"Honestly, Mia, you're always checking up on Xavier. You're suffocating him. Do you really think any of us would let someone ruin his life? Vanessa and Xavier have been inseparable since they were children. If he wanted to leave you, he would have done it a long time ago."
Colino paused, then added with the casual air of a man delivering a death sentence over dessert: "Besides, Xavier has already promised Vanessa that the Salvatore Family and her people will be merging operations. A full syndicate alliance. Two families becoming one. So it would be in your best interest to accommodate her. That's the least you can do as the Donna of this house."
My eyes widened.
A syndicate merger. The Salvatore Family of the Jade Quarter, folded into another operation entirely. And I, the Donna, the wife of the Don, had not been told. Had not been consulted. Had not even been informed that such negotiations existed.
Colino realized, a beat too late, that his mouth had outrun his authority. The color drained from his face. He fell silent, his eyes darting to the others around the table, searching for rescue. Uneasy glances ricocheted across the room like stray bullets.
No one spoke.
The silence pressed down on all of us like the lid of a coffin being slowly lowered into place.
"Do you even understand how serious this is?" My voice cut through the low murmur of silverware against porcelain. "If the other Family has committed any crime on our watch, we would be held equally responsible. The Commission doesn't distinguish between partners when blood hits the pavement."
"Mia, I know you don't like me." Vanessa Lestari set down her wine glass with a delicate clink, her painted lips curling into something that almost resembled sympathy. "But please don't slander my Family like that."
I turned to look at Xavier, searching for some flicker of reason behind those cold grey eyes. Instead, he met me with a glare that could have frozen the Adriatic.
"Vanessa is right." His voice was flat, measured, the way he spoke when he'd already made a decision and considered the conversation beneath him. "You didn't even finish a proper education. You wouldn't know the first thing about how syndicate affairs work. How would you understand whether an alliance is beneficial or not?"
He reached for his glass of Barolo, swirling the dark wine without looking at me.