THREE

AREŚ

She smelled like prosecco, patchouli, and something far worse...trouble wrapped in nostalgia and the kind of sweetness that tricks you into leaning in before it burns.

I don’t even like patchouli. But somehow her scent’s been living rent-free in my ribcage ever since. I should’ve turned back the second I saw her.

Should’ve said nothing. Should’ve let her fall.

But I didn’t.

Before I could stop myself, I stepped forward and caught her. Felt her chest against minei, her heart beating against it like a bird that fell out of its nest. Her fingers curled into my shirt like she didn’t even realise she’d done it. Like her body trusted me before her mind could protest.

And for a second, for whatever reason...I didn’t want to let go.

She looked at me like I was the one who had taken the air from her lungs.

Perhaps I had.

I told myself it was curiosity, that’s all. She didn’t belong here, and I don’t like surprises. Especially not barefoot girls wandering through my land like it’s theirs.

But when she gave me her name, everything locked into place.

Windslow.

Of course. The universe has a sick sense of humour. She’s my new sister-in-law’s sister. She’s family.

It should have been obvious to me when I saw her walking down the aisle, but I was so transfixed on watching her, the way her electric blue eyes caught mine, it didn’t even cross my mind.

Jordyn Windslow.

She’s nineteen, barefoot, trouble wrapped in summer skin and dewy-eyed wonder. And I’m already finding myself thinking about her in ways that crossed too many lines to count.

I should’ve walked away faster. Should’ve left her with a clipped warning and nothing else. But instead, I found myself looking back.

Just once.

And there she was...still standing where I left her. Startling blue eyes staring and perfect lips parted like I’d taken something from her she didn’t even know she had.

“Careful where you wander off to next time, bambina... next time I might not be there to catch you.”

It was a lie.

And I knew it the second I said it, because even though I had just met her, I could already feel every part of me wanting to catch her, no matter how many times she falls. Something about this girl triggered the protective instinct in me. An instinct I haven’t had in a very long time.

She looked harmless enough, five-foot-something, golden blonde hair, bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, all sweetness and innocence. A far cry from the women I'm used to. And yet, Jordyn Windslow was about to become the most dangerous thing in my world.

                                                                              ***

“You’ve been quiet lately,” my father says, his voice low and smooth like venom laced with honey. “Makes people nervous.”

 

I don’t look at him right away. Just swirl the espresso in the tiny porcelain cup I don’t plan to drink.

“That is what you raised me to be,” I offer. “Quiet. Efficient. Loyal.”

My father chuckles, dark and dry as he leans back in his leather chair like we’re just catching up over breakfast and not dancing around blood and power.

“Loyalty isn’t silence, Ares. It’s obedience.”

My jaw tightens, irritation simmering beneath the surface, but I keep my gaze fixed on the window. The view is breathtaking from up here. Taormina sprawled below like a dream. Serene and untouched, but I know better. I know the rot that festers beneath its beauty. It’s my town, after all.

“There’s a situation in Messina,” he continues, all business now. “A man who forgot what it means to respect the famiglia.”

“Then remind him,” I answer, staring out at the town stretched out before me. “You have people for that.” His silence is the kind that makes the room go ice cold.

“You’re my people,” he says finally. “I need you to remind him.”

And there it is. To Don Luciano Russo, I will always be his blade.

“You don’t get to step back, Ares. Not when your name still carries weight. Not when men still flinch at the sound of it.”

“I didn’t come here to be dragged back in.”

“You never left,” he says, rising from his chair, voice low and final. “You just got comfortable pretending.”

I finally look at him. Not at the tailored suit or the gold ring he always taps against the table when he’s trying to prove a point. I look at his eyes. Cold and calculated. The same ones I used to flinch from as a kid.

I don’t flinch anymore. That particular fear got stripped out of me a long time ago.

“I didn’t pretend, Papà.”

The word tastes like rust in my mouth. I haven’t called him that in years, not like this. Not with this weight, this amount of bitterness laced in every letter.

I observe his reaction closely. He doesn't flinch. He hardly ever does. He just tilts his head slightly, studying me like I’m some uncooperative asset that needs realignment.

“I survived.” I add.

That gets a pause.

He leans forward slowly, placing his hands on the table like we're just two businessmen discussing logistics. Not a father and son, not a monster and the thing he created.

“You think surviving makes you free?” His voice is calm, almost amused. “No, figlio mio. It makes you mine.”

There it is...the reminder. That godforsaken branding under my skin that never quite fades, no matter how many years pass, no matter how many times I try to wash my hands clean of the things he made me do.

I laugh once. The sound comes out dry and quiet. Like the breath before a gunshot.

“You don’t own me.”

