The word 'should' still hung in the bunker, thin and unfinished, as the dust that had shaken loose from the ceiling settled into the seams of the oval table and the shoulders of the men seated around it.
Matteo's eyes stayed on his father's face, searching for something that would confirm what had just been said, something solid enough to stand on. The room had gone quiet in a way that did not feel like safety, more like a pause that had not decided what it was pausing for.
He swallowed and spoke because silence felt worse. "If the bomb went off… and they're dead… shouldn't we be leaving?"
His voice came out steadier than he felt, like he had borrowed it from a version of himself that still believed the plan had worked. He pictured the corridor above them collapsed, the threat buried under stone and steel, and tried to let that picture settle into something real.
Leonardo did not answer. He raised one hand instead, palm outward, a small, controlled gesture that carried more weight than a sentence would have.
It was not a request for quiet.
It was a command to wait, delivered by a man who had decided there was something in the air that had not revealed itself yet. Matteo felt the shift ripple through the room as the others read the gesture the same way he did.
The silence that followed had shape to it. Fifteen men in an underground chamber, all of them used to danger, choosing not to fill the space with words while they listened for something that had not announced itself.
The table sat between them like an anchor. The overhead lights hummed faintly. The metal door at the far end of the bunker remained closed, a flat, unremarkable surface that had never meant anything more than an exit until now. The dust had finished settling. The air felt still, as if it were waiting with them.
The first knock did not register as a knock.
It came through the door as a dull impact, something that could have been debris shifting in the corridor beyond, or a piece of the structure settling into a new position after the blast.
Matteo's attention flicked toward it without commitment, his mind offering easier explanations before it reached for the harder one.
Then it came again. The same sound, placed in the same spot, just distinct enough to suggest intention.
A third time, heavier. The metal held the shape of the impact longer, a brief deformation that snapped back into place. By the fourth, there was no mistaking it. The sound had rhythm now, a pattern that did not belong to falling stone or collapsing walls. It belonged to something on the other side of the door, choosing to make itself known.
The room understood in increments. One man shifted in his chair, another reached for a weapon and then stopped halfway through the motion, as if unsure what he would be aiming at.
Matteo felt the realization arrive in pieces, each knock adding weight to it until it settled into something undeniable. The door was not holding. The thing they had built to stop what was coming had not stopped it.
The next impact did not sound like a knock. It sounded like something striking the door with enough force that the metal objected.
Then the metal split.
At first it was a distortion, a small, impossible bulge in the center of the door that pushed outward as if the material itself had decided to change its shape. Matteo leaned back without meaning to, his eyes trying to make sense of what they were seeing before his mind could catch up. The bulge sharpened, thinned, and then tore.
A claw came through.
It did not belong in the category of hands Matteo knew. It was too large, the proportions wrong, the shape defined by fur, muscle and bone that had no business pressing through reinforced metal. It pushed further, forcing the opening wider, and then a second hand joined it, the two of them bracing against the edges of the tear.
The door did not explode. It came apart.
The metal separated along the line the hands had created, peeling back in a way that suggested the force applied to it did not recognize it as an obstacle worth respecting. The split widened, the center of the door folding inward, and then outward, until there was enough space for something to step through.
She did.
Abigail entered in a single, controlled movement, lowering herself just enough to clear the frame before rising to her full height inside the bunker. Eight feet of ash blonde muscle and fur filled the doorway, the scale of her forcing the room to adjust around her.
Thin wisps of steam rose from her body, trailing off her shoulders and arms where the heat of rapid healing met the cooler air. It gave her an almost unreal presence, as if she were still halfway between the thing that had been hit by the explosion and the thing that had walked through it.
Matteo's brain tried to reconcile the two states and failed.
She looked at them, and when she spoke, her voice carried none of the strain her body suggested it should.
"You prepared well," she said, each word placed with care. "You have my respect."
There was no mockery in it, no edge that turned the statement into something else. It was simply true in the way she understood truth, offered and then set aside.
Anissa stepped through behind her.
