Chapter 1: Standard Operating Procedure for Unscheduled Demolitions

Matteo Moretti calculated that if he flexed his right hand three millimeters to the left, he could shatter the jaw of the Valenti Syndicate’s chief negotiator before the man’s guard could clear his holster.

He didn’t, because the bespoke charcoal-grey wool of his Brioni suit was dry-clean only, and bone fragments were notoriously difficult to remove from raw silk lining.

Instead, Matteo adjusted his silver cufflinks, maintained a face as cold and blank as fresh marble, and stared at the thirty-six-page ledger spread across the mahogany conference table. Beneath his calm exterior, his brain was operating at eleven thousand cycles per second, running a catastrophic loop of social feedback.

Did I hold eye contact three seconds too long? Should I have taken the espresso they offered, or did refusing it make me look like an unhinged paranoid? Is my tie straight? If I move my neck, will they notice the micro-twitch in my collar?

“The Riviera’s revenue split remains non-negotiable at sixty-forty,” Matteo said, his voice dropping into that smooth, low baritone that made rival captains sign away their shipping docks just to make him stop talking. “The Moretti family handles the gaming floor, the shell accounts, and the high-stakes lines of credit. You take security for the docks, the front-of-house valet, and the perimeter.”

“Sixty-forty?”

The voice didn’t come from the negotiator. It came from the far corner of the boardroom, where a pair of combat boots had been resting comfortably on a five-thousand-dollar velvet armchair for the past twenty minutes.

Valentina Valenti swung her legs down. Her leather jacket groaned against the leather upholstery as she stood up, shoulders squared, hazel eyes burning with a light that usually preceded an explosion or a hospital visit. A sleek, black tactical dagger was balanced precariously between her index and middle fingers, flipping in effortless, dizzying spins.

“You’re out of your absolute fucking mind, Moretti,” she snarled, taking three long, deliberate strides toward the table. “You think my people are going to bleed on the pavement protecting your shiny little casino while you sit in a glass tower counting chip stacks? Fifty-fifty. Or I take this dagger and pin your thirty-thousand-dollar ledger to that preachy face of yours.”

Matteo’s heart leaped into his throat. His pulse spiked to one hundred and twenty beats per minute.

She’s looking at me. She’s looking directly at my eyes. She is six feet away. Her hair is bright red. Why is it so bright? Is it dyed? It looks soft. No, stop. Focus. You are the Architect. You don’t get flustered by women who threaten to stab you in the cheek. Speak slowly. Lower the register. Don’t stutter.

Matteo slowly turned his head, fixing her with a gaze that had driven three capos out of the state of Illinois.

“The ledger cost forty-two hundred dollars, Ms. Valenti,” Matteo said smoothly, his posture rigid. “And your family’s logistics department has an error margin of twelve point four percent on quarterly inventory. You couldn’t balance a checkbook, let alone manage a billion-dollar skim without setting off a Treasury audit. Sixty-forty is an act of charity.”

Valentina’s nostrils flared. A dark crimson flush crept up her throat, spreading across her sharp cheekbones.

Charity?

Inside her chest, Valentina’s internal organs were performing a violent, uncoordinated floor exercise.

Look at him, her mind shrieked, instantly abandoning all tactical awareness to focus entirely on the fact that Matteo Moretti looked like a goddamn sculpture carved by a painter who hated everyone. His hair was slicked back without a single stray strand, his jawline could slice bread, and his dark grey eyes were staring at her with the absolute, utter lack of emotion that usually meant a man was about to order a hit.

He thinks I’m stupid. He thinks I’m a loud, brainless butcher who can’t read a ledger. I am going to tear his throat out. Why is he standing so close? Why does he smell like expensive cedarwood and silver polish? It’s nauseating. I hate it. I want to punch his gorgeous nose into the back of his brain.

“Call me ‘charity’ again, underboss,” Valentina hissed, leaning over the table until her face was inches from his. She could see the faint silver ring around his pupils. “And I’ll feed that fountain pen down your windpipe.”

