Page 40 of Vows Made in Silence
That voice.
I haven’t heard it in over a decade, but I’d know it anywhere—smooth, venom-laced it's Vittorio's consigliere. Anthony Gallo.
Leo straightens instantly, grabbing the radio, but I’m already lunging toward it. “Where is he? Where’s my son?”
Gallo chuckles through the static, low and slow. “So many questions, Giuliana. But you’re not really in a position to demand anything, are you?”
I slam my fist on the table. “You think this is a game?”
“Everything’s a game,” he replies, his tone maddeningly calm. “And you were the opening move.”
Leo signals for a trace. One of his techs starts working silently beside us.
“I swear to God, if you hurt him—” I start.
“Oh, I haven’t touched him,” Gallo interrupts. “Yet. But I will say, the boy’s brave. Got fire in his eyes. Reminds me of you.”
My hand grips the edge of the table so tightly I feel the metal bite into my palm.
Leo's eyes flick to the screen. “We’re close. Stall him.”
I force my voice steady. “What do you want, Anthony?”
His answer chills me.
“Everything. And it starts with you.”
—
My voice cracks, but I don’t let it falter. “Then you’ve already lost. Because you’ll never get me, and you sure as hell won’t keep him.”
There’s a long pause—dead air stretching like a wire about to snap.
“Oh, Giuliana. Still so defiant. Still so naive.”
He lowers his tone, softer now, more sinister. “Do you know what it feels like to watch from the sidelines by the very family you helped build?
Leo grabs the comm and under his breath, “He’s unraveling. We’ve got his location—twenty minutes out, west of Summerlin. Warehouse district.”
Turk’s voice slices through the background, deadly calm: “Copy that.”
“Patch Luca in,” I bark, turning to the tech. “Now.”
Leo nods. The tech flips a switch. Another radio crackles.
I look back to the mic. “You want vengeance, Anthony? Then come get me. But leave my son out of it.”
His laughter is low and hollow. “But Giuliana... It's too late for that. He screamed your name the moment we took him. Fought like hell—bit one of my men hard enough to draw blood.”
He pauses, then spits the words like venom. “You want to know why, Giuliana? Because I offered blood to the Moretti family,and it went unnoticed. A favor here, a whisper there—and suddenly, you come out of nowhere sliding into my life.
Vittorio saw you visiting the gallery on a school field trip and it set his wheels in motion. Six months later I walked into the gallery and I was replaced. I was left out in the cold like a leper. Watching everything I built in the hands of a woman who did nothing to earn it but spread her legs and pop out a grandson! You didn’t earn their loyalty, Giuliana—you stole it.
His voice hardens further, dark with betrayal. “You think you were just some innocent casualties in this war? Vittorio protected you. After everything I did—years of loyalty, laundering blood money through canvases, curating fake legitimacy in museums, making his empire worth billions in the art world—he still chose you.
And while I scraped by, he funneled resources behind the curtain. Rerouted shipments. Collapsed contracts. Quiet sabotage, all to keep you safe and your bastard son a secret.”
Anthony’s voice dropped to a growl, seething with a venom years in the making. “Do you have any idea how much you both cost me? Millions along with my reputation.
