Page 22 of Accidental Alliance

Even standing here now in the center of the room, he has always had the look of a man who expects every situation to turn into a brawl.

Tonight, though, his shoulders carry a new weight.

It is not obvious, though nothing about my father ever is.

To anyone else, he might simply look more focused than usual.

His graying hair has been combed back with the same neatness as always, his expression pulled into those familiar hard lines, but I know him too well to mistake it for anything else.

I know what fatigue looks like on him, what fury does to his expression, how grief weighs on him regardless of his ever acknowledging it in the first place.

It doesn’t surprise me even if it feels out of place for a man like my father.

He and Amos have been friends for a long time, a story told so often, it has slowly turned into legend among our syndicates.

Once, when they were young, Vittorio Conti and Amos Russo belonged to rival families clawing for the same pieces of this city.

Their fathers hated each other, and shared streets soon turned bloody despite neither side even remembering what parts they wanted to hoard to begin with.

By all logic, the sons should have inherited that same hatred and continued it.

Maybe it was pragmatism or shared fatigue, perhaps even the simple recognition that they were more alike than either of their fathers ever cared to admit.

Whatever the reason was that convinced both newly fledged men to lower their guns once the reins of their empires were passed down, Vittorio and Amos built something different out of the rubble that was given to them.

I used to think their alliance was invincible simply because I could not imagine either of them allowing the other to be taken off the board.

Now it’s become clear how foolish that belief truly had been.

My gaze flicks briefly to Alessio.

He leans against the wall farthest from the table. His arms are crossed tightly over his chest, his attention fixed on the men moving around the study, turning one corner of the space into a makeshift security hub.

A few of the men glance toward him before speaking, unconsciously checking his reaction before deciding how urgent an answer to their questions are.

At thirty-six, my older brother has never needed to be the loudest man in a room to control its rhythm.

Where I was built to end problems once they become one, Alessio has always been better at seeing them before they fully form.

He is the strategic mind where I am the unbreakable blade.

The architect to my executioner.

The one who can look at a mess of competing interests, wounded egos, and shifting loyalties and somehow see the clearest route through it.

Our father has relied on that balance between us for years.

It has always worked because we understand our roles without question.

Between the two of us, there are very few problems this family cannot absorb or bury. But tonight, looking at him now, I can tell even he feels the strain in the air.

“Elio,” my father greets as soon as the door is shut behind me.

My brother’s eyes lift then and meet mine across the room.

There is no brotherly softness in them, no trace of the man who once bloodied a boy twice his size for breaking my nose when we were children. What looks back at me now is a strategist wanting answers.

Where were you? Is what his eyes ask me.