Page 3 of Shattered Engagement

He answers on the first ring.

“Boss.”

“Confirm the details,” I say. “Double-check every name he gave up. I want it airtight.”

“Already on it.”

“Meet me at the club when you’re done.”

“Understood.”

I end the call and settle back into the seat, watching the black stretch of ocean swallow the horizon.

A thin trail of smoke curls toward the cracked window from the cigarette between my fingers. Everything is falling into place, just as I planned.

I tap ash into the dark, a small, cold smile ghosting across my lips.

The pieces are moving nicely, and even major unexpected players I did not suspect are beginning to surface. Soon, the whole board will be mine.

I end the call and toss the phone back onto the seat, the screen going dark like the night pressing in around me.

Smoke coils from the cigarette between my fingers, staining the air with something sharp and bitter. I roll the thought around in my mind, the same way I roll the taste of gunpowder after a fresh kill.

Sal Vieri.

A name that doesn’t make sense—not yet.

It gnaws at the edge of my patience, like an unfinished job itching under the skin. Why would Vieri betray Giancarlo now?

I know why I’m playing this game. I understand every reason, every scar, every ounce of blood I plan to spill when the time is right. My hatred is clean, forged in fire and years of careful silence. But Vieri? He has been deep in Giancarlo’s inner circle for well over a decade now. He is trusted, respected, and feared.

So why fucking now?

The cigarette burns low between my fingers. I flick it out the window and lean back into the heated leather seat, letting the salt air crawl in and settle heavy in my lungs.

Two years ago, Giancarlo had sent us on a job together.

Vieri and I.

A warehouse raid on the outskirts of Palermo—a shipment of his American rifles that some fool thought he could reroute for his own profit. He’d said that either he is given fifty percent of the value of the goods or the federal government will be notified. Giancarlo wanted it handled quietly. No fireworks. No witnesses.

I remember how we worked—silent, brutal efficiency. We didn't need to talk. We knew exactly where to move, how to cover each other, and how to make it clean. Two bodies in the dark, swift as blades.

The only words we exchanged that night were clipped and functional.

"Left."

"Clear."

"Move."

By the time the sun rose, the bodies were stacked neatly like firewood, and the shipment was already on the trucks, heading back to Naples. There were no mistakes. There was no noise.

Giancarlo had been pleased. Vieri and I never spoke about it again, and we were never paired after that.

Not once.

I wondered sometimes if Giancarlo kept his wolves separate for a reason—never letting two strong men build too much trust between them. Divide and control. It's how a man like Giancarlo survives at the top of a growing empire.

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