It’s far from over.
The Warehouse
The room is cold. Industrial. Designed to strip a person down to their last nerve. Cinder block walls, exposed piping, the sharp hum of one flickering overhead light. It's not just bleak—it’s surgical. A place meant to erase ego and extract truth. And in the center of it, chained to a steel chair, sits Gianni Salvatore. Bloody. Bruised. Breathing like it costs him. Yet somehow, still trying to smirk like he hasn’t lost everything.
I step in alone. No Bellamy. No Brick. No backup.
This isn’t about strategy. It’s about clarity. About ending the goddamn cycle. The heavy door shuts behind me with a dull metallic thud. He lifts his head, and I smirk at the state of him. His lip is split, blood dried at the corners of his mouth. His left eye is nearly swollen shut, but the right one still carries that slick Salvatore arrogance. That smarmy, entitled grin.
“Cara mia,” he rasps, voice shredded. “Come to finish what your boyfriend started?”
I don’t answer. Just glide to the metal table and slide into the chair across from him. Legs crossed. Arms folded. Calm as a bomb with a short fuse. I hold his gaze, letting silence do what threats can’t. He wants to pretend this is banter. A game. But I’m not playing. See, I know exactly who Gianni is. Who he’s always been.
I know about the rift between him and Con—Constantine Belov, Pakhan of the Belov Bratva. A man with no patiencefor snakes. No use for traffickers. Especially those who target women and children. That’s the part Gianni never understood. Con doesn’t bluff, and he damn sure doesn’t forgive. I was there once, just a shadow at the edge of their feud. When this arrogant prick thought he could snatch my child to force compliance. Thought he could twist me into submission. He learned differently. But that’s not today’s story. That’s for another war. Another reckoning.
Today is about the here. The now. The end.
“I came for answers,” I say, voice even, bored almost.
He chuckles. It’s wet. Hollow. “You always did enjoy playing Queen of the Pit. Even as a girl, you wanted a throne built from bones.”
I tilt my head slightly. “You handed me the bones, Gianni. You just didn’t expect me to build anything with them.”
His bloody grin twists wider. “Touché.”
I lean in just enough for him to see the darkness behind my calm.
“You came here to make a statement. Instead, your Don is dead. Your guards are fertilizer. And you? You’re a loose end with a short clock.”
His smile twitches. The arrogance stutters—briefly—but it’s there. “This was personal, huh? All this... because of Talon? Or is it about that beautiful daughter of yours?” He says it slow, deliberately, like he wants to be punched. I don’t take the bait.
Gianni laughs again, coughing hard enough to wheeze. “You’re all so fucking stupid. You think it ends here? My father’scooling on some runway, and you think that’s it? You think this basement and blood make it over?”
He leans forward, chains rattling. And in his eyes, something changes—a cold glint of truth beneath the bullshit.
“You’ve stirred the wrong pool, Gabriella. You’ve been so focused on the Salvatores and the idiot Keepers, you haven’t looked past us. But they’ve been watching, always watching.”
I don’t blink. “Who?”
He licks blood from his teeth, tilts his head like a predator already dead.
“The Coumbassa family.”
My jaw locks tight.
I know that name. It’s been a shadow in whispers. A ghost in files even Bellamy couldn’t lock down. A network too well-hidden, too insulated. Until now, it didn’t connect.
But now it clicks.
“Your little war with the Mastersons? The attempted kidnapping, Valentina’s past, all that vendetta bullshit?”
Gianni’s voice breaks into a laugh that turns to a cough. “That wasn’t the end. That was the beginning. The Coumbassa made investments. Years ago. Before you. Before Talon. Before any of us. And you just blew up a pipeline they spent decades building.”
He’s spiraling now. His pain fuels him. Or maybe it’s his last act of defiance.
“They’ll come for you. The club. For your kids. For Talon. They don’t send warnings, Gabriella. They send coffins. They play in shadows. They play… the long game.”
His head falls back as he grins, blood slicking his teeth.
