"The Irish are watching," Luca continued, moving to stand beside me at the window. "Not just O'Sullivan's people, but the Donovans, the Murphys, all of them. They're waiting to see what we do, how we respond to this provocation. It's a test, Rafe. A trap designed to force our hand, to make us act in ways that justify whatever Patrick has planned next."
"I know that," I bit out, frustration evident in every line of my body. "I'm not blind to the strategic implications. I'm not ignoring the larger context. I simply don't care about it compared to getting her back."
"Even if it means walking into a trap?" Luca pressed. "Even if it means risking everything—the family, our territories, our very lives—for one woman?"
I turned then, meeting my younger brother's gaze with an intensity that would have made most men step back. "Yes," I said simply. "Even then."
Luca held my gaze for a long moment, then nodded, something like understanding flickering across his features. "Alright," he said quietly. "Then let's make sure the trap fails. Let's make sure we get her back without losing everything else in the process."
It was the first unqualified support I'd received since Grace's abduction, and it hit me with unexpected force. I nodded once, a gesture of gratitude I couldn't express in words, then turned back to the maps and surveillance photos with renewed focus.
"The direct approach won't work," I acknowledged, forcing myself to think strategically despite the emotions still churning inside me. "We need something more subtle. Something Patrick won't expect."
"An inside man?" Dante suggested, rejoining the conversation now that the immediate danger of my temper had passed.
I shook my head. "O'Sullivan's inner circle is too loyal, too well-vetted. We'd never get someone close enough to be useful in the time we have."
"What about Connor?" Luca asked. "The youngest brother. The one who left that voicemail for Grace months ago, asking questions about her disappearance. He might be sympathetic, might be willing to help if approached correctly."
I considered this, turning the possibility over in my mind. Connor O'Sullivan—the youngest son, the one who had never fully embraced the family business, who had questioned his father's story about Grace's absence. A potential ally, or at least a source of information about her current situation, her location within the estate, the security surrounding her.
"It's worth exploring," I conceded. "But carefully. If Patrick suspects Connor's involvement, he'll lock him down tighter than Grace. Or worse."
"I have a contact who might be able to arrange a meeting," Luca offered. "Someone Connor trusts, who could approach him without raising alarms."
"Do it," I ordered, my mind already racing ahead to next steps, to contingencies, to the myriad ways this approach could succeed or fail. "But make it clear we're not asking him to betray his family. Just to help us ensure his sister's safety, her freedom to choose her own path rather than whatever Patrick has planned for her."
Luca nodded and left to make the arrangements, leaving Dante and me alone in the war room, surrounded by the evidence of our obsessive planning, our determination to retrieve one woman from the hands of a man who had already demonstrated his willingness to use her as a pawn in larger games.
"You should rest," Dante said after a moment of silence. "You're no good to her—or to us—if you collapse from exhaustion."
I shook my head, the mere suggestion of sleep while Grace remained in her father's hands unthinkable. "I'll rest when she's back. When she's safe."
Dante studied me, concern evident beneath his usual stoic expression. "And if we can't get her back? If Patrick has movedher somewhere we can't reach? If the risk to the family becomes too great to justify the attempt?"
The question hung between us, loaded with implications, with the unspoken understanding that Dante's primary loyalty was and always would be to the Conti family as a whole, not to any individual member's personal desires or obsessions.
"Then I'll go alone," I said, my voice quiet but carrying absolute certainty. "I'll walk away from the family, from the business, from everything. I'll find her on my own, whatever it takes, whatever the cost."
The declaration—unprecedented, unthinkable from the brother who had always put family first, who had built his entire identity around service to the Conti name and interests—left Dante momentarily speechless.
"You would choose her over us," he said finally, the realization clearly painful despite his efforts to hide it. "Over the family. Over everything we've built together."
"Yes," I confirmed, no hesitation, no qualification. Just truth, raw and unvarnished. "I would. I will, if it comes to that."
Dante nodded slowly, absorbing this new reality, this fundamental shift in the dynamics that had governed our relationship, our family, our entire world for as long as either could remember.
"Then let's make sure it doesn't come to that," he said finally, turning back to the maps and surveillance photos with renewed determination. "Let's find a way to get your girl back without tearing apart everything else in the process."
By the fifth day,I'd stopped pretending to participate in normal Conti business.
I ignored calls from associates, from business partners, from the legitimate enterprises that formed the public face ofthe family's empire. I canceled meetings, delegated decisions, withdrew from the day-to-day operations that had always been my primary responsibility as Dante's right hand.
My entire focus, my every waking moment, was dedicated to one goal: finding a way to reach Grace, to extract her from her father's control, to bring her back where she belonged—with me, by choice or not, safe from whatever Patrick O'Sullivan had planned for his suddenly valuable daughter.
Luca's attempt to contact Connor had yielded mixed results. The youngest O'Sullivan brother was indeed sympathetic to Grace's situation, concerned about her welfare, suspicious of their father's motives in bringing her back after months of apparent indifference. But he was also closely watched, his movements restricted, his communications monitored. Any direct intervention on his part would be immediately detected, potentially putting both him and Grace in greater danger.
What he had been able to provide, through carefully coded messages passed through mutual acquaintances, was information—vital, disturbing information that had sent me into a fresh spiral of rage and determination when Luca delivered it the previous evening.