He raises a brow. Just one. Like a man humouring a child.

“No?” he drawls. “And yet here you are. Sitting across from me. Wearing my name. Speaking my language. Handling my problems.”

“I didn’t come here for you,” I mutter. “I came for the sake of keeping the peace. I grew tired of killing the men you kept sending after me.”

He smiles, but it's not warm. It never fucking is.

“Peace?” he echoes. “You think this world allows peace, Ares? You think your little club and your silent rules make you clean?” he presses. “I let you play at freedom because I knew you’d eventually come crawling back. They always do.”

The muscle in my jaw twitches. I look away, just for a second, to keep from snapping, but inside I can feel my blood boiling.

My father doesn’t need volume to be dangerous. He doesn’t need threats. His power is in belief, he truly believes he owns me. That my pain is just proof of his fucking legacy.

“Do you see me on my knees?” I answer flatly.

“Of course not,” he says. “Because you’re bleeding standing up. It’s the Russo way.” And then, softer...just for me. “I built you from bone and fire, Ares. You don’t get to decide when you're done being mine.” He straightens and readjusts his cuffs like the conversation is over. Like I’m dismissed. “Handle the situation in Messina. Quietly.” He pauses for a beat before speaking again. “Before someone else does it loudly.”

And then he’s gone. No goodbye, no gesture. Just that lingering scent of expensive cologne and a lifetime of control. I stand there for a long time, staring at the espresso I never touched. The ring of it staining the saucer like a blood mark.

I could ignore him. Walk away. Again.

But I know how this game works. In this family, walking away just means someone else bleeds for you.

They say blood makes you family, but in this one, blood makes you property.

I was born into a legacy of silence and obedience. Taught to hurt first, ask never, and bleed without question. My father didn’t raise sons, he bred soldiers, tools, weapons with his name engraved down the spine.

I don’t flinch. I don’t fold. I don’t feel.

At least, I didn’t. Until her. But that’s a whole other leg of problems I don’t have the mental capability of getting into right now.

My father, Luciano Russo, is seventy-six, and they still call him Don Russo.

Even now, old, cruel, and barely clinging to the throne, he rules like blood means obedience. Like legacy is a prison you should thank him for.

And maybe it is

Because no matter how far I’ve tried to distance myself, new life, new rules, my blood still runs black with the kind of loyalty you don’t get to choose. You don’t get to walk away from that world...I did for a while. But the past, however hard you try to outrun it catches up with you. The things you’ve done, the people you’ve hurt that shit stays with you.

My father? He doesn’t believe in leaving. And men like him don’t die quietly. Trust me, I’ve killed enough of them to know.

Handle it.

Messina. A reminder that even when I step out of the shadows, the ghosts follow me. That my father never asks twice, he just gives you enough time to choose the right answer.

My hands are resting on the edge of the table...still and calm.

Until they aren’t.

He gave Enzo the charm, the praise and the spotlight. He gave me the orders. The cleanup. The blade.

My brother is the golden son, polished, public facing, perfectly groomed for appearances and I was the weapon. Sharpened in silence and pulled out only when things got messy.

With a low growl, I knock the espresso cup clean across the marble. The cup hits the floor with a sharp crack. A hundred perfect little shards, like my patience, but with better symmetry. I stand slowly. This room, his office, his kingdom is spotless. Unkind. Everything in its place, just like he likes it.

Including me.

I walk toward the window and press both palms to the glass, staring out over the vineyard and exhale steadily through my nose. The kind of breath that keeps your rage in your chest instead of your hands.

I’m not going to Messina. Not until I figure out what the old man is hiding beneath that order. Because there’s always something. A debt. A warning. A body waiting to be buried in silence.

And I’ve buried enough already.

                                                               ***

I walk out of the house without a word. The front door clicking shut behind me, muffling the echo of my father’s commanding voice still bouncing off the marble walls. I don’t bother with a driver. I’m desperate for silence. The fresh air. The space to breathe without hearing my name like a curse in his mouth.

The vineyard stretches out beneath a hazy sun, but the dazzling beauty of it doesn’t touch me. It never has. This land was never mine. It was a stage. A training ground.

A cage with a view. If it were up to me, I would have moved to the other side of the world to get away. To be free of this life my father and family name have condemned me to, but that’s not an option. Not for a Russo. And certainly not for me.

My hands tremble with the anger coursing through me as I slide into the driver’s seat of my black Maserati and pull out onto the winding road that snakes down toward Catania.

The silence in the car is thick, broken only by the low hum of the engine and the beat of my thoughts, sharp, restless, and loud.

‘You think surviving makes you free?’ I grip the steering wheel tighter. My jaw pulsing harder.

