Page 93 of Break For Me
We can’t use the radios. The compound’s internal communication system runs through a central hub in the security office—a room staffed by two soldiers on the night shift. If either of those soldiers is compromised, broadcasting on the system announces our survival and our position simultaneously.
We can’t use the phones. The landlines route through the same hub. The cell signal inside the compound is deliberately suppressed—Alessandro’s security protocol. The suppression that protects us from external threats now seals us inside with internal ones.
We can’t walk the corridors. The night rotation puts six guards on the interior—two in the east wing, two in the west wing, two on the residence floor. Any of them could be Marco Bellini. Any of them could be holding a Sig from the armory with our names on the round.
I dress. Jeans, boots, the black henley. Adrian dresses—dark pants and a dark shirt, the sartorial camouflage of a man preparing to move through hostile territory. He tucks the suppressed Sig into his waistband. The gesture is practiced now. Six weeks ago he asked me how a shotgun worked. The distance between that man and this one is measured in bodies.
"Alessandro’s suite is on the third floor," I say. "West wing. Two corridors, one staircase. The staircase is a choke point—one guard on the landing, line of sight down both approaches."
"Do we know the guard?"
"I know all of them. That’s not the same as trusting them."
I crack the bedroom door. The corridor is dim—night lighting. The sconces are turned low. The limestone walls cast long shadows. I listen. The compound breathes around me—the ventilation, the settling of old stone, the distant hum of thegenerators. No footsteps. No voices. The silence of a building that is either sleeping or waiting.
We move.
The corridor is forty feet long. Adrian is behind me—close, his hand on my back, the same stabilizing contact from the Connecticut house. I carry the Glock in a two-handed grip. The rebuilt left hand is wrapped around the right. The fingers hold steady. Every door we pass is a variable. Every shadow is a silhouette that might resolve into a threat. Every nod I’ve received in this hallway replays in my memory with the new filter applied—was that loyalty or reconnaissance?
We reach the staircase. The landing is empty. The guard position is vacant. The chair is pushed back. A coffee cup on the windowsill is still warm. The guard has left his post. Whether he left to join the conspiracy or to use the bathroom is a question I can’t answer. The inability to answer it is a blade in my gut.
We climb. The stairs are marble—cold, loud. Every footfall echoes. I take them two at a time. Adrian matches my pace. His breathing is controlled—counted. The surgeon’s rhythm.
Third floor. West wing corridor. Alessandro’s suite is at the end—a reinforced door. The only door in the compound with an independent locking system. Alessandro insisted on the redundancy when he redesigned the compound. Paranoia runs in the family. Tonight, the paranoia is the only thing keeping us alive.
I reach the door. I knock. The pattern is specific—three short, two long, one short. The family code, established by our father.
The lock disengages. The door opens two inches. A green eye appears in the gap—sharp, feral, the pupil dilated. Not Alessandro’s eye. Killian’s.
The door opens. Killian Kavanagh stands in the entrance in a t-shirt and tactical pants. A pistol is in his right hand. His left hand is braced against the door frame. He’s barefoot. Hisposture is rigid—rigid, combat-ready—he heard the suppressed shots two floors below and has been standing at this door with a loaded weapon since.
"In," he says.
We go in.
Alessandro’s suite is a command center that became a bunker in the time it took us to climb two flights of stairs. The curtains are drawn. The overhead lights are off—a single desk lamp illuminates the room. The cone of light falls on the desk where Alessandro sits with a laptop open and a phone in his hand.
He sees me. He sees Adrian. He sees the blood on my hands—Bellini’s blood, from the choke. His eyes scan us—rapidly, comprehensively.
"Marco Bellini," I say. "Suppressed Sig from our armory. He shot through our pillow. He’s alive, zip-tied in our bedroom."
"He said the old ways are coming back," Adrian adds. His voice is level—the medical report. "He mentioned Salvatore."
Alessandro’s face doesn’t change. The mask holds. But something happens behind his eyes—a rapid, violent restructuring. A demolition and reconstruction happening simultaneously. The mental equivalent of watching a building collapse and designing its replacement before the dust settles.
"How many?" Killian asks. He’s positioned himself by the window—a sight line to the east garden, the perimeter wall, the guard rotation visible under the flood lights. His body is still recovering. He leans against the wall, distributing weight away from his abdomen. But his hands are steady and his eyes are lethal.
"Unknown," I say. "Could be one. Could be ten. Could be half the house."
"It’s not half the house." Alessandro’s voice is quiet. Controlled. The Don’s tone—the one that makes decisions thatkill people. "Bellini is part of a faction. Six men, possibly eight. I’ve had reports—whispers, nothing concrete. Old soldiers who served under my father and resented the restructuring. I should have acted on the reports sooner."
"Why didn’t you?"
He looks at me. The answer is in his face—the same face I’ve been reading my entire life. The answer is because acting on whispers means purging loyal men based on suspicion. And purging loyal men based on suspicion is what our father did. And Alessandro is not our father.
He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t need to.
"Elena," Adrian says.