Where Abigail looked intact, if still shedding heat, Anissa looked like the argument itself. Her dark grey form bore the marks of the blast in ways that had not finished resolving. Sections of flesh were in the process of closing, the edges drawing together as if pulled by an invisible hand.
Fur returned in patches, growing over exposed skin in real time, the texture shifting from raw to complete within seconds. Matteo watched a tear along her side knit itself closed as she moved, the body correcting damage faster than it should have been able to sustain it.
She did not pause to let the room take her in. Her eyes moved over the men, assessing, measuring, and then she spoke with a flatness that made the words feel like the continuation of a process already underway. "Which one's first."
The room did not answer her.
Weapons that had been drawn hung in hands that had not decided to use them. The men who held them seemed to understand, at some level deeper than thought, that the equation had changed.
Leonardo remained seated for a moment longer, his eyes fixed on Abigail, the calculation in them running through possibilities that were collapsing one after another.
Matteo felt something in his chest tighten, a pressure that had no clear direction to go.
***
The Maison Étoile restaurant existed on the opposite end of the city, removed from the estate by distance and by intention. It was the kind of place that had decided long ago that its purpose was not to feed people but to provide a setting in which decisions could be made comfortably.
The lighting was low and warm, angled in a way that made every table feel private without isolating it. The space between them was measured precisely, enough to create separation without creating distance. A phone on the table between two diners lit briefly with a notification, the glow reflecting off the polished surface before fading as it went unanswered.
Elizabeth Thorne sat with her back straight, her posture effortless in the way of someone who had never needed to think about it. The steak on her plate was rare, the center a deep red that held its shape when she cut into it.
Her knife moved with practiced precision, the blade gliding through the meat without resistance, separating a piece that she lifted to her mouth without breaking the rhythm of the conversation she was already in.
Her companion leaned forward slightly, his casserole untouched for the moment.
"I was under the impression you were reconsidering Canada," he said, his tone careful, as if the phrasing mattered.
Elizabeth did not look up immediately. She finished the bite she had taken, set her fork down for a moment, and then met his eyes with a small, genuine smile.
"I don't recall saying that," she replied, her voice warm. "I said I prefer a different approach."
He nodded slowly, the adjustment happening in real time. "Indirect," he said, testing the word.
"Overt influence without the inconvenience of presence," she agreed, picking up her knife again. "It's cleaner. Less… visible."
He exhaled, a hint of a smile forming as the pieces aligned. "And that's where I come in."
Elizabeth's expression brightened in a way that felt like approval given sparingly. "You're quick," she said. "I appreciate that about you." The compliment landed with weight, not because it was extravagant, but because it was not offered lightly.
She cut another piece of steak, her attention returning to the plate as if the conversation were simply one element of a larger, well-managed evening.
"The Rizzolo family will no longer be a complication," she added, her tone unchanged. The words settled between them as if they belonged there, as if they were an update rather than a declaration.
He watched her, the question forming before he spoke it. "You sound very certain."
Elizabeth set her knife down, the movement deliberate. She reached into her bag and produced a sealed envelope, placing it on the table between them with a light touch.
"Give this to whoever greets you when you arrive," she said. "There's no need to be nervous. It will take care of things."
He looked at the envelope, then back at her. "What's in it?"
She smiled, the expression carrying a hint of playfulness that did not soften the instruction that followed.
"Not something you need to concern yourself with," she said. "And not something you should open." The warmth in her voice made the warning feel like a shared understanding rather than a threat.
She finished the last of her steak, the plate left clean, the knife and fork placed together at a precise angle that spoke of habit more than intention. She lifted her napkin, blotting her mouth with a small, controlled motion before setting it aside. Then she stood, smoothing her dress with a brief pass of her hand.
"Be a darling and settle the bill," she said lightly, her eyes meeting his once more. "And remember what I said about the envelope." The teasing note in her voice lingered just long enough to register before she turned and left, her presence withdrawing from the space as smoothly as it had occupied it.
He remained seated, the envelope now the center of his attention.
Confusion and satisfaction shared space in his expression, neither fully displacing the other. He turned it over once in his hands, as if the weight of it might tell him something it did not show.
Then he set it back on the table, untouched, and raised a hand to signal for the check.