Then I turned on the gas and walked to the front door. I lit the match and threw it into the house and walked out.

As my car drove me to the airport, I watched as the Russo compound exploded in flames and I felt a strange sense of satisfaction. Burning down a family's house. In the old language, it meant total war. Absolute severance.

But this was only the beginning of what I had planned for them.

They just wait and see.

Giacomo's POV

I paced in front of the emergency room while Pietro stood a few feet away, arms crossed, jaw tight. Nadina sat on the plastic chair nearest the door, crying into her hands.

"I really hope nothing has happened to Angela," she wailed.

"How can Liliana be so cruel as to hurt a baby?" Pietro snapped angrily.

I ran a hand through my hair and the confused face of Liliana flashed before my eyes.

"But… but Liliana has never been violent," I found myself saying.

Pietro stared at me. "Liliana? Have you forgotten we don't know her anymore? All she's done is cause pain to Nadina and ruin things for us. She's capable of anything."

"But still—" I started to say again, but Pietro interrupted me.

"This is your child, for fuck's sake, Giacomo. Liliana hurt her," he snapped.

I frowned. "But it doesn't make sense. Why would she hurt the baby when we already apologized to her?"

Pietro furrowed his eyebrows as he suddenly stared at me. "What if she found out the truth? That Angela is actually your daughter."

I shook my head. "I don't know. It doesn't matter even if she did find out. She's never going to leave me. She's been ours for fifteen years. Where will she go?" I said it the way you'd say a thing you've always believed, the way a man talks about a dog that keeps coming back no matter how many times you kick it. The fluorescent hospital lights buzzed overhead. Somewhere down the corridor, a guard we'd posted at the entrance shifted his weight. "She has no family. No allies. No one in this world who'd take her in."

Pietro nodded. "Yeah, well she better pray nothing happens to my niece, or I'll kill her."

Nadina approached me at that moment, her eyes red and puffy as she clung to my arms. "What am I ever going to do if something happens to Angela, Giacomo? I'll die," she wailed.

I hugged her, kissing her forehead and whispering reassuring words to her. "That's not going to happen. Our baby will be fine," I said to her.