Chapter 7
Elena's POV
The scent of gunpowder and blood clung to my skin long after we left the alley. It didn't matter how many times I pulled the trigger—death had a way of sticking to you.
Aiden hadn't said a word since we got back to the estate. Not when we stepped into the sleek black car waiting outside Club Verona. Not when we drove through the winding roads leading back to my family's stronghold.
Silence sat heavy between us, thick like the smoke curling from his cigarette.
Marco Vescovi was dead, and with him, the fragile balance between our families had shattered. Elias met us at the estate gates, his usual smirk absent. His gaze flicked to Aiden, then back to me, as if assessing the weight of what we had just done.
"You did it?" His voice was quieter than usual.
I nodded. "He didn't see it coming." Elias exhaled, running a hand through his hair. "Then we don't have much time." No. We didn't.
Because by the time the Vescovis found Marco's body, they'd be out for blood, and we were first on their list.
I didn't sleep that night. I spent hours staring at the city below from my bedroom window, watching the orange glow of streetlights flicker over the rooftops. Verona was restless, always alive, but tonight, there was an edge to it - like the city could sense the blood spilled on its streets.
Aiden was somewhere in the house, probably going through the same thoughts I was. He hadn't spoken much since we left the club, but I felt the weight of his silence.
He wasn't afraid of what we had done, but I knew him well enough to recognize when a man was waiting for the fallout: it was definitely coming.
A knock at my door snapped me out of my thoughts. Elias stood there, arms crossed.
"They're moving," he said. The words sent a chill down my spine. "How fast?" I asked.
Elias stepped inside, his voice dropping lower. "We got word from our guy inside the Vescovi inner circle. Matteo Vescovi is calling in reinforcements." Of course, he was.
Matteo wasn't just Marco's father—he was the real power in the Vescovi family, and now that I had taken his son off the board, he would come for me with everything in his possession.
The war room was already buzzing with activity when I walked in. Aiden was there, leaning against the table, studying a map of the city like it held the answers to everything.
His gaze flicked to me as I entered. "Elias told you?" I nodded. "How bad is it?"
Aiden exhaled, tapping a cigarette against the table, but he didn't light it. "They're bringing in people from Milan; hired guns. Matteo isn't waiting—he's coming for your head before you can make another move."
I swallowed down the unease curling in my stomach. "How much time do we have?"
Elias cut in. "Less than twenty-four hours, maybe less." Not enough.
Aiden's gaze hardened. "We need to hit them first." Elias scoffed. "And do what? Storm their estate?"
"No," I said, my mind already racing. "We don't go after the estate, we go after Matteo's business", because at the end of the day, this war wasn't about family, it was about power, and if we wanted to hurt Matteo, we didn't have to kill him. We just had to cripple him.
Aiden's lips curled into a smirk, the first real emotion I'd seen from him all night.
"I like the way you think", he commented
Matteo Vescovi had his hands in a lot of things; drugs, Real estate, arms deals, but his biggest money-maker was an illegal shipment operation that ran through the Port of Venice.
That was where we would hit him.
Elias had his doubts.
"This is risky," he muttered as we loaded into the blacked-out SUVs. I slid a knife into my thigh holster, then pulled my coat over it. "Everything we do is risky."
Aiden leaned against the car, watching me with an unreadable expression.He hadn't argued with the plan, which meant he agreed with it, or he just wanted to watch it burn.
The drive to the docks was quiet; the kind of quiet that precedes chaos.
The Port of Venice was a sprawling maze of shipping containers, stacked high like a graveyard of stolen goods.
Matteo's men were everywhere, patrolling the docks with guns half-hidden beneath their coats. We had one job tonight—blow the shipment, send a message.
We moved quickly, slipping between shadows, planting the explosives where they would do the most damage. It was almost too easy until it wasn't.
A gunshot cracked through the silence.
I whirled, heart slamming into my ribs.
Aiden had already moved, shoving me behind a stack of crates as bullets tore through the air. "Guess they knew we were coming," he muttered. No time to figure out how.
I pulled my gun, my pulse steady despite the chaos. I had been born into this life, raised in it, and I had no intention of dying tonight.
A figure moved in the darkness, flanking us.
I didn't hesitate; I squeezed the trigger.
The man dropped, his body collapsing into the water below. Aiden let out a low chuckle, still crouched beside me. "Remind me never to piss you off." I didn't smile because I didn't have the luxury of it.
Another wave of men was coming. We had seconds, "Aiden," I warned.
He nodded, pulling a detonator from his pocket. "Time to go." We ran.
The explosion ripped through the docks behind us, sending fire and chaos into the night sky.It was beautiful in a way, and it was only the beginning.
Back at the estate, silence settled between us again. Aiden poured himself a drink, the ice clinking against the glass. "Matteo's going to retaliate", he said. I nodded, exhaling slowly. "I know."
This war wasn't over; It had just begun, and the next move was mine.