Novels by Cephas Bliss

……..three hours earlier…. In the back corner of a parking garage that smelled like motor oil and old cigarettes, Alessandro sat behind the wheel of a car that wasn't his, watching a man named Paolo Ferretti approach with the particular walk of someone who already suspected he was about to have a very bad day.Paolo slid into the passenger seat without being asked, glancing around the garage twice before settling, his hands folded tightly in his lap."You said this was about a business opportunity," he said."It is." Alessandro didn't look at him, eyes fixed instead on the concrete pillar ahead of them. "Just not the kind you're imagining.""Then what kind?""Marco Ferretti." Alessandro let the name sit there a moment. "Your son."Paolo's jaw tightened, the first crack showing. "What about him?"“You see, the Ricci's clan has the highest connection to the police in the underground. And I've gotten some papers against your son,” he whispered, lighting a cigarette.“What paper?.”"Eight

Alessandro's room looked like a crime scene by midnight, if the crime in question involved excessive paperwork and a complete disregard for filing systems.Enzo had been at it for nearly six hours, sleeves rolled up, a wall of printed documents taped across the living room in no order Alessandro could immediately understand, three separate laptops open on the coffee table, each one blaring a different tab of financial records, news archives, and what appeared to be someone's entire family tree scrawled across a whiteboard in red marker."There has to be something," Enzo muttered, flipping through another stack of printouts, licking his thumb before each page like it might reveal a secret faster that way. "A man doesn't run a criminal empire for thirty years without leaving one mistake lying around somewhere.""Some men do.""No." Enzo shook his head firmly, grabbing another folder off the pile. "No, everyone's got something. A spoiled family. A bad investment. An unpaid debt to the wr

The squad's room sat tucked away on the top floor of the arts building, a space they'd claimed for themselves back in freshman year and never once had to defend, since everyone on campus knew better than to ask who it belonged to. A haze of smoke curled lazily near the ceiling, a bottle of something expensive and half-empty sat abandoned on the windowsill, and Gabriel was losing spectacularly at cards while Bianca counted his money with obvious delight.Matteo sat sideways in an armchair, one leg draped over the arm, scrolling through his phone with the particular kind of stillness that meant he was thinking about something he found deeply satisfying."You're smiling," Sofia said, not looking up from her own hand of cards. "Weirdly.""I don't smile weirdly.""You're doing it right now."Bianca glanced over, immediately intrigued. "Oh, he's definitely doing it."Matteo tucked the phone away, unable to fully wipe the smile off his face even as he tried. "I've just had a good day.""Defi

Lia had learned by now that when Lorenzo said "dress comfortably," it rarely meant what comfortable meant to anyone else, so she stood at the mirror turning sideways for the third time, trying to guess what kind of comfortable a man who owned three separate wine cellars considered acceptable."You're overthinking it," Raven said from the doorway, arms crossed, watching her with the patient exhaustion of a bodyguard who'd already been asked for her opinion twice."I'm not overthinking it.""You changed twice in the last ten minutes.""That's not overthinking. That's diligence."Raven only raised an eyebrow and said nothing else, which somehow felt worse than if she'd argued.By the time Lia made it downstairs, Lorenzo was already waiting by the car, and whatever nerves she'd carried down with her promptly dissolved into something closer to disbelief.He wore no suit. No cufflinks, no tie, nothing pressed or tailored within an inch of its life, just dark jeans and a simple linen shirt w

Enzo had been sitting in the same booth for two hours, and the waitress had already refilled his espresso three times out of what he suspected was pity rather than service.He checked his phone again. The message hadn't changed since the first time he read it."Be at Nonna Lucia's Trattoria, 3pm. Come alone. V."It was almost four."If this is some kind of joke," he muttered to no one, "I swear to God."The bell above the door chimed, and Enzo looked up out of habit more than hope, and nearly choked on his espresso.Alessandro stood in the doorway, looking exactly as confused and exactly as unamused as Enzo felt, scanning the half-empty trattoria until his eyes landed on him."You," Alessandro said."You," Enzo said back, equally delighted and horrified.Alessandro walked over slowly, like he was hoping the scene might rearrange itself into something that made more sense, and slid into the booth across from him. "Tell me you're not here for the same reason I am.""Depends. Did your fa

The phone call reached Nico Romano just after sunrise, and by the time he understood what it meant, he was already pulling his jacket on with one arm and shouting orders with the other."Say that again," he barked into the phone, weaving through the hallway of his estate. "Slower.""Unknown men," his port manager said, voice shaking audibly over the line. "They showed up an hour ago with paperwork, said the whole route's been sold. Our own guards let them through, Don Romano, they had clearance codes, current ones, I don't understand how, ""Get every man you can reach. I want cars moving in five minutes."By the time they tore through the gates of the port, morning light spilling flat and gray across the water, half the Romano family's soldiers were already spilling out with weapons drawn, fanning out across the loading docks like they expected a war to already be underway.Nico stepped out last, gun in hand, jaw set, scanning the scene for whatever enemy had dared to walk onto his t