Surprise surprise

Vicenzo POV

I paced across the marble floor of my office, the sound of my shoes ricocheting against the silence. The air was thick with smoke from the half-burnt cigarette between my fingers, but it did nothing to calm me.

My chest felt tight, like invisible hands were squeezing me.

“Where the hell is my shipment?” I muttered under my breath, slamming my palm against the edge of the desk.

This wasn’t just a box of weapons or a container of product. This shipment was supposed to seal a deal with the Russians—a deal that bought me leverage, bought me time, bought me my reputation.

Without it, I looked weak. And weakness in this business? It’s a death sentence.

I’d already sent my men combing through the ports, calling every contact, squeezing every informant. Nothing. Silence. Like the sea had swallowed it whole.

My mind raced. Could Luther have intercepted it? That bastard Lombardi always lurked in the shadows, waiting for a chance to humiliate me. Or maybe it was one of the cartel snakes from Mexico, sniffing around where they weren’t wanted.

“Boss.”

The voice dragged me from my thoughts. It was Mateo, one of my trusted lieutenants. He stepped in, nervousness all over his face.

“Well?” I snapped, my voice sharper than I intended. “You find anything?”

He shook his head. “No trace. Not at the docks, not in the warehouses. It’s like it vanished.”

I cursed under my breath and threw the cigarette into the ashtray. “Things don’t vanish, Mateo. Someone has it. Someone is laughing at me right now.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “The Russians have been calling. They want an update.”

My stomach twisted. I knew what that meant. Updates were demands dressed in polite words. Soon they’d stop calling and start sending threats.

“Tell them I’ll deliver,” I said, trying to sound confident even though I felt the cracks spreading under my feet. “Buy me time. Two days, no more.”

Mateo nodded and left, leaving me with the suffocating silence again.

I rubbed my temples, fighting the pounding in my head. If this shipment doesn’t show, everything unravels. My alliances, my reputation, my control. Men will smell blood, and when sharks smell blood, they don’t hesitate.

I sat down at my desk, staring blankly at the map of the ports laid out before me. Every route marked, every contact circled, and still, I was blind.

Blind and vulnerable.

For a moment, my mind drifted back to Alsssia, my mother. She’d always told me power wasn’t about the deals you struck or the bullets you fired, but about keeping fear alive in others, I had built fear.

But now… the fear was creeping into me. And if anyone saw it, I was finished.

The creak of the door snapped me back.

I looked up, frowning. “Mateo, I said—”

But the words froze in my throat.

The figure who stepped into the room wasn’t Mateo. It wasn’t any of my men. It was a ghost. A face I hadn’t seen in years, a face that belonged to a chapter of my life I thought was long buried.

The man walked in slowly, casually, like he owned the ground he stepped on. His eyes locked on mine with a mixture of familiarity and something darker—resentment, maybe even amusement.

I stood, my chair scraping against the floor. My pulse thundered in my ears.

“No,” I whispered, barely believing it.

The man smirked. “Surprised to see me, brother?”

The word hit me like a bullet.

“Hello, brother,” David Conti said, his voice low and deliberate.

I stared at him, frozen, shock flooding through me as the room seemed to close in.

The words sank into me like ice water.

For a moment, I just stared, unable to process that David Conti was standing in front of me. Years. It had been years since I last saw him, since he walked out on the family with all his big speeches about living clean, staying out of the shadows.

And now here he was.

My jaw tightened. “What the hell are you doing here, David?”

He stepped further into the room, calm, too calm. He didn’t flinch under my stare, didn’t look like a man crawling back in shame. Instead, he looked around, taking in the expensive décor, the heavy desk, the half-empty ashtray—as if he was measuring me, weighing what my world had become.

“I came because I need something,” he said finally.

I let out a bitter laugh. “Of course you do. Money, right? Isn’t that always what it comes down to with people who said they were too good for this life?”

He didn’t blink. “Yes. I need money.”

I felt heat rising in my chest, anger clawing at me. “You told me you weren’t going to be part of the family business.

You stood in this very house years ago and said you didn’t want blood money. That you were better than me. And now you’re broke and crawling back for scraps?”

David tilted his head, that infuriating little smirk playing on his lips. “I’m not broke.” He walked closer, each step deliberate. “I have my own ventures.

But I need extra capital for a business risk. An expansion. I came to you because,well, who else could I come to?”

I clenched my fists, every nerve in my body buzzing with fury and suspicion. “So let me get this straight. You spit on the family. You disappear. And now you walk back in like nothing happened, asking me for money. Why the hell should I help you after you left us all behind?”

He stopped a few feet away from my desk, his eyes locking on mine. His tone dropped lower, sharp as a blade.

“Because perhaps…” he paused, letting the silence bite, “…I could tell you who took your shipment.”

The room seemed to tilt. My breath caught. My eyes narrowed into slits as I studied him.

“How the fuck do you know about that?” I asked, my voice low, dangerous.

“Doesn’t matter Vicenzo , would you give what I need or I should walk away with my precious information?” He said as he sat on the couch like he owned it.