that hand, you'll remember what happens when men disappoint me. You'll remember I left you breathing when I could have left you buried. And you'll never fail me again."
He crawled toward the door, leaving blood drops on marble. The others parted, eyes down, terror radiating from their skin.
This was how empires stood. Not through love or loyalty. Those were luxuries for men who didn't rule from shadows. Through fear. Through knowing that crossing Leonardo Torrino meant digging your own grave.
Rico remained. He always did. Steady as stone, loyal as gravity. The only man who'd earned the right to look me in the eye when I painted walls with other men's mistakes.
"What's the order?"
I looked back at the frozen screen. Marco Rossi's face stared out. Weak chin, desperate eyes, the pallor of a dead man who didn't know it yet. His name was already in my private ledger, the red book where every entry ended in silence.
But this wasn't business anymore.
This was personal.
"Bring him to me." My voice stayed level, but underneath something rawer prowled. Something that remembered being sixteen and holding my mother's cooling hand while she slipped away. "Alive. I want my property back. And I want him to understand what it costs to steal from me."
Rico nodded once. His phone appeared, fingers dialing numbers that would wake men from sleep and send them into the night. Hunters following a scent that ended in blood.
I closed the safe, spun the dial, rested my palm against warm steel. The emptiness echoed like a hollow tooth. A wound that wouldn't heal until what was mine came home.
Marco Rossi thought he'd stolen jewelry tonight. Thought he'd grabbed some trinket to pawn for whatever desperate scheme drove him here. Another gamble in a life full of losing bets.
He didn't understand he'd reached into a lion's den and pulled out its heart.
When I took it back, when I made him pay for putting his filthy hands on something sacred, this city would remember why ghosts whispered my name.
Why no one stole from Leonardo Torrino and lived to spend the money.
The hunt was on.