The ballroom was still roaring when i re-entered. Laughter and strings swelled beneath chandeliers bright enough to blind a man who lived in shadows. I had stood at enough of these celebrations to know the rhythm. Clinking glasses, rehearsed smiles, business whispered between dances. I usually found it tolerable in the way a hunter tolerated camouflage: a necessary disguise. Tonight, though, the noise scraped at me.
My mind kept drifting to the girl outside and it annoyed me.
I poured myself a measure of whiskey and barely tasted it, watching people mill around and bow to me but i did not really see them, I could still see the girl, see her face as clearly as if she stood before me: the way her eyes widened when I caught her, how quickly pride pushed fear aside and she slapped me defiantly.
I chuckled as i remembered the unexpected slap which had felt as harmless as a butterly's wings. I was still shocked at her audacity, no one slapped Dante Bianchi. She must not have known who i was.
She had had looked so lonely standing there with tears on her cheeks that she had tried to hide when she realized that she was not alone. She had looked me straight in the eye an said no. Women didn't do that with me. They looked at my money, or my reputation, or my power, but never at me and they never said no.
"Boss?"
Marco, my second, had been standing there for nearly a minute. The man cleared his throat when i didn't answer. "You asked for an update before the ceremony. You still want it now?"
i set down the glass, slow and deliberate. "Let's hear it."
Marco signaled to the other two lieutenants hovering near the doors. They formed a half-circle, voices low enough not to draw attention from the dancers twirling across the marble floor.
"The situation with De Luca's men is quiet for now," Marco began. "But one of our own got sloppy in the docks, Rico Santori. The patrols picked him up moving product that doesn't belong to us."
My gaze sharpened. "Define 'doesn't belong.'"
"Blue dust, boss. Not from our chemists. The kind that's been killing kids on the east side."
A faint muscle moved in my jaw. I hated sloppiness. I hated people who drew attention to me and i most especially hated it when people thought they could peddle drugs that killed people on my turf. "Where is he now?"
"In the warehouse, tied up. Carlo's keeping watch. We were waiting for your word."
I nodded once but didn't speak. Marco hesitated, then continued the rest of the report: money transfers, bribes, whispers about rival families trying to edge into his trade routes.
All of which i listened to, or at least looked like i did but half my mind was elsewhere, replaying the moment in the garden.
Her teasing smell that I had wanted to inhale like a drug. I had been ready to do anything to bed her and had thought she felt the same way until she had looked at me like i was just a man. Not the Bianchi patriarch. Not the killer whispered about in alleyways. Just a man. The thought was… irritating. And strangely compelling.
"Boss?"
I realized that Marco was watching him carefully, waiting for a reaction.
"What else?" I asked., completely lost.
"That's the main of it. We already have a list of who Rico might've been working with, but—" Marco hesitated, then ventured, "You all right, sir? You seem… distracted."
The others exchanged uncertain glances. It wasn't a question anyone asked me lightly.
I leaned back in my chair, expression unreadable. "Do I?"
"You haven't touched your drink," Marco said, trying for humor. It fell flat.
I picked up the glass again, turned it once between his fingers, then set it aside. "I'm fine. I'm just thinking."
One of the lieutenants, younger and less seasoned, spoke up. "It's your daughter's wedding night Boss. You shouldn't worry about business now."
That earned him a slow, dangerous look. "Business doesn't wait for weddings."
The younger man swallowed hard. "Yes, sir."
I rose then, buttoning my jacket with the unhurried precision of a man whose decisions were final before he ever voiced them. "Take me to the warehouse."
All three men blinked. "Now?" Marco asked. "With all due respect, Boss, you can't just walk out. Valentina will be…"
"She will understand."
I didn't need to add that she wouldn't dare to question me, definately not in public. Valentina was my daughter, yes, but she was also part of the machinery i had built. Every alliance, every marriage in my family served a purpose. Hers had sealed a treaty. And I, Dante Bianchi, was the reason those treaties held.
Still, as I looked across the ballroom one last time, the music struck me as hollow. His daughter had gotten what she wanted, a handsome husband and a magnificent wedding that would be the envy of many for years to come.
She danced with her new husband, smiling too wide, too polished. Alessandro's hands on her waist looked wrong. Performative, shallow. The young man was ambitious but careless, the kind who thought charm could replace discipline. I would have to keep a watchful eye on him.
The drive to the docks cut through the city's sleeping heart. Neon lights smeared across the black sheen of the car's windows. I watched them without seeing, the hum of the engine filling the silence.
"She's just a girl," I muttered before i realized that I'd spoken aloud.
Marco glanced at him from the passenger seat. "Sir?"
"Nothing." I leaned his head against the leather seat, eyes closing briefly. A fragment of her voice, the feel of her body through that flimsy uniform and the tears on her smooth face kept replaying in my mind.
I had thought of her as nothing but a fragile woman but she had turned out to be fiery and defiant, and that had unsettled me more than i cared to admit.