“That would violate Article Four of the Obsidian Riviera Charter,” Matteo replied without blinking, though his brain was currently screaming: CLOSE! TOO CLOSE! SHE IS IN THE PERIPHERAL ZONE! HER FRAGRANCE IS CITRUS AND GUN OIL! AM I BREATHING TOO LOUDLY? SHOULD I STEP BACK? IF I STEP BACK, IT SHOWS WEAKNESS! IF I STAY, OUR NOSES WILL TOUCH! “As joint General Managers, physical assault within forty-eight hours of signing triggers an immediate forfeiture of managerial equity to the neutral board.”

Valentina’s grip tightened on her dagger. “I will forfeit your equity into the Chicago River.”

“Children, please,” a raspy, nicotine-shredded voice cut through the air.

Don Lorenzo Valenti sat at the head of the table, his heavily scarred hand resting on the head of a gold-capped cane. Beside him, Don Carmine Moretti—Matteo’s father—simply took a slow sip of his espresso, his aged eyes cold and assessing.

“The deal is signed,” Carmine said, his voice flat, carrying the absolute weight of forty years of blood-soaked authority. “The Obsidian Riviera is open as of midnight. The city is hot. The feds are crawling up our tailpipes, and Viktor Vance’s rogue outfit is trying to carve out the West Side while we waste time dick-measuring in boardrooms.”

Carmine pointed a thick, liver-spotted finger at Matteo, then at Valentina.

“You two are the public face of the truce. You run the floor together. You sign the receipts together. And to make sure Vance or any other low-level ambitious bastard doesn’t get the idea that this alliance is weak…” Carmine paused, leaning forward. “You live together. Penthouse floor. Starting tonight.”

Valentina froze. The dagger slipped off her finger and clattered loudly against the polished mahogany.

“What?” she choked out, her aggressive bark completely shattering into a high-pitched squeak. “Live—with him? In the same—are you insane? Father, tell me he’s senile! Tell me you didn’t agree to this!”

Don Lorenzo didn’t look up from his pocket watch. “It’s done, Valentina. A joint command structure requires absolute visibility. If you two are seen entering and leaving the same private residence every day, the street assumes the families are locked at the hip. If Vance tries to strike, he has to take out both heir-apparents at once—which he doesn’t have the muscle to do.”

“I have a condo!” Valentina yelled, her voice echoing off the glass walls. “I have three safehouses! I have an armory in Cicero! I am not moving into a glorified hotel room with a robotic suit-wrapper who probably vacuums his socks!”

Matteo felt his throat lock up. Living together? A shared space? A shared kitchen? What if she sees me without my jacket? What if I drop something? What if she notices that I spend twenty minutes in the morning staring at the bathroom wall trying to mentally prepare myself for human interaction?

“Father,” Matteo said, maintaining his low, controlled cadence through pure, agonizing willpower. “From an operational standpoint, a dual-occupancy arrangement in a high-profile location increases our exposure to direct surveillance by twenty-two percent. It would be far more efficient if—”

“It is not a request, Matteo,” Carmine interrupted, placing his coffee cup back on the saucer with a sharp clink. “You spent five years designing the security grid for the Riviera. You know every blind spot, every elevator shaft, every thermal sensor. If you can’t keep yourself and the Valenti girl alive in your own fortress, you aren’t fit to take my seat.”

Carmine stood up, buttoning his coat. Don Lorenzo followed suit, supported by two hulking bodyguards who looked vastly uncomfortable standing near Valentina.

“The penthouse keycards are on the table,” Lorenzo said, glancing at his daughter with a stern, warning look. “Try not to shoot him before the ribbon-cutting ceremony tomorrow, Valentina. It’s bad for the stock price.”

The two mob bosses exited the boardroom, their heavy retinues flowing out behind them like a dark tide. The heavy oak doors clicked shut, leaving a suffocating silence in the room.

Matteo stood like a statue on one side of the table. Valentina stood on the other, panting slightly, her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at her sides.

