Chapter 15: Home Ground
The city welcomed them back the way cities
always welcome back trouble — indifferently at
first, and then all at once, the way weather
turns.
Enzo met them at the edge of Ferrari territory
with four cars and a face that had aged what
looked like years in the few weeks they'd been
gone. "The Callahans backed off," he reported,
voice low, eyes flicking between Romeo and
Isabella like he was trying to read something in
the space between them. "Someone got to them personally. Salvatore's been making calls
I never thought I'd hear him make, burning
favors he swore twenty years ago he'd never
touch again. He nearly bankrupted three
separate accounts keeping the two of you alive
out there."
Isabella absorbed that piece of information the
way a stone drops into still water — ripples she
didn't yet know what to do with. Her father,
monster and murderer both, had also spent
every resource available to him protecting her,
without hesitation, without complaint, the
moment her life was actually threatened.
Romeo said nothing. He was too busy
recalculating the plan taking shape in his
chest, a plan that had no comfortable room left
in it for a father who might, despite everything,
genuinely love his daughter — a complication
he hadn't budgeted for.
That night, back inside the Ferrari compound
for the first time in weeks, Romeo stood
outside Salvatore's study door with one hand
flat against the frame, and did not go in. Not
yet. He needed one more piece of proof before he let seventeen years of grief make a decision
that couldn't be undone.