The room was too still. Somewhere deeper in the house, a clock marked the seconds. One of Nico's soldiers stood near the hallway entrance, arms folded, gaze fixed on a neutral point on the wall — the studied blankness of a man who had learned long ago not to witness anything that might later require testimony. The air smelled of espresso and Ginevra's perfume, something cloying and sweet that clung to every surface she touched.
I straightened. My spine found the wall behind me, and I let it hold me there — not leaning, not retreating, just occupying the space I had chosen. My voice came out steady and cold, the way Cristiano had taught me to speak when surrounded: give them nothing.
"I didn't push her."
Ginevra clutched her stomach. She sucked in a sharp breath — theatrical, precise, timed to the half-second — and even through her supposed pain she managed to tilt her face upward and throw Nico a teary, pitiful look. Her fingertips drifted to the hollow of her throat, pressing there with trembling delicacy, and I recognized the gesture for what it was. The soft feminine motion that made people lower their guard. The reset button she pressed right before she slid the knife in.
"Nico… my stomach hurts…"
His anger melted into concern in an instant. He held her tighter, murmuring soothing words against her temple, his brow creased with worry. His palm moved in slow circles across her back. The performance was seamless — and it was a performance, because I had catalogued every real gesture Nico Bracciale possessed during five years of building his operation from a street-corner racket into something that almost resembled a syndicate, and tenderness had never been among them.
Then he turned back to me, and his expression hardened like stone. The concern vanished as cleanly as if someone had drawn a curtain across his face. What remained was the Boss — or the man who believed himself to be one.
"Apologize, Rosalia. If you think you can get away with this, you're so wrong."
I tilted my head, unfazed. The gold signet ring on my right hand — my mother's ring, the Ferrante crest turned inward against my palm where no one could read it — pressed its familiar weight into my skin. I did not turn it. Not yet.
"Oh? And what exactly are you going to do?"