The private jet touched down on the tarmac at Palermo Airport right at precisely twelve minutes past noon. The cabin door unsealed open with a hydraulic swoop, the Mediterranean wind quickly rushing in, a soft inviting warm air-real one-not the sterile chill they’d been breathing for the last ten hours. April in Sicily was something else, a hint of salt and citrus with faintest undercurrent of diesel from the runaway.

Two stewardesses dressed impeccably emerged from inside the cabin, carrying a matching set of Italia leather luggage and a black briefcase, monogrammed in Castrogiovanni crest that never left the Consigliere’s orbit for long.

And then Ezekiel stepped into the light with a lazy sway like a dark romance character-which hilariously was.

Black sunglasses perched perfectly on the bridge of his nose. Suit jacket slung over one arm, he’d shed his usual black-on-black three-piece suit uniform to a white linen shirt, rolled to the elbow exposing red and black serpentine ink that wound around his forearms. His silver-streaked braid hug on one shoulder.

Beside him, a figure stood together at the top of the jet stair squinting against the brightness, He glanced down at them. Large hand possessively resting on their shoulder, making sure they’re alright.

“Careful, dolcezza. Feel a little wobbly?” His voice low, teasing rumble laced with affection.

Next time, he thought, guiding them down the stairs, one hand on her shoulder, the other hovering near the railing, next time, I'm chartering a damn boat. Slower, sure. But at least my skeleton won't sound like a bag of walnuts when I stand up.

Really, the long flight from Providence to Palermo had left his body protesting-his knees popping, joints aching from sitting too long. His lower back especially, it fucking complaints. He’d think twice next time before booking another overseas trip because he’s getting old, he probably wouldn’t. The Don asked, and Ezekiel went. Simple.

Christ...He wished for a spa day and a fantastic back massage, he needed that right now.

A black armored Mercedes S-Class cruised across the open field area and rolled to a stop right six feet from the base of the stairs. The door swung open.

The man who emerged was built like a brick. Broad, barrel-chested, chest hair peeking underneath unbuttoned white shirt. A gold signet ring glinted on his right hand-the Castrogiovanni crest, though you'd need to know what you were looking at to recognize it.

Drago.

The Castrogiovanni's most trusted Capo on Italian soil-and one of the most prolific arm dealers in southern Mediterranean. He was in the business for years, an expert and professional. The kind of man whose named etched in Interpol’s secret file or in the back rooms of NATO meetings.

He approached the Consigliere with rolling, unhurried gait. “Consigliere.” A curt nod. The word was clipped, reverent, delivered in deep baritone. “Welcome.”

He extended a meaty hand, palm-up, briefly, a gesture of offering. Old Sicilian courtesy. My hand is open. I carry nothing against you.

Ezekiel took it, clasped it once, firm. Released.

Drago's gaze shifted to the woman at Ezekiel's side. He dipped his chin again, respectful, but briefer this time, the way a man who is not entirely comfortable with social pleasantries acknowledges someone he's been told to treat well.

"Name's Drago. Hope you two having a..." He paused. Searched for the word. His thick fingers twitched at his side an unconscious motion as though he were physically trying to pluck the right English phrase from the air. "...a great vacation, yes?"

His tongue worked behind his teeth, visibly dissatisfied with the way the English sat in his mouth. He compensated by gesturing broadly toward the Mercedes, a sweeping motion of one massive hand that communicated get in more eloquently than any sentence could.

“Hop on the car, the villa’s just an hour away. We are happy to see you here in Italy.” He smiled not unkindly, not warm either, somewhere in between. "We are happy to see you here in Italy. Molto felice."

Ezekiel returned the nod. "Grazie, Drago. The Don sends his regards."

Something shifted in Drago's expression like a flicker of pride. He said nothing. Simply opened the rear passenger door and stood aside.

Ezekiel had found the small of his partner’s back, gently ushered them into the cool leather interior of the Mercedes. He watched them settle, and comfortably seated, only then did he round the vehicle to the opposite side, folding his tall frame into the backseat with ease, sliding beside them.

The door closed with a muted, expensive thunk.

The drive was uneventful. Ezekiel sat with one ankle crossed over his knee, his posture relaxed. He made a polite conversation with Drago in the front seat. About the weather. The spring rains and whether they'd been kind to the roads. The security detail at the villa: how many men, what rotations, which perimeter points had been reinforced since his last communication with the Don's people.

And then, seamlessly, as though discussing the price of bread-a string of low, rapid Italian that Drago answered just as quickly. Clipped phrases. Numbers. A name repeated twice, then dropped.

It sounded suspiciously like a code.

Or perhaps just grocery lists. With these men, it was genuinely difficult to tell.

Ezekiel's Italian was, by his own reluctant admission, terrible. But it was functional terrible. Drago, to his credit, didn't flinch. He simply matched Ezekiel's pace and filled in the gaps with hand gestures visible even from the backseat, his right hand leaving the steering wheel with alarming frequency to punctuate his points.

At some point, the conversation lulled.

Ezekiel glanced sideways.