Say something, Matteo’s mind screamed at him. Say something professional. Say something calm. Establish boundaries. Tell her about the linen closet.

“I do not vacuum my socks,” Matteo said.

Valentina whipped her head around to glare at him. “Shut up!” she snapped, her face burning hotter than a road flare. “Just… shut your mouth, Moretti!”

She snatched the golden keycard off the table, spun on her heel, and stormed toward the exit, her heavy boots pounding against the hardwood floor.

Matteo watched her go, his eyes fixated on the violent swish of her red ponytail until the door slammed behind her.

He waited precisely four seconds until he was sure the hallway was clear. Then, slowly, carefully, Matteo reached down, picked up his silk handkerchief, wiped a tiny, invisible speck of dust off his cuff, and let out a long, silent breath that felt like a localized lung collapse.

“I am going to die,” he murmured to the empty room. “She is going to stab me in my sleep, and I am going to let her because I won’t know how to ask her to stop without sounding rude.”

The penthouse of the Obsidian Riviera was less of an apartment and more of a private fortress disguised as an architectural masterpiece. Spanning the entire forty-fifth floor, it featured floor-to-ceiling smart-glass windows overlooking the glittering, dark expanse of Lake Michigan, Italian marble floors, a kitchen that looked like it had been designed for a Michelin-star chef, and a wrap-around balcony equipped with integrated Kevlar-mesh blinds and concealed gun ports.

At 9:00 PM, Matteo stepped out of the private elevator. Behind him, Enzo—his eight-foot-tall chief of security, whose face looked like it had been constructed from bruised concrete—carried two pristine, silver-rimmed leather suitcases.

“Where do you want these, Boss?” Enzo asked, his voice a gravelly rumble.

“The master suite on the left,” Matteo said, striding toward the central living room. “Check the perimeter feeds again. I want the thermal cameras on the east stairwell re-calibrated. Viktor Vance’s men were spotted near the docks two hours ago. They are testing our response times.”

“Understood,” Enzo said. He paused, looking toward the far wing of the penthouse. A loud, violent crash echoed from behind the closed doors of the second master suite, followed by a stream of colorful Italian curses.

Enzo’s eyebrows twitched slightly. “Should I… go assist?”

“No,” Matteo said instantly, his posture stiffening. “Ms. Valenti is merely… unpacking.”

“Right,” Enzo said stoically. “Also, Boss… I took the liberty of setting up the supply delivery you requested earlier.”

Enzo gestured toward the oversized, stainless-steel refrigerator in the kitchen.

Matteo cleared his throat, suddenly looking intensely fascinated by the subtle grain pattern of the marble island. “Did you secure the exact brands?”

“Yes, Boss. Four cases of the sour gummy worms she likes. The ones with the extra blue-raspberry ones. Three boxes of those trashy processed cheese crackers. And the specific brand of cherry soda from the corner bodega in Little Italy that isn’t distributed north of 26th Street.” Enzo didn’t lift an eyebrow. “I had two men clear out a local convenience store at gunpoint to get the soda.”

“We do not hold bodega owners at gunpoint for soft drinks, Enzo,” Matteo said tightly, his ears turning a faint shade of pink. “We pay them triple the retail value.”

“We paid them triple, then held them at gunpoint so they wouldn’t tell anyone who bought it,” Enzo corrected smoothly. “It’s stacked on the bottom shelf behind the organic mineral water.”

“Good,” Matteo muttered, pulling a pen from his breast pocket and clicking it three times—a subtle nervous habit he only permitted himself when no one was looking. “Ensure she does not see you placing them there. She will assume it is an insult to her dietary habits.”

“She’s currently punching a hole through her walk-in closet wall, Boss. I don’t think she’s monitoring the refrigerator.” Enzo gave a brief, subtle nod. “I’ll be on the floor below. Call if there’s gunfire.”

Enzo disappeared back into the elevator, leaving Matteo alone in the vast, echoing silence of the penthouse.

