Anna Thought the Mafia Boss Was Broken—Until He Looked at Her and Said, “I’m Still a Man”

The order to hold position came from Degan himself. His team stayed behind cover while Tommy stood beneath the depot lights, trembling with the ledger pressed to his chest.

“Tommy!” Anna called. “Put it down and come toward me.”

“No!” He glanced at the shadows. “They’re watching us.”

A truck engine roared behind the building. The loading bay plunged into darkness as the lights snapped off. Gunfire cracked across the depot. Degan’s security team returned fire, but he kept his weapon low until he could identify the targets. Anna dropped behind a concrete barrier, hands over her head, and heard Tommy shout her name.

Then silence.

When the emergency lights came on, Tommy was gone again. A single page from the ledger lay in a puddle. Degan retrieved it while his men checked the perimeter. The page listed payments to a private medical supplier, a charity clinic, and several accounts controlled by people who should have had no connection to the Curado docks.

One name appeared repeatedly: Victor Butler.

Anna stared at it. “He arranged the debt. He brought me here. He knew about the clinic.”

Degan’s expression was grim. “It’s evidence, not proof of the whole operation.”

“You’re still defending him.”

“I’m making sure we don’t make the same mistake they want us to make.”

Back at the estate, Victor was nowhere to be found. His office had been cleared, his personal phone left on the desk, and the security log showed he had left through the east gate twenty minutes before the depot meeting.

Degan ordered his men not to pursue him without confirmation. The restraint seemed to cost him more than any exercise Anna had prescribed.

“Why did he have access to everything?” she asked.

“Because he was there before I inherited the business. He knew my father. He knew me before the accident.”

“What accident?”

Degan’s face closed. “That isn’t relevant.”

“It became relevant when you hired me to keep you alive and someone began using my brother to manipulate you.”

He rolled toward the window. “Two years ago, I was in a convoy when a car bomb went off. The explosion damaged my spine. My driver died. The official story was that Volkov ordered it.”

“And you believe that?”

“I believed it.”

Anna heard the distinction. “What changed?”

“The shipment at the docks. The falsified manifests. Victor’s name on the ledger. My father’s old security chief is the only person who knew the convoy route.”

“Victor?”

Degan nodded.

That night, Anna was unable to sleep. She went to the kitchen for water and found a woman standing by the pantry door. She was in her fifties, with silver-blond hair and the kind of posture that made even silence feel like a command.

“I’m Celeste Curado,” the woman said. “Degan’s aunt.”

Anna had heard the name. Celeste managed the family’s charitable foundation and rarely appeared in public.

“I know who you are.”

“Then you know this house is dangerous for you.”

“I know that already.”

Celeste looked at Anna’s wrist, where a faint mark still remained from the first assessment. “He can be cruel when he’s frightened. Don’t confuse his attention with affection.”

“I don’t.”

“Good. Because my nephew is being maneuvered toward a war, and you are the most convenient weapon anyone could hand him.”

“Then help me stop it.”

Celeste’s face softened by a fraction. “I have spent years trying to keep Degan from becoming his father. I failed. Perhaps you’ll do better.”

She gave Anna a small key and told her it opened a cabinet in the old library. Inside, Anna found archived medical records from the night of Degan’s accident, along with a report that had been marked confidential. The report listed the explosive residue recovered from the convoy and a note from a technician: the device had been triggered remotely using a frequency reserved for the Curado security network.

Someone inside the family had activated it.

A second document named the technician who had examined the device. The man had died three days later in what the report called an accidental fall.

Anna heard wheels in the hall. Degan appeared in the doorway, his face pale as he read the page over her shoulder.

“Victor had access to that frequency,” he said.