His partner was hunched slightly over their phone, thumbs tapping the screen with the rapid, focused intensity. Their lips were pursed-pouting, really, though they'd probably deny it-and the very tip of their tongue peeked out from the corner of their mouth in a display of concentration so earnest it bordered on the comedic.

Endearing, he thought.

---

The villa.

It belonged to the Castrogiovanni family for four generations. It was, simultaneously, a summer home and a bastion. A place where children played in the courtyard while, beneath the wine cellar, enough weaponry to arm a small nation sat in darkness silence. The duality was very Castrogiovanni.

They arrived at the gated archway as the afternoon sun began its slow, golden descent toward the western hills.

Three armed men materialized from the shade of an ancient olive tree, approaching the car. Drago rolled down his window, exchanged a few words in rapid Sicilian-names, codes, a grunt of acknowledgment-and the gates groaned open on their hinges like old bones.

The Mercedes eased through.

---

The interior was cool and dim after the assault of Sicilian sunlight, and it smelled-God, it smelled like something out of a half-remembered dream. Clean linen. Lemon verbena. A whisper of warm spice, cinnamon, maybe, or clove he thought, that seemed to emanate from the very walls, as though the villa had been steeping in its own fragrance for a hundred years.

Their arrival wouldn't be perfect without being greeted by a large tuxedo cat named Tomasso who gave a lazy "Mreooooow~" as he passed between Ezekiel's legs, bumping his head affectionately, tail held up high and vibrating in excitement.

A female staff member led them up a wide stone staircase to the second floor. Her heels clicked a measured rhythm on the tiles.

"Consigliere, this will be your room." She paused at an arched wooden door, turned the iron handle, and stepped aside with a graceful sweep of her arm.

Her gaze shifted. "And for you as well, signora/signore. I trust it meets your expectations."

Late afternoon light poured through the tall, arched windows, catching dust motes that drifted like gold flecks suspended in amber. That was the only word for it.

Tall windows stood open to the countryside, their wooden shutters thrown wide, and a breeze moved through the space like a living thing, stirring the sheer white curtains into slow, ghostly billows, carrying with it the scent of warm grass and distant jasmine. The bed dominated the centre of the room: king-sized, dressed in soft ivory linen that had been ironed to perfection, piled with goose-feather pillows so plump they bordered they looked like a cloud. Not a single crease marred the surface.

Ezekiel's gaze swept the room with the quiet, assessing precision of a man who noticed everything and commented on almost nothing. The bedding. The windows. The sightlines. The distance to the door.

His eyes lingered on the pillows.

A subtle nod. Barely perceptible. Approved.

Their belongings had already been placed along the far wall. Luggage arranged neatly, the black briefcase positioned upright on a writing desk, even their smaller personal bags set in order of size.

Best staff team I've seen in years, he thought, making a mental note to tell Drago as much.

The door clicked shut behind the departing attendant. And then it was just the two of them, alone, standing in a Sicilian villa with the whole golden afternoon stretching out before them like an unwritten page.

And in the middle of the Villa, standing beneath a stone loggia with a glass of sparkling lemonade sweating in his hand, Ezekiel Monroe unusually looking crisp in his white loose shirt and comfortable beige linen pants, trading his usual intimidating black-on-black Consigliere uniform. He’s much more relaxed without losing his charm-he still looked lethal as ever. He retreated to a shadowy alcove with Drago on his side half in the shadow of the loggia’s stone arch arms folded across his barrel chest, talking low, accent heavy.

And they’re not talking about weapon shipments. Drago who usually discussing weapons like the way other men discussed weather, today the Capo was dedicated to an entirely different kind of mission.

Not today.

Ezekiel tilted his head a fraction, listening, his gaze fixed on some indeterminate middle distance. "And the jeweller in Taormina? He confirmed?"

"Sì, sì. Confirmed yesterday. The piece, she is..." Drago paused, searching for the English word the way one searches for a dropped coin in tall grass. His brow furrowed. He made a shape with his massive hands, something round, something delicate. "Bellissima. Very beautiful. Custom, like you asked. He says-how you say-one of a kind."

"Good."

"And the flowers. I fiori." Drago ticked the items off on his thick fingers with the methodical care of a man who understood that disappointing the Consigliere was not a thing one did twice. "The dress from Milano, she arrive this morning. I have Maria press it herself. The dinner-the chef, he is already preparing. Everything is..." He made a sweeping, conclusive gesture. "Perfetto."

Ezekiel allowed himself a small nod, a faintest satisfaction ghosted across his feature. He had been planning this for weeks with meticulous care, not even a single secret spill from everyone in his circle. Except the Don, he was the one who suggested trip to Italy.

From making calls late at night from his study in Providence, speaking carefully, sometimes a whisper when he heard a faint sound coming from his bedroom to Sicilian florists and Milanese couturiers and a jeweller recommended by a man who owed the Don a favour. He had agonizingly gone through over details. Colours. Cuts. Whether the chef prepared the finest ingredients, the dining room near the terrace had been set. He had made sure everything at least perfect, and he sometimes thought to himself if it was cliché because...

