Sold To The Mafia Don-Chapter 200 - 10 ~ Jace

Sleep didn’t come.

Not even with Mira curled against me, her breathing slow and warm where my arm wrapped around her. There were some nights my mind simply refused to settle, and tonight was one of them.

She shifted slightly in her sleep, her hand sliding over mine where it rested over her stomach. The move was natural, instinctive, like even unconscious she knew I was holding her. I pressed my lips to the back of her head, breathing her in.

Vanilla lotion. Her shampoo. And the faintest hint of flour she always carried after being at the bakery.

Home.

My chest tightened for a moment, something softer than pain and deeper than love. I didn’t wake her, didn’t move her. I just stayed there until I was sure she was asleep enough not to stir when I slipped out of bed.

The house was quiet. The kind of quiet only large spaces had—wide and still, with the soft hum of security systems and temperature control running underneath. I walked barefoot through the hallway, past the staircase, down toward my office.

But I didn’t stop there.

I kept going, to the secured room behind it—a wall panel, fingerprint ID, coded entry. The lights flickered on softly and the screen array on the wall glowed to life.

Tomas was already inside.

He stood when he saw me, straight-backed, alert. He knew I wouldn’t be here unless something was wrong.

"Sir," he said.

I didn’t sit. I just looked at the monitors. Angles of the house, the street, the driveway, the perimeter wall. Quiet. Still.

"Show me," I said.

He tapped through the saved footage.

The same car. Parked across the street longer than a casual driver would remain.

Different days.

Different times.

Same vehicle. Same vantage point. Same patience.

"Four days," Tomas said. "Never closer than the allowed street distance. Never directly facing the house. But always positioned to see entrances and exits."

Professional.

Disciplined.

Someone who knew exactly how far to stay to avoid suspicion.

"Driver?" I asked.

"Hat, sunglasses, never gets out. Face obscured. No plates registered to him. Burner plates. Swapped twice."

Intention.

This wasn’t random.

I leaned closer to the screen. There was a stillness to whoever was in that car — no phone, no movement. Watching. Waiting.

The kind of patience you only learned from war.

The kind of patience I used to have.

I didn’t speak for a moment.

"And the bakery footage?" I finally asked.

Tomas pulled up the other feed. The delivery worker — the same one I studied already — steady stride, no hesitation. Wearing a uniform easily bought. Hat low. Shoulders square. The walk gave him away. It always did. Soldiers never truly stopped being soldiers.

The message had been clear.

Not a threat.

Not yet.

A reminder.

Someone wanted to test how quickly I would react.

How far I’d go.

How violently.

I exhaled slowly through my nose.

"They’re watching," I said.

"Yes," Tomas replied.

I didn’t look away from the screen. "But they don’t move. They don’t speak. They don’t threaten. They don’t touch. They wait."

"Which means," Tomas continued, "they’re waiting for you to make the first move."

Exactly.

And that meant they were smart.

I hated smart.

I finally sat, leaning back in the chair. For a long moment, the only sound was the quiet whir of the monitors.

"The security perimeter?" I asked.

"Already doubled," Tomas answered. "Rotations randomized every four hours. No pattern. We’ve added live surveillance monitoring instead of timed checks. Extra men stationed at the neighboring properties under maintenance contracts. The guards outside the bakery are posing as construction workers for street repair — discreet."

Good.

He didn’t have to ask for approval because he knew what I expected.

"Switch the sniper shifts every night," I said. "If they’re watching as closely as I think, they’ll notice repetition."

Tomas nodded. "Done."

"And Mira?" My voice changed without intention. Quiet. Something too close to fear.

"She was never out of sight today," Tomas said immediately. "Not for one minute."

I nodded once.

That wasn’t enough.

But it was something.

"I want background checks for every customer who came into the bakery in the last five days," I said. "Cross-check facial matches with southern Italian networks and any group previously aligned with the Bianchi, Massimo’s associates, and the old council syndicates."

"We’ve already started."

Of course they had.

I stared at the images on the monitors. The car in the street. The figure at the bakery. Not attacking. Not advancing.

Just circling.

Waiting for something.

Maybe waiting for me to falter.

To underestimate.

To forget who I used to be.

But I hadn’t forgotten.

I just hadn’t needed that part of myself in a long time.

I closed the monitor feed.

"Do not mention any of this to Mira," I said.

The words were steady, not sharp.

"I won’t," Tomas replied. "She seemed unsettled earlier, but she didn’t press."

She had felt it.

Even without proof.

Her instincts had always been sharp where danger was involved.

Her body remembered fear far longer than her mind did.

That alone made something inside me twist.

"I’ll talk to the neighbors tomorrow," I said. "Make sure no one saw anything. Quietly. No pressure. No suspicion."

"Yes, sir."

"And Tomas?" I added, meeting his eyes.

"Yes?"

"If someone tries to step closer—to her, to the baby, to the house—"

He didn’t wait for me to finish.

"There won’t be time for you to get involved," he said. "It will be handled."

Good.

I stepped out of the security room and headed upstairs.

The hallway was dim. The kind of soft light Mira liked at night. I pushed open our bedroom door quietly.

She was still asleep.

Still curled on her side.

Still holding the pillow like it was something alive.

I sat on the edge of the bed and just looked at her for a moment. The way her hair fell over her cheek. The tiny frown she always made when she was dreaming. The slight curve of her bump beneath the sheets.

My wife.

My family.

Everything I’d never thought I would have.

I slid into bed behind her again, fitting her against me. My arm went around her automatically, hand resting over her belly like I was shielding it.

She sighed in her sleep and moved closer, like she knew.

Her fingers curled around my wrist.

"Jace?" she murmured, half-conscious.

"I’m here," I whispered.

I always would be.

I held her tighter.

The room was quiet.

Peaceful.

Warm.

But under all of it, there was the faintest echo of something else.

War didn’t always arrive loudly.

Sometimes it approached softly.

Slowly.

Breathing at your door.

But I wasn’t the man I used to be.

I was worse now.

Because I had something to lose.

And no one — absolutely no one — was going to take it from me.

Not in this lifetime.

Not in the next.

I closed my eyes, but I did not sleep.

Not yet.