Chapter 37 Radio Silence
Killian’s POV
Baby, please, reach out to me. It’s been twenty-four hours since Gia last heard from you. I miss you. I’m worried sick. I just need to know you’re safe.
Valentina, it’s been two days now. Please, angel, answer your phone. If you can’t talk to me, at least check in with your sister. She says this is just how you cope, but I can’t take it. I’m coming undone. I need you.
Angel, goddamn it-five days is too much. I can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t think straight. I need you in my arms, I need to hear your voice. I’m falling apart here, baby.
Tomorrow, we ride out for Daytona. No one’s heard a word from you in ten days. Even your papa reached out after Gia called him, hoping you’d checked in with him. Wherever you are, I hope you’re all
right. I love you, always.
We’re about to roll out of the clubhouse-gone for a week. If you come home, please, just stay. I’m so lost without you, Vandal Angel. My Valentina, my Caterina. You are my heart and my soul. Gia taught me this-I hope I’m saying it right.
Ti amo, mia bellissima donna. (I love you, my beautiful woman.)
Valentina’s POV
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Twelve days of stress relief, twelve days spent washing away the ache with blood. Once I finally meet with the Taskmaster, he puts me up in a dingy one-bedroom apartment-just enough space to drop my bag, shower off the city, change into black, and head out for my first contract. I break my father’s cardinal rule-never hunt alone, always work with my sister-but I can’t help myself. I’m reckless with grief, aching for oblivion. If I can’t have the man I adore, what’s left for me? I want death, but the bastards I’m sent to eliminate refuse to return the favor. Turns out, I’m too well trained to die easy.
Now I carry the weight of twenty-four new kills. I consider getting a tattoo-something to mark the growing number. Maybe vines with a leaf for every soul, or flower petals. No, better: a black panther stretched across my shoulders, claws dripping red down my spine, each drop a memory, a kill. I make a note to sketch it out later.
A few days ago, I bought myself a new laptop-left the old one at the club, along with my heart. Now, sitting cross-legged on my borrowed bed, I check in with my legitimate clients: update websites, run security audits, collect payments. Between freelance work and hit jobs, my savings have grown fat. My phone lies silent beside me, but I know I can’t avoid it much longer. I’m days overdue for a check-in; I should’ve texted on day seven. Papa and Giuliana must be climbing the walls by now.
Reluctantly, power it on, and it lights up with a flurry of missed calls and messages-over fifty calls, a hundred texts. Giuliana, Papa, and, overwhelmingly, Killian. Giuliana must have given him my number. My chest tightens as I scroll through my sister’s messages-her pleading, her worry, her promise that what happened with Killian is just a misunderstanding. Papa, ever the protector, lectures me for making everyone worry and warns me that someone’s been watching Giuliana. From his descriptions, I know exactly who: the man from the supply store and his lackeys. Papa reassures me he’s keeping an eye on them, and promises to alert me if anything changes. My pity party is officially over. Giuliana
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Then I read Killian’s messages, and my resolve wavers. Every word is a plea-a prayer for me to come home, his need pouring through the screen. Four times a day, he bares his soul, telling me how lost he is, how much he loves me, until the last few sound quiet, resigned, as though he’s bracing himself to let me go. Guilt cuts through me, sharp as any blade. I can still see that look on his face-the one I can’t forget.
His last message tells me they’re leaving for Daytona. I realize it’s time. I pack my gear, order an Uber, and head back to the clubhouse. The prospects at the gate stare at me like I’m a ghost as I stride insid e. The place is almost empty, haunted by silence, just two brothers shooting pool. When the door ban gs open, they look up in surprise.
“Well, look who’s back,” Mason calls, flinging his pool stick aside and scooping me into a rib-cracking hug.
Bulldozer, bigger and warmer, pulls me free from Mason’s grip, crushing me against his chest. “Good to have you home, Valentina,” he rumbles before setting me down.
“I’m not staying,” I say. “Just dropping my things and then I’m off again. I’m driving to Daytona to find my man and my sister.”
Bulldozer grins, nodding. “Killian’ll lose his mind. So will Gia.”
I hug them both again, then disappear to the room I once shared with Killian. I unpack, repack, shower, dress, and step into the sunlight, determination flaring in my chest. Time to go home. Time to fight for the only people who ever n the only people who ever made me feel alive.
Cyrus’ POV
The war is a blood-soaked blur. Fifteen of my men lie dead, their lives snuffed out in the crossfire, but the Calvetti family’s losses are triple ours. It doesn’t matter-no matter how many bodies fall, the Mafia always has more soldiers to throw at the fire.
Today, their message arrives in flesh and iron. One of my brothers is dumped at our doorstep, battered beyond recognition, a note stapled to his forehead in a savage display. The Don wants to parley. I take one of their men, break every finger, and send him back with my own message-date, time, place. Retribution isn’t just a word in my world. It’s a blood debt.
Two days later, I find myself standing in a desolate roadside diner, face-to-face with the legend behind the violence. He stands as tall as me, 6’3″, but with a leaner build, the kind of man who survives by wit and willpower. Black hair slicked back to a gleam, a thin mustache curling over lips set in a sneer. He looks like something slippery, something that crawls.
His voice cuts the silence. “Why have you been attacking me? And who the fuck are you?”
I don’t flinch at his growl. “Don’t play dumb. You came at us first.”
Confusion flickers in his eyes, genuine or well-practiced, I can’t tell.
“I’m Cyrus. National President of the Ravagers MC,” I tell him, letting the title carry its weight.
He barks a cold laugh. “Why would I waste time on some low-rent MC? I am the fucking Mafia. Your
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His contempt sets my teeth on edge. “You think you can wipe out my New York chapter and get away with it? Every single man-dead. Their throats slit, their wrists opened. A message left, in your name. Your family crest carved into flesh. Did you think there wouldn’t be consequences?”
He snatches up my phone when I slide it across the cracked tabletop, scrolling through the carnage. His mouth twists in disdain.
“We don’t slit throats or wrists,” he scoffs. “We use bullets. And we don’t sign our work for the world to see. That’s amateur hour. Wait-were any of the corpses headless? Handless?”
A cold chill worms through me. “Not that I know of.”
He shakes his head. “Then it wasn’t the Harvester.”
I narrow my gaze. “The Harvester?”
He nods, eyes darkening. “A traitor. Betrayed my family. Been chasing his shadow for years, and now his signature shows up in New York. But his style is decapitation, not this.”
“So you’re saying you had nothing to do with this?”
He looks me in the eye, reading my soul for a lie. “No. But now someone’s framing the Calvetti name, and that makes it my business. Whoever did this is as much my enemy as yours.”
”
The air thickens with the weight of old grudges and fresh alliances. I hold out my hand, wary but resolute. “Then we hunt them together. I want my club’s killer. You want your family’s name cleared.”
He studies me a moment longer, then grips my hand with surprising strength. “Deal. We both lost men. We’ll call it even for now.”
But as I look into his eyes, I know the ledger between us is far from settled.
