Chapter 9

• Moonlight carved silver patterns across the polished marble floor of the Moretti penthouse. The tension in the room was heavier than steel.
• Kieran and Isandro faced each other across the expansive living area, both stripped of armor and pretense Kieran in his black Henley and leather pants, Isandro in a fine white shirt and tailored trousers. Neither slept. Neither spoke.
• It was time.
• “You sure you want to do it tonight?” Kieran asked quietly, voice taut.
• Isandro folded his arms. His dark eyes glowed with unwavering resolve. “We go now. If we hesitate any longer, Damien Grey slips away.”
• Kieran nodded.
• Together, they descended to the garage, where two sleek black SUVs waited. Engines purred as they climbed inside, the air between them electric.
• Isandro turned the wheel toward Switzerland—Geneva, specifically. It would take hours to cross the border, and beyond the legal risks, they both knew that only one thing mattered: the man who had pulled their strings for months.
• By sunrise, they were in the Alps. The SUVs wound up narrow roads carved between jagged peaks. Mists below clung to the valley floor. Silence and purpose drove them.
• At the safehouse, silver shutters glinted in dawn's first light. Inside, Damien Grey awaited far more composed than any man who had just had his empire rocked.
• He stood in the center of the modern room: tall, athletic, dressed in a charcoal suit that clung to him like second skin. Too perfect. Too cold. Too aware.
• When the two mafia heirs stepped inside, Grey’s voice rang out smooth, ironic. “Isandro Moretti. Kieran Walsh. My, my, what a surprise.”
• Isandro didn’t blink. “Stop talking. Or we will.”
• Grey laughed softly. “Bold, I like that. But you misunderstand I invited you.”
• Kieran’s eyebrows rose. “You did?”
• Grey smiled. “I enjoy watching a puppet dance before I pull the strings.”
• The line cut deep.
• Isandro’s jaw clenched. “You think this is a show? You’ve cost lives my family, his family. You used us.”
• Grey shrugged, as though it didn’t matter. “I used what I could. And then you used each other.” His eyes flicked between them. “Typical.”
• Kieran took a step forward. “This ends tonight.”
• Grey reached for something on the table behind him barely noticeable until the glint of metal caught Isandro’s eye a pistol.
• A surge of movement: Kieran tackled Grey. The pistol fired. The bullet snapped into the floor between them. Grey rolled and sprang to his feet, snatching another gun from a drawer.
• Isandro dove toward Grey’s arm, wrenching the weapon away. Metal clattered as he kicked the renewed pistol across the room. Grey lunged for Kieran, fists flying.
• The fight was brutal, intimate a knife-edge dance of power and survival.
• Blood blossomed on Grey’s cheek. Kieran’s jaw bled. Isandro’s white shirt darkened at the collar as he grabbed Grey’s wrist, twisting until the man was screaming.
• Grey spat blood and cursed. “You think you defeated me? This is my empire!”
• Isandro pressed the point of the gun to his temple. “It ends here.”
• Grey’s eyes went wide with fear for the first time. The gun in Isandro’s hand wasn’t the only weapon trained on him. Kieran had a knife at his throat.
• “If you survived… if you outlive this you’ll regret ever crossing us,” Isandro continued softly, voice clipped.
• Grey stammered. “Please it’s just business”
• “No more business,” Kieran cut in. “And no mercy.”
• Isandro nodded and lowered the weapon just as sirens wailed in the distance.
• The Swiss police were coming for them all. Grey smirked, chest heaving. “See? It never ends, does it?”
• Before they could react, Grey lashed out, kicking a chair into Isandro’s knee. It buckled. Kieran twisted, stepping between them just as Swiss uniforms burst in.
• The world tilted into chaos again: shouts in a foreign tongue, bright lights, weapons raised.
• The three men paused, eyes locked.
• Grey smiled. “You saved each other.”
• Isandro swallowed. “Now we save ourselves.”
• Kieran grabbed his hand. “Together.”
• They turned and walked toward the oncoming officers unarmed, indifferent to the threat of imprisonment because everything would change when the smoke cleared.
• Hours later, in a Swiss hospital, Isandro stood at a window, cuffed but calm. Kieran slept in the next bed gunshot clean through, pneumonia brewing from the altitude, but alive.
• Grey was gone extradited overnight, disappeared into the labyrinth of international law.
• Outside, dawn broke over Geneva.
• Within months, the press would call them legends: the mafia heirs who crossed borders to bring down a shadow boss.
• But at this moment, Isandro looked over at the sleeping man beside him Kieran Walsh and knew the real war had only just begun.