CASSIAN

I didn’t yell. I didn’t have the energy for it. "You promised," I said quietly.

Julian looked at the floor. The shame was all over him, thick and heavy. "I know," he whispered.

"How long?"

"Three weeks," he said. I could barely hear him.

"Is it Emilio?" I asked. I felt the cold coming back into my chest, settling in for good this time. "Did he do something else?"

Julian flinched, a small, sharp movement. "I handled it."

It wasn’t a no. I knew exactly what that meant. I didn’t blame him. I didn’t get angry at him. I just got up, crossed the room, and sat down right next to him.

"Give me the rest of it," I said.

He didn’t argue. He reached into his other pocket and handed over the remaining folds.

"No more," I said.

"I know," he whispered. "I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Cassian."

I put my hand on the back of his neck, holding him there, anchoring him to the room and to me.

"Don’t be sorry," I told him. "Just stay."

It was late, the night before everything was supposed to end. We were in bed, the city lights crawling across the ceiling while the rest of the world went about its business.

Julian was even quieter than usual. He was staring up at nothing, his hands tucked under the blanket.

"After tomorrow," I said to the dark, "it’s done."

"You really think he’ll let you go?" Julian asked.

"He doesn’t have a choice. The truce is finished. There’s nothing left for him to hold over us."

There was a long silence. Then Julian asked, "Where would we go?"

The question felt like it opened a hole in my chest, but a good one. "Wherever you want."

"That’s not helpful," he muttered.

"South, maybe," I said. "Somewhere warm. You hate the cold."

"I don’t hate the cold," he argued, though there was no heat in it.

"You sleep in three layers, Julian."

"That’s a personal preference—"

"In July?"

He let out a laugh. It was small and real, the first one I’d heard in weeks.

"Fine. Somewhere warm. What would we do there?"

"What do you want to do?"

He thought about it for a minute. "A restaurant," he said seriously. "I think I’d be good at a restaurant."

"You can barely cook an egg," I reminded him.

"I wouldn’t cook. I’d manage it. I’d be the one at the front. I’m very charming when I want to be."

"You punched a Don’s son a few weeks ago."

"That was professional work," he said, and I could hear the grin in his voice now. "I’d be different. And you could handle the money. You’re frightening enough that no one would ever dream of stealing from us. It’s practical."

I looked at him in the dark. He was smiling, actually smiling. "A restaurant," I repeated.

"Or a bookshop," he said, his grin widening. "Imagine you in a bookshop. People coming in just to browse, and then they see you standing there behind the counter."

"What’s wrong with me in a bookshop?"

"You look like you’ve never read a book that didn’t involve someone dying in the first Chapter," he teased.

"That’s not... entirely wrong," I admitted. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

He started laughing properly then, the sound filling the apartment the way it used to before Emilio, before the truce, before the world got so heavy.

For a moment, everything felt full. It felt like I had everything I ever wanted right there in a space small enough to hold.

He fell asleep in the middle of a sentence about what kind of books I’d be allowed to sell.

His breathing evened out, his face finally looking peaceful in the shadows. I stayed awake, watching the pendant rise and fall on his chest.

I had a plan. It wasn’t new, but in that moment, I decided it was final.

Tomorrow the truce would be over. And Emilio was going to be in the room.

...

The truce was done. The papers were signed, the terms were finalized, and Don Aldo looked like a man who had finally put down a heavy burden.

He was satisfied. He was ready for the war to be over, even if the peace was going to be expensive.

The room started to empty. The representatives filed out, gathering their coats and their pride.

I took my time, slowly stacking my documents and sliding them into my folder. I was calm. I was patient.

Emilio lingered. I could feel him watching me. He wanted an audience, and now that his father was gone, I was the only one left.

He lit a cigarette, the smoke curling toward the ceiling. He didn’t offer me one. "Your man wasn’t here today," he said, his voice casual, like he was talking about the weather.

"No," I said, without looking up.

"The pretty one," Emilio said, a nasty little smile playing on his lips. He looked entirely at ease, the way only people who have never been truly afraid can be. "He sick?"

"He has other work."

Emilio nodded slowly, taking a long drag. "Shame. I was hoping to see him again." He let the word hang there, oily and gross.

