CROWN OF BULLETS

LORENZO CASTIGLIONE OR COLE

Adrian hated the silence in his father’s house.

It wasn’t the absence of sound — there were plenty of them. The slow tick of the antique clock in the hall. The faint hum of the climate control system. The whisper of leather under his shoes as he walked toward the study.

No, what he hated was the weight of it.

The kind of silence that made you feel like the walls were listening.

Lorenzo Castiglione sat behind a desk big enough to hide a corpse. A glass of brandy rested in his hand, untouched, the amber liquid catching the dim light. He didn’t look up when Adrian entered. He rarely did. His gaze stayed fixed on some paper in front of him, as though the arrival of his only son was nothing more than a draft slipping under the door.

To the rest of the world, this man was Cole.

The name rolled off people’s tongues with a mix of reverence and dread. The man who could burn empires and build them again in a single night. The man who never forgot a debt. The man who, twenty years ago, had cut away his birth name like dead flesh and buried it.

Adrian had been ten when his father told him why.

Coal looks dead, he’d said, tapping ash from a cigarette into a crystal tray. But under enough pressure, it becomes a diamond. And under the right spark, it burns everything to the ground.

It had been the closest thing to fatherly wisdom Adrian had ever received.

Now, the older man leaned back in his chair, finally lifting his eyes.

“You’re late,” Cole said. The voice was smooth, unhurried — but Adrian knew better than to mistake it for calm. His father’s temper didn’t flare; it simmered, the kind of heat you only noticed when it was already burning you alive.

“Didn’t know I was on your schedule,” Adrian replied, dropping into the leather chair opposite the desk without waiting to be invited. The brandy on the desk smelled expensive. The air between them smelled like war.

Cole set down his glass, steepling his fingers. “You’ve been seen with someone.”

Adrian didn’t flinch. “I’ve been seen with a lot of people.”

“This one isn’t like the others.”

And just like that, his father’s words pulled the girl’s face into his mind — her sharp eyes, her calm smile, the way she hadn’t bowed or broken in the presence of Matteo.

Adrian leaned back, forcing a smirk he didn’t feel. “Is this about business… or about control?”

Cole’s eyes sharpened, and the silence came back. The listening kind.

Cole didn’t move, didn’t blink, but Adrian could see the shift — a tightening around the jaw, a slight narrowing of the eyes.

“You think you’re hard to read,” his father said, voice quiet, “but you’re my blood. I know when something’s under your skin.”

Adrian leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “And what if there is?”

“Then I find out what it is. And I decide if it’s worth keeping alive.”

The threat was casual, almost lazy, but that made it worse. It meant Cole wasn’t rattled — yet. It meant he was already in motion, wheels turning behind that immovable façade.

Adrian exhaled through his nose, suppressing the urge to bare his teeth. “You always have to poison everything, don’t you?”

“I keep this empire standing,” Cole said, swirling the untouched brandy. “That means knowing who’s close to my son. That means knowing if they’re a weakness.”

“She’s not a weakness.”

“She’s not anything yet,” Cole corrected, and that, more than anything, set Adrian’s teeth on edge.

He pushed back from the chair, standing. “Stay out of it.”

Cole’s mouth curved in the faintest ghost of a smile. “You should know me better than that.”

Adrian didn’t answer. He turned and walked out, the silence stretching behind him like a noose.

In the hallway, he unclenched his fists only to realize his nails had cut half-moon shapes into his palms. Cole had a way of doing that — reaching into your chest and twisting without ever standing up.

And if his father had decided to take an interest in her…

Adrian knew it was only a matter of time before she felt that same twist.