Chapter 12: What the hell is going on?.

The audacity nd the absolute height of mannerlessness.

I lean back in my chair.

Fine.

If he wants to pretend he doesn’t know me...i can play that game too.

The silence in the room doesn’t last long though as rthe door opens again, i turn instinctively to see annother man walk in.

And for a second, I genuinely wonder if I’ve somehow started seeing double.

Same dark hair, same sharp jaw. He’s not an exact copy of the man sitting across from Uncle Lorenzo, but the resemblance is too obvious to ignore.

Brothers.

They have to be.

The newcomer doesn’t say a word, he simply walks over and takes the empty chair beside Bullet Boy.

Bullet Boy doesn’t acknowledge him, neither does his brother. Apparently, that’s how these people communicate.

With silence.

Because why make things easy?

A few seconds later, another man enters, this one I recognize immediately.

Uncle Lorenzo’s underboss. Matteo.

His presence makes the atmosphere even heavier. He takes his place beside Uncle Lorenzo, and suddenly I understand something.

This isn’t a family dinner...It’s a freaking meeting, a serious one at that:

My eyes move around the room.

Lorenzo, Matteo, Cassian, Olivia, Me and two strangers who look like they could kill someone without thinking twice.

My stomach tightens.

What the hell is going on?

Bullet Boy finally speaks.

"I’m not interested in wasting anyone’s time, especially not mine."

His voice is exactly as I remember it, that deep bass voice.

Only now there’s more authority behind it.

He leans back slightly, his gaze moving from Lorenzo to Matteo.

"The situation between our families has gone beyond rivalry."

Nobody interrupts him.

"Too many people have died. Too much money has been lost. And every time one side retaliates, the other answers with something worse."

His fingers tap once against the armrest.

"This isn’t sustainable."

I glance at Olivia to fid She’s listening carefully.

The man beside Bullet Boy reaches into his jacket and mt eyes immediately drop to his hand.

He pulls out a silver cigarette case, he opens it with practiced ease.

Takes one and lights it.

The flame briefly illuminates his face before disappearing.

Smoke curls lazily around his head.

His eyes are an unusual shade of blue....a deep contrast between him and bullet boy.

Almost unnervingly so.

Irish, perhaps? I don’t know.

But he looks like the kind of man who’d make a room uncomfortable simply by entering it.

He exhales slowly.

"Let’s not pretend this is about peace."

His voice carries a different edge than his brother’s.

"We’re here because continued war would be fucking stupid on both our paths."

My eyebrows lift as he taps ash into a small glass dish.

"There are other organizations watching us."

Bullet Boy nods once.

"The Voldak Cartel and e the Kisumu Bratva."

Cassian’s jaw hardens.

I notice.

That alone tells me those names mean something.

The Irish-looking man continues.

"They’ve been waiting for an opportunity to exploit the conflict between the Lucianos and the Sanchez family."

My breath catches.

Sanchez.

The name hits me like a slap.

I look at Bullet Boy, then his brother.

He’s not freaking Irish...he’s fucking Spanish.

My brain rejects the thought immediately.

There are thousands of Sanchez families in the world.

It doesn’t mean...

Uncle Lorenzo’s voice cuts through my thoughts.

"Exactly. So in the interest of not getting hit by a bigger enemy from behind while both families squabble....

He nods in bullet boys direction

"Lysander and I haw come to an arrangement that will end the hostility between both families forever and make us stronger with a unified front."

He looks toward the two men, then his eyes move across the table.

And finally...They land on me.

I straighten.

Why rhe hell is he looking at me?

He holds my gaze for several seconds.

Then says,

"The only way to end this permanently is to unite our families."

Olivia’s eyebrows pull together.

"Unite?"

Her voice is soft and confused.

Lorenzo nods.

"Yes."

I stare at him.

"What does that mean?"

He doesn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he looks toward Bullet Boy and something cold settles in my stomach.

My fingers slowly curl around the edge of my chair.

I look at Bullet Boy again.

The way Uncle Lorenzo is speaking to him as an equal.

Not a guest, not an associate, An equal.

My heartbeat begins to accelerate.

Sanchez?. In our teritory?

No. It can’t be.

But then memories begin lining up in my head. The stories Papa used to tell us abt the Sanchez family.

The Spanish mafia...Our families oldest rivals. Rhe family responsible for some of the bloodiest conflicts the Luciano organization had ever seen.

I remember Papa increasing our security when we were younger. I remember Cassian refusing to let Olivia and me leave the estate without guards, I remember hearing gunshots in the distance during one of the attacks.

I remember men coming home injured, some never coming home at all and I remember Papa saying one thing over and over.

"The Sanchez will never stop."

We hate them and they hate us right back. It had It had been that way for as long as I could remember.

So why...Why was one of them sitting across from me?

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

I look at Cassian bt he won’t meet my eyes.

That confirms it.

He’s a Sanchez.

I turn back toward Bullet Boy.

Lysander.

That’s what Uncle Lorenzo called him earlier.

Lysander Sanchez.

The name settles into my mind.

If Lysander Sanchez is sitting here... Then why?

Why would the most powerful man in our enemy’s organization willingly sit in the same room as the Luciano Don?

Lorenzo’s gaze moves between us.

Then he says the words that make the room tilt beneath me.

"The war ends tonight."

He pauses.

"Because we’re going to become one family."