I stayed still. My expression didn’t change, but I was listening.

"He’s yours, right? Under you?" Emilio asked.

"He works for the Lorenzo family," I said.

"Sure. Но specifically yours, yeah? You seem... particular about him."

I closed my folder and looked at him. "Is there something else you needed?"

"I’d like to make an arrangement," Emilio said, as if he were ordering a drink at a bar. "For him. Name a price. I’ll pay it."

I looked him right in the eyes. "He’s not for sale."

Emilio shrugged and flicked his cigarette ash onto my side of the table.

He didn’t even notice he’d done it.

"Everything has a price, Cassian. I’m not being unreasonable. I’ve been thinking about him ever since I saw him. He’s..."

He kept talking, and the things he said weren’t the words of a man talking about another person.

He spoke like he was looking at a piece of fruit he wanted to peel.

He used the language of things to be used and thrown away, describing what he wanted to do to Julian with a sickening kind of honesty.

He had no shame. He had no hesitation. He just had a list of things he wanted to buy.

I sat through it all. I didn’t move. I didn’t flinch. I let the pressure build inside me until it felt like the walls of the room were starting to groan.

"So," Emilio finished, spreading his hands. "Name the price. Or I’ll just go straight to Marceli. I think he’d find the arrangement very reasonable."

"The truce is concluded," I said, my voice as flat as a grave. "Thank your father for his time."

I walked out without another word. I didn’t look back. I stood in the empty hallway for eight seconds, letting the silence settle around me.

Then I walked to my car and started the clock.

I didn’t rush. Rushing is how you make mistakes, and this was too important for mistakes.

I reached out to two men I knew. They weren’t family, just people who owed me their lives and knew how to stay in the shadows.

I had them track Emilio for ten days. I wanted to know everything... where he went, who he saw, when his guards took their breaks, and which ones were lazy. Every schedule has a hole in it if you look long enough.

I found the spot. A club on the edge of my territory. The owner didn’t just owe me a favor; he owed me his continued ability to breathe.

I picked the night. I mapped the entries and exits. I prepared alone. I didn’t wear a mask. I looked at myself in the mirror and decided I wanted him to see exactly who was doing this to him. That was the whole point.

Before I left, I stood in the doorway of our bedroom and watched Julian sleep. He looked safe, for the moment. I closed the door quietly and stepped out into the night.

My contact confirmed the timing. The guards were on their rotation. The bathroom was the best window we had.

The men outside the side door didn’t even see me coming. I handled them quickly and quietly. I wasn’t there to prove I could fight; I was there for one specific person, and they were just in the way of the door.

I pushed the bathroom door open. Emilio was there, leaning against the wall, his eyes glazed and his movements slow.

The cocaine and the booze had already done half my work for me. His guards were gone, and the music from the dance floor was just a dull thud through the walls.

I turned the lock behind me. The click was loud in the small room.

Emilio turned around, his brain still trying to catch up to his eyes. Recognition finally hit him when I was already three feet away.

I saw the exact moment he realized what kind of room this had become, and the look on his face was worth every second of the wait.

I didn’t say a word. There was nothing left to say that the next hour wouldn’t say better.

I was patient and wasn’t exploding with rage; I was settled into it. I took my time with every blow. I broke his jaw first.

Then his nose. Then his ribs, one by one.

Each time my fist landed, I thought of Julian’s face in the car, staring at the window.

I thought of the flinch when a door closed. I thought of the white powder in the jacket pocket.

Emilio realized who this was about halfway through. I saw the knowledge in his eyes between one hit and the next.

I didn’t stop until he was a heap on the floor, everything broken that could be broken without ending his life. His face was a red ruin. He was going to be a surgeon’s problem for a long time.

I stood over him, my breath heavy and my hands covered in him. I didn’t feel horror. I didn’t even feel satisfaction. I just felt like a man who had made a decision and had finally seen it through to the end.

I straightened my jacket and checked my watch. The guard rotation ended in four minutes. I walked to the window, the exit I’d mapped out ten days ago, and slipped out into the night.

My car was waiting two blocks away, and behind me, the music of the club just kept playing as if nothing had happened at all.