Page 42 of Silent Vows

“What monastery?” Bella asks, somehow making my rumpled shirt look elegant.

“Saint Benedict’s. It’s been tied to the Calabrese family for generations.” My mind races through implications, possibilities, threats. “Remote, defensible…” I reach for my phone, already calculating. “How many men can we have there in an hour?”

“That’s the problem, Boss.” Antonio’s expression tightens in a way I’ve rarely seen in fifteen years of service. “We just got word—the Families are meeting tonight. They’re voting on whether to recognize your leadership after the video release.”

“Let them vote,” I growl, rage building in my chest. The Families can go to fucking hell. My daughter is being held inthat place, in the same monastery where my father’s sins were supposedly forgiven but really just stored away like ammunition. “My daughter?—”

“Will die if we move too quickly.” Bella’s voice cuts through my rage like a blade, sharp and precise. She moves to the windows, her reflection overlaying the city lights. “Think, Matteo. This is exactly what they want—to force you to choose between Bianca and your power base.”

“She’s right,” Antonio agrees, and something in his tone makes me look closer at him. He’s worried—not just about Bianca, but about something else. “We go in guns blazing, the other Families will see it as proof you’ve lost control. They’ll back Carmine’s play for leadership.”

My hands clench into fists. They’re right, I know they’re right, but the thought of Bianca drugged and alone in that place…Images flash through my mind—Giuseppe emerging from confession with that cruel smile, Father Romano’s knowing looks, the weight of secrets that could destroy everything I’ve built.

Cool fingers link with mine, and I look down to find Bella watching me with those eyes that see too much. Sometimes I wonder if she can read every dark thought, every buried sin, just by looking at me.

“What if we split up?” she suggests, and something in her voice makes my blood run cold.

“What do you mean?” I ask, though I already know. Already hate where this is going.

“You go to the meeting, maintain control of the Families.” Her thumb traces patterns on my palm, somehow both soothing and unsettling. “I’ll go to the monastery with Antonio, do reconnaissance only. No engagement without your order.”

“Absolutely not.” The words come out harsher than intended, but the thought of her anywhere near that place—whereGiuseppe’s darkness still lingers, where Romano keeps his poisonous secrets—makes something primal rise in my chest.

“It makes sense.” She squeezes my hand, and I see Giovanni’s tactical mind in her eyes. “They’ll expect you to send your best men to find Bianca. They won’t expect you to send your wife.”

“Which is exactly why it’s too dangerous.” The windows reflect our image back at us—her still in my shirt, me bare-chested with fresh bandages. We look vulnerable. Human. Everything I can’t afford to be right now.

“More dangerous than letting them take everything you’ve built? Everything you’ve sacrificed to protect?” She steps closer, her voice dropping to that tone that somehow bypasses all my defenses. “Trust me to do this, Matteo. Trust me to help save our family.”

Our family. The words hit me like a truck. This slip of a girl who was forced to marry me less than forty-eight hours ago, who’s lost everything because of me, now claims my broken family as her own. Claims Bianca, despite everything. Despite all the secrets still between us.

“Boss,” Antonio interrupts quietly, “we need to decide. The meeting’s in three hours.”

I study my wife’s face in the soft lighting—the determination in her hazel eyes, the stubborn set of her jaw. She’s not the same girl who walked into my office a week ago. She’s become something more, something dangerous and beautiful and mine.

But sending her to that monastery…The place where Giuseppe’s darkness took root, where Romano keeps decades of DeLuca secrets…

“Two conditions,” I say finally, each word feeling like surrender. “First, you take our best team. No arguments.”

She nods, relief flooding her features. “And second?”

I cup her face in my hands, uncaring of Antonio’s presence. Her skin is warm now, flushed from our earlier activities, alivein a way that makes my chest ache. “Come back to me. No matter what you find there, no matter what secrets come to light. Promise me you’ll come back.”

Something soft crosses her expression—understanding, maybe, of all the things I’m not saying. Of how much I’ve already lost in that place, how much more I stand to lose. “I promise.”

I kiss her then, hard and quick, pouring everything I can’t say into it. My fear for Bianca. My terror of losing her. The weight of secrets that could destroy us all. When we break apart, her eyes are wide with compassion.

“Go,” she whispers, smoothing my shoulders with artist’s hands that now know how to shoot, how to heal, how to love a monster like me. “Show them why you’re the most feared man in New York.”

“And you?” My thumb traces her full bottom lip, memorizing the feel of her in case it’s the last time. In case Romano’s secrets prove too devastating, in case my father’s offenses finally come due.

A dangerous smile curves her mouth—one that would make the old Bella unrecognizable. “I’ll show them why I’m your wife.”

As I watch her leave with Antonio, I try not to think about the last person I sent to that monastery. Try not to remember my father’s words about family and sacrifice and the price of power. Try not to imagine what secrets Romano might whisper in my wife’s ear.

Because some sins can never be forgiven, no matter how many confessions you make.

19

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