‘No, figlio mio. It makes you mine.’

The words loop inside my head like a curse, and by the time the club comes into view, rising dark and sleek against the skyline. I’m ready for anything that will drown them out.

I park in the back, ignoring the look from the security guard as I swipe into the side entrance. He nods, steps aside. Doesn’t speak.

They hardly ever do. They know better.

The club is quieter during the day. No pulsing bass. No bodies grinding under low lights. Just the hum of silence and the ghost of last night’s sins.

I exhale as I cross the floor toward the bar, peeling off the weight of the Russo house with every step.

Until I see him. My older brother, Enzo.

I spot him near the bar already sipping something dark and expensive, like he doesn’t bleed the same as the rest of us.

“Oh, face like thunder? I take it you saw him,” Enzo says without looking up, eyes still glued to whatever deal or threat he’s smoothing out on his laptop.

I don’t answer. Just move behind the bar and grab a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge. The silence between us is comfortable only in the way tension always settles into the walls of this place, tight, familiar, and always unspoken.

“Let me guess,” he sighs, finally turning toward me. “Messina?”

I glance up. “You were always good at guessing,” I answer flatly. “Just not at doing.”

He smirks, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Aren’t you bored of playing the role of bitter younger brother?”

“Aren’t you bored of playing the golden one?” I fire back sharply.

Enzo sets his drink down with too much care, folding his hands like this is just another negotiation. Like we aren’t the two sons of a man who raised us to be weapons dressed as heirs. One polished for the world to see. The other sharpened in silence.

“You think I didn’t pay for my place in this family?” he asks. “You think Papà didn’t make me earn it?”

I laugh, a short, bitter sound. “Fottimi.” The word cuts through the quiet, low and cold. “You call that earning? While he dressed you in silk and taught you how to smile, I was handed a gun at twelve and got beaten every time I flinched.” My jaw aches where I press my molars together. “You and I… we may have lived in the same house, but we survived two very different lives, Enzo.”

For a second, he doesn’t speak. That’s the thing, he never has to. He’s always been clean. I’ve always been necessary. He’s the golden boy and I’m the dark prince. The blade behind the throne.

“No,” he says finally. “What he gave you wasn’t just blood...it was power. There’s not a soul in this city that doesn’t flinch when they hear your name. Il Mietitore. The Reaper. Deaths shadow. Do you have any idea how many people would kill to wear that title, to possess the power you do?”

I don’t blink. Just stare him down, voice low and emotionless. “He gave me a nickname that makes grown men cower. That’s not power, that’s branding.”

Enzo looks away first. Something he always does when the truth cuts too close.

“He’s getting older, Ares,” he sighs, tone shifting. “Unpredictable, even. If we don’t keep things in order, someone else will.”

“Here’s an idea, you handle Messina.”

Enzo shakes his head, leaning in just enough to test me. “I don’t have your shadow, Ares. They don’t fear me; shit they barely respect me.” I arch a brow, my tone flat and stalwart.

“Then perhaps it’s time you step up and make them.” I pause, just long enough to cut. “Maybe Papá’s golden boy needs to step out of the spotlight and earns his stripes for a change.”

Enzo’s smile doesn’t return. “Papá trusts you. He raised you like a warrior and handed you an empire, Ares. And you’re walking around sulking like a spoiled brat.”

I laugh. Not because it’s funny. But because it’s so fucking tragic I don’t know what else to do.

“He trusts me like a man trusts a rabid dog with good aim. Useful, terrifying, and best kept leashed.” I utter, pushing off the bar. “Being raised like a weapon isn’t a gift I ever asked for.” I pace slowly, dragging my hand across the cool marble edge of the counter.

The silence stretches between us, heavy with things neither of us are brave enough to say out loud. “He didn’t hand me an empire, Enzo,” I continue. “What he handed me is a curse. One soaked in blood and bound by obedience. You think I wanted any of this?”

I look at him now, the tailored designer suit, the clean hands, the practiced calm. “You got to be the son,” I murmur. “I was the contingency plan. The thing he unleashed when diplomacy failed.”

Enzo straightens, arms folding, but he doesn’t interrupt. Maybe because he knows I’m right.

Maybe because there’s nothing left to for him to defend. Instead, he shakes his head. “He built a kingdom around your name, and you’re acting like it’s a burden.”

“It is.” I snap hotly. “Because no one cares how you sleep at night when your name keeps the island in line. They just expect you to show up. Bleed if you have to. Kill if you’re told.”

Another beat of silence. “You think I’m sulking?” I step closer, staring into his brown eyes as I speak to him quietly. “No, fratello. Sto cercando di non diventare lui.”

I’m trying not to become him.