Because they deserved it. All of it. Every extravagant, unnecessary, beautiful thing he could lay at their feet.

And Ezekiel didn't particularly mind if he became soft. He never softens, never did.

---

Though, his eyes never wandered from the sight of them

His amore , they look absolutely stunning under the Sicilian sun.

Two soldati stood at the far edge of the terrace, positioned near the garden gate, they weren’t looking. But the Consigliere were.

They emerged from the blue pool. Their skin glistening, hair slicked back and water streaming down their shoulders like something out of a Vogue magazine. Ezekiel caught every movement they made. From the moment they slipped into the water till before they decided to lounge on one of the chaises beside the pool. The water still clung to their skin-beaded along their collarbones, caught in the hollow of their throat, tracing slow paths down the planes of their body.

His hand tightened around his glass.

"-and the ammunition, she come from the port in Catania, but I tell them-Consigliere?"

"Hm." He blinked. Drago was looking at him with the patient, faintly amused expression of a man who had seen this particular kind of distraction before. "Yes. Catania. Continue."

Drago continued. Something about shipment schedules. Something about a contact in Messina. The words arrived at Ezekiel's ears and dissolved before they could reach his brain, like sugar in hot water, because his partner had chosen that precise moment to shift on the lounger.

They turned onto their side and fuck he could see everything.

Their swimwear, whatever flimsy, excuse for a fabric they’d chosen was wet. And wet fabric, as any honest will tell you, it will show what beneath it. It clung to every line, every curve, every drip and swell of their body and leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination while somehow-somehow-managing to make the imagination work overtime. Including Ezekiel’s.

The feeling of slow, coiling heat been shimmering in the pit of his stomach began rushing down. He shifted his weight. Just a fraction, angling away his hips from Drago’s line of sight subtly.

His cock-tucked safely in his brief-slowly getting hard. His body did not cooperating at all. Each time he desperately tried to think something else, tax, law, import tariffs, his mind kept insisting on visualizing it.

You are fifty-two years old, he told himself sternly. You have negotiated with arms dealers. You have stared down federal prosecutors. You have, on one occasion, talked a man out of detonating a car bomb using nothing but eye contact and a well-timed compliment. You will not-you WILL NOT-get a visible erection on a terrace in Sicily while a Capo is talking to you.

The two soldati? They also turned around right at the exact moment of his impossibly lover scandalous act. They stared, it caught his attention fast. He swore those eyes lingered a bit too long on them. That’s not an excuse in his vocabulary.

FUCK NO.

That’s a good distraction, Monroe. At least his dick settled down, replaced by protective kind of jealousy.

"Drago."

The word came out clipped. Controlled. Perhaps a shade too controlled.

"Will you excuse me."

It was not a question.

"Sì, Consigliere." He tucked the paper back into his pocket, face carefully neutral. "Take your time."

Ezekiel took a long, slow breath. He stepped out the alcove onto the sun-drenched flagstones. He didn’t look at the guards. His mere presence shifted the atmosphere around, the air grew thick with tension; his focus narrowed to the figure by the pool. From the corner of his eye, he saw the two guards-Paolo and Giani-snap to attention, faces forward, eyes fixed on the approaching Consigliere. That moment effectively sparked fear to both men who suddenly understood they had just been found to be expendable.

The sound of his bare feet on warm stone was soft and deliberate. They hadn’t noticed him yet, head still tilted back, eyes closed against the sun, a picture of bliss. Ezekiel stopped at the head of the lounger, blocking the light from above. Their eyes fluttered open.

“Enjoying the view, tesoro?” His voice was low, silken rumble. His eyes never left their face.

He didn’t elaborate. He casually circled his powerful arms around the chaise and gently rested his hands on their shoulders. He sighed, he felt their skin under his palm, and made a slow deliberate comforting squeeze, a grounding touch meant to claim.

“You know,” Ezekiel said, leaning down slightly, bringing his mouth close to their ear. His braid swung forward, the tip brushing their shoulder. “I was having a very important discussion with Drago. Logistics. Security.”

One of his hands came up, retracting from their shoulder to gesture vaguely toward where the guards stood, rigid as statues. “And I found myself... distracted.”

He pulled back just enough to meet their eyes. His own were dark, the blue-grey turned to storm-sea slate. “They were looking at what’s mine,” Ezekiel whispered, his breath hot against their temple. “Weren’t they?”

He leaned in again; this time his lips hovered their skin. His voice was a low, filthy promise.

With that, he purposefully dipped his head further down, nuzzling his nose and grazing his coarse beard in slow agonizing teases across their skin. He did not stop, Ezekiel continued. He then pressed a filthy, open-mouthed kiss right at the juncture of their neck, dragging his lips up, trailing along their jaw.

“What, amore?” Ezekiel looked up, his eyes glinting with dark amusement. He kept his mouth closed, his lips brushing their jaw with every word. “Does that feel good? Knowing they are watching me worship what’s mine?”

He didn't need to wait for an answer.

“Now,” Ezekiel whispered against their mouth, his own voice trembling with unmet need. “Now they understand.”