"Petty and greedy?" I whispered, staring at the man I'd loved—the man I'd been promised to since I was nineteen years old—like I was seeing him for the first time. "Is that really what you think of me? That seeking justice for my mother—a woman who died in your family's service—makes me some money-hungry lunatic?"
Tears blurred my vision, turning the world to watercolors. But I refused to let them fall. I would not give them the satisfaction.
Something flickered in Colino's expression when he saw me fighting to hold myself together. A shadow of the man he used to be. A ghost of whatever conscience still haunted him.
But the moment Piper whimpered against his chest—a soft, wounded sound designed to twist the knife—his expression hardened back into stone.
"I saw you try to hit her," he said flatly. "I don't care what your excuse is. I don't care what story you've convinced yourself is true."
He took another step forward, close enough that I could see the vein pulsing in his temple.
"This is the last time I'll say it. Apologize."
My heart clenched like it was being crushed in a vice—squeezed until there was nothing left but pain and the bitter taste of betrayal.
I looked at him. At the man who had promised to protect me. At the underboss who would inherit an empire built on blood and broken oaths.
At the stranger wearing my fiancé's face.
"And what if I don't?" I said coldly.
"She's not just the daughter of some mistress—she's the reason my mother is dead. And you expect me to kneel and beg her forgiveness?!" The words tore from my throat like shrapnel.
Piper didn't even have time to part her painted lips. Colino's eyes went glacial—the cold, flat stare of a man who'd learned to kill his emotions long before he'd learned to kill anything else.
"I warned you," he said, his voice like steel dragged across frozen stone. "Don't test my patience."
Then he turned to his soldiers and issued the order with the casual cruelty of a man born into blood. "Go to the funeral home. Bring her mother's body back here."
Every word was a blade dipped in venom.
"She won't learn until she's broken." His lip curled with contempt as he looked at me—looked through me. "You think someone like you deserves to stand as the Donna of the Marconi Family?"
"Feed the corpse to the dogs." He meant every syllable.