Page 8 of The Cost of Silence

Adi finally says, “So what’s the plan?”

“Control the narrative,” I answer. “Quiet the investors. Track her sources. Keep this contained.”

“And if she keeps digging?” Matteo asks.

“Then she learns there are some stories that don’t end in print.”

Adi gives me a look, the kind that says he heard the edge in my voice. “Careful, Nico.”

I lean back in my chair, the leather creaking softly. “Relax. I’m not our father. But I won’t let anyone burn down what he built.”

Matteo stands, finishing his espresso. “I’ll run interference with the press. Keep things light, make a few calls, drop some distractions.”

Adi gathers his papers. “I’ll get my team on it. See if we can tie this up the legal way.”

“Good.”

When they leave, the room falls quiet again. The city’s pulse presses faintly through the glass, sirens, the far-off hum of commerce waking up.

I pick up the paper, fold it neatly, and set it aside.

Her name stares back at me from the page.

Isabella Romano.

The reporter who decided to resurrect ghosts. The woman who just kicked the wasps’ nest and doesn’t even know it’s full of men far worse than me.

My gaze drifts briefly toward the shelf behind my desk, the framed photograph of me with Matteo and Adi on the porch in Ohio. Three kids who thought the world could be rebuilt if they just worked hard enough. My father had taken that picture. He’d believed we could be better. And I’ll be damned if I let anyone undo that. I never wanted the throne, but I’ll keep it if it means no one else bleeds for us.

I open my laptop and type a single sentence.

Not a threat.

A warning.

You don’t know what you’ve done.

The words sit on the screen for a moment before disappearing into the ether.

People mistake restraint for weakness. They don’t know I save destruction for when it matters.

And for the first time in a long while, I feel something I can’t quite name. Not anger. Not fear. Just the electric certainty that everything in my world has started to move again, and she’s the reason.

Work’s a waste of time after I hit send. The words hang in my head like a threat I didn’t mean to make.

You don’t know what you’ve done.

Adi says legal will handle it, Matteo cracks jokes like nothing’s burning, but I can’t sit still.

Control isn’t waiting; it’s acting. It’s taking the fight to the threat.

It takes less than five minutes to pull Isabella Romano’s life apart. Address, workplace, commute, social profiles. Everything anyone needs to find her. She’s too exposed. Naive. Amateur hour. Pathetic.

I clench my fists as I head for the exit, informing my PA that I’m out for the day. Ezra nods, he’s used to my comings and goings. The man’s a godsend for my work life. If only I were gay, he’d make the perfect wife.

By late afternoon, I’m already across the street from her building.

I tell myself this is just recon. A threat assessment.