For the first time in my life, the Ricci estate did not feel like home.
It had always been the place I returned to after missions to recover, steady my mind, train with our men or break in our new recruits until my body remembered its purpose. After I woke in that hospital bed, disoriented and broken with my grandfather seated beside me, his hands wrapped tightly around his cane, those icy blue eyes of his heavy with something I had mistaken for sorrow, this was the place I had longed for the most.
"I want to go home," was the first thing I had told him.
I hadn't known then what home truly meant.
Now that I was back, with my grandfather's Consigliere standing guard just outside the entrance, I couldn't shake the feeling of a prisoner, returning to her own cell. Tail tucked between my legs.
Arturo was dressed in his usual black suit, immaculate and severe, his gray hair slicked neatly back until it gleamed. Polished and controlled. Untouchable. My lips pressed into a thin line as my hands curled into fists inside the pockets of my trousers and I met his gaze.
A scar carved down his face. From his brow, through his right eye and all the way down to his jaw. It was the kind of thing that would've made his victims cover, but I knew better.
After all, he was the one who trained me.
"Nice of you to show your face again, piccola," he said, exhaling his cigar smoke slowly.
"There were some setbacks," I replied, my voice low, dulled on purpose.
Meek and tired. As if I had come crawling back after running away from Alex. Not the constant hard fucking we had been doing last night, and the nights before.
Arturo's gaze lingered.
"Where's Nonno?" I asked.
Arturo didn't answer. He only studied me in silence, savoring his cigar as if my impatience were part of the ritual. The longer he looked, the tighter my chest grew.
I deliberately rolled my eyes, squared my shoulders and let out a slow breath.
"I don't have all day, zio," I said. "Please. Where's Nonno?"
"He's inside," he replied at last. "Stable, for now." His gaze sharpened. "Though I can't say the same for you."
My spine stiffened.
"What does that mean?"
He can't suspect anything, can he? We've been careful.
"You'll see for yourself," he said, taking another drag before exhaling the smoke in a lazy stream. "Soon enough."
He tilted his head toward the entrance and turned away.
I followed, my unease deepening as two men fell in step behind me while I climbed the short stone stairs. I glanced back at them, then forward again, to the man I had always thought of an uncle. Something cold settling in my gut.
"I hope you don't mind the precaution," Arturo said lightly, waving a dismissive hand. "I trained you myself, piccola." A pause. Deliberate. "That makes you dangerous."
We ascended one of the grand staircases leading to my grandfather's private wing.
The place that was meant to be his alone. The place that would one day be mine.
Though I didn't let myself dwell on that, not yet. There were still too many things left unresolved. Too much blood between now and then.
"Did Nonno know about this?" I asked, flicking my fingers toward the men trailing us. To insinuate that I would cause trouble within my own family's home was an insult in itself.
Arturo let out a low chuckle. "I know Enzo well enough to say he wouldn't mind," he replied as we moved through the grand hallway, its gold trimmings gleaming beneath the lights, the walls lined with generations of Ricci faces staring down at us.
My steps faltered.
One of the portraits stopped me cold. My father, standing behind my grandfather, a hand resting on the back of his chair. He looked younger, with his dark hair slicked back, his expression carefully neutral despite the faintest curve tugged at the corner of his lips.
They used to say I took my red hair from my mother.
Everything else, they said, belonged to him.
Arturo noticed my hesitation, exhaling a steam of smoke as he studied the portrait.
He turned to me. "It's time you grow up, Isolda," he said quietly. His voice carrying the same weight my grandfather's often did. "Start taking this business seriously instead of disappearing whenever things become inconvenient."
My brows lifted slowly.
Is he really saying what I think he's saying?
"Right," I said, folding my arms across my chest. "Because being abducted, nearly killed and having to fight my way back was clearly a lifestyle choice."
He didn't flinch.
"I trained you better than this," Arturo replied, already moving toward my grandfather's bedroom door. Large and heavy, looming at the very end of the hall. "I know your records better than anyone." He paused. "You don't get taken unless you allow it. Memory loss or not."
The words landed like a blade.
But I said nothing.
Arturo's words cut deep, but I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing it land. I kept my face neutral instead, my spine straight, my steps measured as I followed him down the remainder of the hall.
He reached the door and pushed it open without ceremony.
The room was dim, curtains drawn just enough to let in a thin wash of gray light. The scent of antiseptic hit me first. Sharp and clinical, wrong in a place that had always smelled of expensive cigars and old leather.
My grandfather was lying on his bed.
For a moment, my mind refused to accept it.
An oxygen mask covered his face, fogging faintly with each shallow breath. Tubes and wires ran from his body to machines stationed beside the bed, their screens growing softly, emitting steady, mechanical beeps that marked each heartbeat.
It was too slow. Too fragile. Just the way Alex had intended.
My grandfather, Lorenzo Ricci, was a man who had once ruled rooms with a single look. Now he simply lay emotionless, reduced to numbers on a screen. It would've been so easy to end it all.
My steps slowed as I crossed the threshold.
"He had been this way since the crash," Arturo said from behind me. "There's nothing left we can do, but wait."
Smoke drifted past my shoulder.
"So," he continued, unhurried, "are you going to do it?"