Matteo stood in the kitchen for a moment. He looked at the sleek silver refrigerator door.

Is it weird? he thought, his brain immediately plunging into a dark spiral of self-doubt. It’s weird. It’s completely creepy. She’s going to open the fridge, see her favorite childhood snacks, realize I cross-referenced her security file and credit history to find out what she eats when she’s stressed, and she’s going to execute me for stalking. I should throw them away. I should toss them over the balcony.

Before he could take a step toward the fridge, the door to the right wing burst open.

Valentina marched out, wearing a baggy gray t-shirt, black combat pants, and no shoes. Her fiery hair was pulled back into a messy, lopsided bun held together by what appeared to be a tactical pen. She looked exhausted, enraged, and wildly out of place against the sleek, hyper-modern aesthetic of the penthouse.

She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Matteo standing in the middle of the kitchen, still wearing his full three-piece suit, his tie perfectly centered, looking like he was about to address the United Nations.

“Why are you still dressed like that?” she demanded, throwing her hands up. “It’s nine o’clock at night! Do you sleep in that suit? Do you shower in it?”

Matteo straightened his spine. “I was reviewing the operational logistics for tomorrow’s grand opening.”

“Of course you were,” Valentina groaned, stomping toward the kitchen island. “Because you’re a robot. A high-strung, hair-gelled robot built by cold-hearted accountants.”

She yanked open the giant stainless-steel refrigerator door, clearly intending to grab a bottle of water and slam it back shut.

Instead, she froze.

Her eyes slowly widened. Her hand remained glued to the handle.

On the bottom shelf, meticulously organized in neat, perfectly aligned rows, were six two-liter bottles of Don’s Cherry Fizz—a cheap, wildly unhealthy local soda that was almost impossible to find outside of her old neighborhood. Next to them was a plastic container filled with sour gummy worms, sorted so that the blue-and-red ones were prominently displayed at the front, and three boxes of cheddar crackers.

Valentina stared at the shelf. Her brain stalled.

What… what is this?

She looked at the soda. She hadn’t seen Don’s Cherry Fizz since her mother died eight years ago. The local bodega owner in Little Italy had stopped stocking it three months ago because the distribution company collapsed.

She slowly turned her head to look at Matteo.

Matteo was standing perfectly still, his hands clasped firmly behind his back, staring intently at a high-end espresso machine on the counter as if praying it would suddenly burst into flames and swallow him whole.

“Moretti,” Valentina said, her voice dropping its harsh edge, replaced by a sudden, dangerous confusion. “What is this?”

“It is a refrigerator,” Matteo said, his voice dropping an octave into pure, emotionless stoicism. “It uses vapor-compression refrigeration to lower the internal temperature, thereby preserving perishable food items.”

Valentina squinted at him, her hazel eyes searching his stone-like face. “Why is there cherry soda from 26th Street in here?”

“The property manager stocked the amenities based on standardized hospitality protocols,” Matteo lied smoothly, his pulse hammer-forging against his ribs. Lie better. Make it sound corporate. “It is common practice in luxury accommodations to offer regional soft drink options to high-value occupants.”

“Regional soft drinks?” Valentina repeated, stepping closer to him. “It’s a five-dollar case of trash soda made of high-fructose corn syrup and red dye number forty! You can’t get this at a luxury resort! You can only get this at Pop’s Corner Store behind the auto body shop in Cicero!”

Matteo did not move a muscle. “Then the property manager was exceptionally thorough in his procurement process. I shall leave him a positive review.”

Valentina stared at him. She looked at his face—his completely blank, unreadable, terrifyingly calm face—and then down at the blue sour gummy worms.

He did this, her brain realized with a violent, terrifying jolt. He fucking looked up what I eat. He sent someone to Cicero to buy trash soda and candy for me.

A sudden, overwhelming wave of heat surged straight to her face. Her chest tightened. Her stomach felt like it had dropped out of the bottom of the building.

