Chapter 151: 151 ~ Jace
It was almost midnight when I finally picked up my phone.
The villa was quiet. Mira had fallen asleep hours ago, her steady breathing the only thing anchoring me to sanity lately. But I couldn’t sleep. Not tonight. Not when the next move in this game could determine everything.
The liquor burned down my throat as I paced the study, phone in hand, staring at the name glowing on the screen. Ricardo Romano.
My uncle.
My father’s brother.
The man who smiled at my christening and later plotted to burn everything I’d built to the ground.
I’d expected this call weeks ago. But it had to come from me. He’d never trust an olive branch extended by anyone else. Not after Enzo.
I took a slow breath, then dialed.
The line rang twice before he answered.
"Well, well," Ricardo’s voice oozed amusement. "The golden boy finally calls."
I smiled faintly, leaning against the edge of my desk. "You make it sound like I’ve been avoiding you."
"You have." He chuckled, a low, taunting sound. "Then again, I understand. Killing your cousin can’t make family dinners any easier."
"Enzo made his choice." My tone stayed even. "You know how that goes, zio."
He hummed, the sound sharp with sarcasm. "Still sounds like justification, not conviction. Vittorio would be disappointed to hear how soft his son’s become."
At the mention of my father’s name, something dark and violent stirred in me, but I kept my voice calm. Never give a predator the scent of blood.
"This isn’t about the past," I said smoothly. "It’s about what comes next. I think it’s time we stop pretending we can destroy each other without burning the whole damn empire down."
Silence stretched. Then a quiet, skeptical laugh.
"You’re offering peace?"
"Call it a ceasefire," I corrected. "We meet. We talk. Maybe we find a way to settle this like a family instead of corpses."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"I expect you to believe that I’m tired of this nonsense. You, Massimo, Giulietta... it’s a carousel of betrayal, and frankly, I’m getting bored."
He exhaled through the line, a faint hiss of static. I could practically see him pacing his office, cigar in hand, suspicion flickering in those cunning eyes.
"Where?" he asked finally.
"Neutral ground," I said. "The old vineyard in Palermo. My father’s place. You know it."
"Of course I do. It’s where Vittorio buried most of his enemies."
A small smile tugged at my lips. "And where he once shared a drink with you. That has to count for something."
"You want to meet there?"
"It’s poetic," I said simply. "And you like poetry, don’t you, zio?"
He went quiet again. I could hear him thinking. Calculating. He’d expect a trap — because it was one. But even the smartest men still had egos, and Ricardo’s was a monument carved in marble.
"I’ll consider it," he said at last.
"Do that. I’ll send you the time once the place is secured."
"Bring no guards, Jace."
I laughed, low and genuine. "You first."
He chuckled, a dark, almost approving sound. "You’ve got your father’s mouth. But I hope for your sake, you don’t share his recklessness."
"Don’t worry," I said, my tone cool and final. "I learned from his mistakes."
Before he could reply, I ended the call.
The silence in the room felt heavier now.
I set the phone down and stared at the faint reflection of myself in the window. It was glass, a shadow, and a man wearing calm like armor.
The peace I’d just offered was a lie, but sometimes lies were the only way to lead a man to his death.
The vineyard would be ready.
The men would be in place.
And Ricardo... would walk right into his own grave wearing a smile.
I poured another drink and took a slow sip.
Step four had just begun.
~~
By morning I was downstairs in one of the vehicles with Tomas. I didn’t want anyone else listening to our conversation.
He listened without interrupting when I walked him through the call. Tomas’s face didn’t change. It was unreadable, the way I liked it but his fingers tapped the steering wheel in a slow, satisfied rhythm.
"Good," he said when I finished. "Ricardo’s ego will take the bait. He can’t resist proving he’s still in charge."
"Perfect," I replied. "He’ll come to Palermo expecting a reunion of men who still remember Vittorio. He’ll come to honor Enzo. He’ll come to show he’s not afraid. He’ll come thinking he’s safe."
"Which means he’ll be stupid enough to leave his perimeter and his paranoia at home," Luca added. He was on the line, voice flat with the same kind of dangerous calm Tomas carried. "He’ll bring his close men, the ones he trusts and that’s who we want inside, not outside."
I poured the plan out slowly so there would be no misunderstanding. Details mattered. The trap lived in the margins.
