Chapter 9 Blades Between Hearts

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 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, press would call them legends: the mafia heirs who crossed borders to bring down a shadow boss.

But in this moment, Isandro looked over at the sleeping man beside him Kieran Walsh and knew the real war had only just begun.