Why is he doing this? she panicked internally, her hands trembling slightly. Is this a mind game? Is he trying to poison me? No, if he wanted to poison me, he’d use cyanide, not cherry soda! Is he… is he being nice? Why is he being nice? I don’t know how to handle nice! I know how to handle knives! I know how to handle shootouts! I don’t know what to do when a terrifying six-foot-three mobster buys me blue gummy worms!

“You’re full of shit!” Valentina blurted out, her defense mechanisms firing at maximum capacity to cover her absolute humiliation. She grabbed a bottle of soda and a box of crackers, slamming the fridge door shut with enough force to rattle the tempered glass shelves. “You think you can soft-talk me with junk food, Moretti? You think you can lull me into a false sense of security so I drop my guard?”

“I have no desire to lull you, Ms. Valenti,” Matteo said, his voice clipped, though internally he was suffering a complete system breakdown. She knows. She hates it. She thinks I’m trying to manipulate her. I am an idiot. I should have ordered sparkling water from France.

“Good!” Valentina snapped, clutching the soda bottle to her chest like a shield. “Because I sleep with a knife under my pillow! And if I catch you slinking around my hallway in the middle of the night, I’ll carve my initials into your expensive lapels!”

“That would be a structural waste of fine wool,” Matteo said softly. “Goodnight, Valentina.”

Valentina blinked, caught off guard by the sudden use of her first name. It sounded strange coming from him—too low, too warm, too… gentle.

She flushed crimson, backed away three steps, nearly tripped over her own bare feet, recovered with a clumsy, violent flail of her arms, and bolted into her bedroom, slamming the heavy wooden door so hard the ambient lighting fixtures flickered.

Matteo remained in the kitchen.

He waited three full minutes. Then, slowly, he raised his hand and pressed his knuckles against his forehead.

“I am never going to survive this,” he whispered to the empty room.

At 2:15 AM, the penthouse was pitch black, save for the soft, blue ambient glow of the lakefront skyline filtering through the floor-to-ceiling glass.

Matteo was not sleeping.

Sitting at the heavy glass desk in his bedroom, lit only by the pale glare of three security monitors, he was silently re-routing the Riviera’s structural schematics. He had removed his jacket and waistcoat, rolling his crisp white shirt sleeves up to his elbows, revealing long, corded muscles and a thick tactical holster strapped across his shoulder.

On the central monitor, a thermal feed displayed the perimeter of the 45th floor.

A tiny, bright orange mass was currently sprawled sideways across the bed in the guest wing. Valentina had been tossing and turning for three hours. Matteo had been monitoring her heat signature with the detached, analytical focus of a man tracking a tactical threat—or a man who was desperately worried she wasn’t sleeping well.

Suddenly, his console flashed a faint, silent yellow alert.

Matteo’s eyes narrowed instantly.

On the lower-level thermal feed, three figures had just cleared the service elevator on the 43rd floor. They were moving in a low, disciplined tactical stack. They weren’t using the primary guest shafts; they had bypassed the secondary keycard locks using a military-grade signal cloner.

Vance’s hit squad, Matteo analyzed instantly. Three men. Suppressed submachine guns. Thermal imaging gear. They aren’t here to vandalize. They’re here to clear the penthouse before the grand opening.

Matteo stood up in one fluid, silent motion. His hands moved with terrifying, practiced speed. He reached into his desk drawer, unclipped his custom matte-black SIG Sauer P226, checked the magazine with a quiet click, and pulled a suppressed pistol from his shoulder harness.

He didn’t activate the building alarms. A public alarm would create panic on the lower hotel floors and give the infiltrators a chance to fall back into the crowd.

He was going to end them here.

He slipped out of his room, his socked feet moving across the marble floor without making a single sound. He moved like a ghost, fading into the shadow of the structural pillars near the private penthouse elevator shaft.

The elevator chimed—a low, muted tone that Matteo had hacked earlier that evening to reduce its volume by eighty percent.

The heavy steel doors slid open.