"We’ll stage a memorial," I said. "A private thing. Candlelight, a few speeches, the kind of ceremony your enemies think is sentimental and harmless. Make it Southern, make it classy. That’s the point. Make it feel like a moment you’d miss if you weren’t there. Ricardo will want that. He can’t resist being seen doing what a head of house must do."
"Memorial for Enzo," Tomas echoed my words. "Make it believable. Invitations from mutual associates, a few neutral names that would make him show up."
"And no cameras," I said with a wag of a finger. "No journalists. This is between families. We control the guest list."
"Guests will be screened," Luca confirmed. "We’ll slip plants into his circle. Guys who look like bodyguards but are ours. They’ll check coats, light his candles, stand close without making it obvious. When the time comes, they’ll be the ones who don’t hesitate."
"I want the perimeter tight but invisible," I told them. "Snipers where they belong,,, the tree line, the old silo but out of plain sight. Men in the hedges. Two egress routes cleared for Ricardo to feel secure, then blocked. No panic, no chaos until the last second. We will be the calm in the eye."
Tomas counted off assignments like a man reading a grocery list. "Luca gets the inner ring. He positions his men among the mourners. I’ll handle logistics, transport. We’ll have medical staff staged nearby; not for saving him, but to sell the spectacle. The more he trusts what he sees, the less he looks for treachery."
"You’ll put a priest in there?" Luca asked dryly.
"A priest," I said with a sinister smirk making its way to my face. "A man with the right cadence to make people’s guard drop. A eulogy that mentions family, legacy, the foolishness of endless war, all the things that will let Ricardo exhale. He’ll stand up to argue or to boast; he’ll step forward to claim his place at the center. That’s our cue."
There was something delicious about a foolproof plan to take down your enemy.
"Signal?" Tomas wanted to know.
"Three knocks in the second verse of the prayer," I said.
We planned down to least detail. The backup teams, extraction plans, clean-up crews. I wanted the message to be brutal and obvious: betray us, and you die where men can see you. No secrets. No cheap graves. Public spectacle was punishment and proof.
"What about the fallout?" Luca asked. "If Ricardo’s men scatter, others will fill the vacuum."
"They already are," I said. "Ricardo is a symbol, not an institution. When he falls, shock will ripple through the alliances. Fear will make them stall. That’s where we step in. It has to be quick and efficient. By the time any other family moves, they’ll find a new order in place."
Tomas hesitated for a second. I looked at him, waiting for him to speak.
"And Massimo? He won’t like this. He’ll be slow to act if he doesn’t have the document. He’s the kind to wait, not to charge headlong. But he’ll test. He’ll probe. He’ll send men, maybe try a scare tactic."
"Let him," I said. "He’ll reveal his hand and expose his reach. He thinks he’s playing me for blood. He’s playing for ownership. If he pushes too hard, he forces his own self-exposure. That’s his mistake."
Tomas suggested extra layers of deception: false messages, planted rumors. Maybe an apparent leak that made Ricardo believe the memorial was the only place to settle scores publicly. Luca wanted to use a man from Ricardo’s own circle and a whisper of familiarity to push him into complacence.
"It has to be clean," I said. "No fingerprints, no trails, no excuses. If Massimo thinks the dossier is the reason Ricardo goes down and doesn’t find it, he’ll break himself trying to find it. He’ll make mistakes."
"And you?" Luca asked. "You’ll be visible at the memorial?"
"Yes." My voice didn’t waver. "I’ll be there with a handful of my oldest men. I’ll watch, I’ll speak, and when it’s over, there will be no doubt who stands."
He didn’t ask the obvious question. I knew why. Men like Luca saw the end even when I tried to blind them with the next move. But it was there, the part of the plan that took iron to the bone.
"I’ll set the time," I said, ready to round up the call with Luca.
When I hung up and went back in, the house felt too quiet for a while. I walked the balcony with my drink cooling in my hand as I stared at the large expanse of land that surrounded the villa. We were quite literally in the middle of nowhere.
The plan was solid. Plans were maps of a war I didn’t exactly want love, but I loved how clean they were. They were, precise and inevitable and sometimes came with unpredictability.
More than anything, I hoped this step in the plan would be as successful as the rest had been. Ricardo was a major stumbling block in my empire.
Getting rid of him meant that I was staking my claim as the true don and well deserved heir of the Romano legacy.
And no matter what it took, I would take him down.