Page 227 of Untamed

Dante notices. Of course he does. He doesn’t comment, just continues.

“The Mancini’s are quiet. Too quiet. We need eyes on Giana’s brothers, especially Silvio and Santino. They’ll be the ones moving first, if anyone does.”

I nod again. “Double the surveillance. And anyone even remotely tied to them, I want names, routes, habits. We lock the city down from the inside out.”

I pause for a beat.

“And no one gets within a mile of her,” I add, quietly.

No one questions who I mean. Dante just dips his chin. “Already on it.”

I reach for the espresso in front of me but don’t drink it. My hand hovers for a second too long, and the silence stretches.

Because I’m not thinking about the Mancini’s.

I’m thinking about her.

About the way she looked this morning when she kissed my shoulder to wake me. About how she whispered“Buona fortuna, Bestia”against my skin like I was the one walking into something dangerous.

My phone buzzes again. I ignore it this time.

But the fire’s already there, gnawing in my chest. A heat I know how to channel. Into control. Into strategy. Into the kind of calculated brutality that keeps empires from falling.

I set the espresso cup down without drinking, then lean back in my chair.

“Give us the room.”

Chairs scrape. Papers shuffle. No one argues.

Within seconds, it’s just me and Dante. The door clicks shut behind the last man, and the silence that follows is heavier and more suffocating than before.

Dante crosses his arms, gaze still on the map.

“You’re not just prepping for defence,” he says. “You’re planning to strike.”

I nod once. “Luciano made his move when he tried to hand me off like livestock. The Moretti’s made theirs the second they thought they had a claim on her. Now it’s my turn.”

Dante tilts his head. “You going scorched earth?”

“I’m going surgical,” I say, voice low. “Every weakness they have, we exploit. Every ally they’ve grown too comfortable with, we turn or break. I don’t want noise, I want precision.”

His eyes narrow slightly, considering. “And Luciano?”

I look at the red marks on the map. Pins. Lines. Supply chains.

“He’s still a step ahead politically. But not emotionally. He’s counting on me being impulsive. So we give him the opposite.”

Dante nods. “Controlled chaos.”

I glance at my phone again, still dark now.

“She started work today,” I mutter.

He lifts a brow. “You sure it’s smart letting her go off like that?”

“I don’t like it, but she needed something that wasn’t this,” I say. “And I needed to see if our leash on her safety is tight enough.”

“Is it?”

---