The three hitmen swept out in a tight wedge formation, low to the ground, silenced MP5s raised, night-vision goggles strapped over their helmets.

The lead hitman didn’t even see Matteo.

Matteo stepped out from behind the marble pillar, stepped into the lead man’s blind spot, grabbed the barrel of the MP5, yanked it downward, and drove the heel of his palm directly into the man’s throat. The hitman’s larynx collapsed with a muffled crunch, and he dropped like a sack of wet concrete.

Before the second man could swing his weapon around, Matteo seized the falling hitman’s shoulder, using the dying man as a human shield as the second shooter panicked and fired a silent burst of 9mm rounds into his comrade’s back.

Matteo stepped through the gunfire, grabbed the second man’s wrist, twisted it until the bone shattered through the tactical glove, and drove his suppressed SIG Sauer beneath the man’s chin.

Thwip.

The second shooter went limp.

The third hitman, realizing he was dealing with an anomaly, dropped his gun, drew a heavy combat blade, and lunged directly for Matteo’s neck with a vicious, upward arc.

Matteo leaned back half an inch, letting the blade slice through empty air. He raised his pistol to align the sight between the man’s eyes—

WHAM.

A heavy, stainless-steel cocktail shaker flew through the darkness at eighty miles an hour, striking the third hitman squarely in the side of the head with a sickening CRACK.

The hitman stumbled sideways, dazed, blood pouring from his ear.

Before he could recover, a blur of red hair and dark leather burst out of the hallway shadows. Valentina leaped onto the hitman’s back like a rabid shadow, wrapping her bare legs around his waist, driving a heavy tactical dagger straight through the shoulder seam of his body armor, pinning his nerve cluster.

The hitman screamed, dropping to his knees.

Valentina slammed the butt of her dagger into his temple, knocking him instantly unconscious. He collapsed forward, and Valentina rolled off his back, coming to a crouch on the blood-spattered floor, breathing heavily, a second knife already glinting in her left hand.

She whipped her head up, her eyes wide, wild, and furious, searching for more targets.

Her hazel eyes locked onto Matteo.

Matteo stood six feet away, his suppressed pistol still held at perfect low-ready position. He was completely unruffled. His white shirt was pristine, save for a tiny drop of blood on his rolled-up sleeve. His dark hair was slightly messy from the movement, falling over his forehead in a rare moment of disorder that made him look absurdly, dangerously attractive.

They stared at each other in the dim light of the penthouse.

The silence returned, heavy and suffocating, broken only by the sound of Valentina’s rapid breathing.

Valentina looked down at the three unconscious or dead hitmen spread across their foyer floor. She looked at her cocktail shaker lying in a dented heap near the elevator. Then she looked back up at Matteo.

“You…” she panted, her voice trembling with a mixture of adrenaline and pure, unadulterated fury. “You didn’t wake me up!”

Matteo blinked. What?

“I had the situation under control,” Matteo said, his voice dropping into its baseline, calm, analytical drone. “Their tactical approach was sub-optimal. They failed to check the blind spot behind the structural support pillar.”

“I don’t give a shit about their tactical approach!” Valentina yelled, jumping to her feet, pointing her blood-stained dagger at his chest. “You fought off three armed assassins in our living room while I was in the back eating gummy worms and watching television! You didn’t even call for backup!”

“You were resting,” Matteo said simply, his dark eyes meeting hers with unwavering intensity. “Your heart rate has been elevated all evening. You required sleep.”

Valentina’s brain slammed to a complete halt.

He… he left me in my room because he wanted me to sleep?

The adrenaline in her blood suddenly mixed with a massive, terrifying wave of embarrassment. Her face flamed hotter than a blast furnace.

“I am a syndicate enforcer!” she shrieked, her voice echoing off the Kevlar-reinforced windows. “I don’t need ‘rest’! I don’t need you to fight my battles while I take a nap! I am supposed to be protecting this floor with you!”

“You threw a cocktail shaker with exceptional velocity and accuracy,” Matteo noted politely, his eye twitching slightly as he forced himself not to look at how flushed her face was, or how her tight tank top accented her toned shoulders. “It was… an effective tactical intervention.”

