Ryan’s POV
The condo felt too quiet.
Not peaceful, empty.
The city hummed outside the windows, distant car horns and restless movement far below, but none of it reached me. The silence inside these walls pressed against my chest, heavy and suffocating, as if the place itself knew something had gone terribly wrong.
My father had done what he always did when he wanted control.
He struck where it hurt most.
Juliet’s medical records.
My frozen accounts.
My removal from the board.
Every move had been calculated. Clean. Cruel.
I sat on the couch, unmoving, staring at the stack of documents on the table like they were poison. An hour had passed, maybe more, but I hadn’t noticed. My mind kept replaying the same images over and over: Dominic’s calm voice, the cold certainty in his eyes, the way he spoke about Juliet like she was expendable.
Like leverage.
My chest tightened again.
I needed someone. Not for sympathy. Not for advice wrapped in judgment. I needed someone who could hear the chaos and not flinch.
One name came to mind.
Luca DeLuca.
I picked up my phone, my thumb hovering over his contact. Luca was everything my father wasn’t, loud, reckless, sarcastic, and somehow emotionally sharp beneath all that noise. Where Dominic crushed people into silence, Luca filled every space with life. He was my best friend for a reason.
I hit call.
“Ryan-o!” Luca’s voice burst through the speaker like a firecracker, instantly breaking the stillness of the room. “Well, this is a surprise. Did hell freeze over, or are you finally calling to admit you miss me?”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “You sound… energetic.”
“Energetic is my natural state,” he replied proudly. “Some people meditate. I cause problems. Same effect.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I’m not in the mood for chaos.”
He gasped dramatically. “Not in the mood for me? Ryan, that’s illegal. You don’t just call Luca DeLuca and then refuse the experience. What’s wrong?”
I hesitated.
How much could I say before everything cracked open?
“I...” I started, then stopped. “It’s… complicated. Family. Business. Juliet.”
The name slipped out before I could stop it.
There was silence on the line. Real silence.
Then Luca spoke slowly. “Juliet… as in that Juliet? The one who makes you forget how to breathe?”
I didn’t answer.
He didn’t need one.
“Oh no,” he said quietly. “You’re in deep. I can hear it in your voice. What happened?”
I closed my eyes. “It’s bad, Luca. Like… life-altering bad.”
“Well, now you’ve got my full attention,” he said. “Talk to me.”
I swallowed. “My father found her medical records.”
“What?” His tone sharpened instantly.
“He confronted me,” I continued, my jaw tightening. “He demanded I cut ties with her. Threatened to destroy her if I didn’t. Froze my accounts. Removed me from the board.”
There was a long pause.
Then, softly, “That’s… brutal.”
“I told him no.”
Luca let out a low whistle. “Of course you did.”
“I won’t abandon her,” I said. “Not for him. Not for anyone.”
“Good,” Luca replied firmly. “That’s the right choice.”
I leaned back, staring at the ceiling. “It doesn’t feel like it. I’ve lost everything I built.”
“Material things,” he said. “Important, yes, but replaceable.”
I scoffed. “Easy for you to say.”
“Oh, absolutely,” he said. “I specialize in bad situations. But listen to me, Ryan, your father isn’t doing this because you’re wrong. He’s doing it because he’s losing control.”
“I know.”
“And he hates that more than anything.”
I clenched my fist. “He knows me. He knows how far I’ll go.”
“Exactly,” Luca said. “Which means you need a plan. Not just anger. Not just loyalty.”
“I can’t even see Juliet right now,” I admitted. “If he’s watching, if he’s already moving pieces, I could make things worse.”
“Then you slow down,” Luca said. “You gather information. You protect her quietly.”
“And you?” I asked.
“I stay right here,” he said easily. “You panic, I think. You rage, I plan. That’s our dynamic.”
Despite everything, a small laugh escaped me.
“There it is,” Luca said. “That sound. I missed it.”
I exhaled. “You make this feel manageable.”
“That’s because it is,” he replied. “Difficult, yes. Dangerous, definitely. But impossible? No.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me.
“Ryan,” Luca added, his voice steady and serious now, “your father is going to escalate. That’s who he is. When he doesn’t get obedience, he applies pressure.”
“I’m ready,” I said.
“Good,” he replied. “Because you’re not doing this alone.”
The call ended a few minutes later.
The condo was still quiet.
But it no longer felt empty.
For the first time since Dominic LaRusso walked into my life like a storm, I felt something shift inside me, not certainty, not victory, but resolve.
I didn’t know how I would protect Juliet.
I didn’t know how I would take my company back.
I didn’t know how far my father would go.
But I knew one thing.
I wasn’t backing down.
And I wasn’t alone.