“Don’t you dare patronize me!” Valentina stomped toward him, pointing the dagger inches from his nose. “If someone comes into this penthouse to kill us, we kill them together! Got it? You don’t get to play the tragic, silent hero who handles the bad guys in his dress shirt while I’m in the other room!”

Matteo looked down at the blade near his face. Then he looked down at her bare feet.

“Your feet are cold,” he said softly.

Valentina froze. She looked down at her toes resting on the ice-cold marble floor.

“What?” she whispered, utterly derailed.

Without a word, Matteo safely re-holstered his pistol, stepped around her knife, walked over to the hallway closet, pulled out a pair of thick, plush dark-grey wool slippers, walked back, and placed them neatly on the floor in front of her.

“The sub-floor heating system in the east wing is currently undergoing maintenance,” Matteo explained, his tone completely flat, as if he were presenting a financial forecast. “Exposing your extremities to cold stone reduces peripheral circulation and slows tactical reaction time by four percent.”

Valentina looked at the slippers. They were ridiculously soft, far too high-end for a mob safehouse, and clearly brand new.

She looked up at Matteo.

He was staring at the wall three inches above her left ear, his hands tucked neatly into his pockets, his posture rigid, his jaw clenched tightly as if waiting for an explosion.

He bought me slippers, her mind screamed in absolute, chaotic terror. He killed two hitmen, saved my life, bought me trash soda, and now he’s giving me warm slippers because he thinks my feet are cold.

I am going to kill him. I am going to marry him. I am going to shoot him in the knee.

“I hate you,” Valentina choked out, her voice raspy, her face burning so hot she felt like she was going to faint. “I hate you so much, Moretti.”

“I am aware,” Matteo said softly, still staring at the wall. “Please wear the slippers. The floor is cold.”

Valentina stomped her feet straight into the ridiculously comfortable wool slippers, grabbed her dented cocktail shaker off the ground, and turned back toward her room.

Before she reached the hallway, she stopped and looked back over her shoulder. Matteo had already pulled out his phone, calmly dialing his cleanup crew to remove the bodies before the sun came up.

“Moretti,” she called out.

Matteo paused, lowering the phone. “Yes?”

Valentina glared at him, her hazel eyes dangerous, wild, and utterly conflicted.

“Tomorrow at the ribbon-cutting,” she snarled, “if you wear that grey suit again… I’m going to rip the tie off.”

Matteo’s heart dropped into his stomach. His throat seized.

Is that… a threat? Or an observation on my wardrobe? Does she dislike grey? Should I wear black? Is black too formal? What does she mean by ‘rip the tie off’?

Before he could formulate a single grammatically correct sentence, Valentina slammed her bedroom door shut again.

Matteo stood in the middle of the foyer, surrounded by three dead hitmen, wearing his white dress shirt, staring at her closed door.

Slowly, very carefully, he raised his phone back to his ear.

“Enzo,” Matteo said, his voice trembling by a fraction of a millimeter.

“Yes, Boss?” Enzo’s voice came through the receiver. “Is the perimeter breach cleared?”

“The breach is cleared,” Matteo said smoothly. “Also… order twenty more pairs of those wool slippers. And clear my schedule for tomorrow morning. I need to consult a tailor about alternative neckwear options.”

“Understood, Boss,” Enzo replied without missing a beat. “Should I also prep the tactical explosives for the West Side docks?”

“Yes,” Matteo said, his eyes darkening as he stared down at the hitman’s tactical radio lying on the floor, currently emitting a faint static hiss from Viktor Vance’s frequency. “It appears Viktor Vance believes he can disturb my house. Send a message to his front office.”

Matteo clicked his phone shut, adjusted his silver cufflinks, and stepped over the corpse on the floor.

“Nobody interrupts my routine,” he murmured softly to himself, his stoic mask slamming back into place. “And nobody makes her feet cold.”