But it's not over—not until he's gone, not until there's no chance he can hurt her again, no chance he can sabotage her mother's care or manipulate her or use her or touch her. Not until he's dead.
I grab his head, one hand on his jaw and one on the back of his skull.
Our eyes meet and he sees it—what's coming, what I'm about to do.
"Please—" he chokes out.
I twist.
The crack is loud in the sudden silence.
His body goes limp, eyes still open and staring at nothing, and I let him drop. Adrian Mancini crumples to the concrete, broken and bloodied and dead.
I turn to Bianca and she's staring, her face pale and her eyes wider than I've ever seen them.
"Are you hurt?" My voice sounds strange, too calm for what just happened.
She shakes her head, unable to speak.
"Good." I reach for her and pull her close, quickly checking for injuries with hands that won't stop shaking despite the adrenaline still coursing through me. "You're safe now. He can't hurt you anymore."
"Dante—you killed him?—"
"Yes." No apology, no regret, because I'd do it a million times again if I had to. "And I'd do it again."
"How touching."
The voice cuts through the moment like poison.
Caterina stands near the jet stairs, still perfectly composed despite the bodies and blood and chaos surrounding her, still wearing that white coat like she's attending a garden party instead of a war zone.
"The devoted capo, killing for his whore." She smiles with that sick smile I despise more with each passing day. "How very... primitive."
I release Bianca and step toward Caterina. "Walk away while you still can."
"Or what? You'll kill me too?" She laughs, light and mocking. "You can't touch me, Dante. My father?—"
"Doesn't know what you've been doing." I pull out my phone and show her the screen. "But he will. I have everything—every threat you made, every person you paid off, every piece of evidence you collected on Bianca. All of it traced back to you."
Her smile falters.
"Your uncle was very helpful. Carlo told me everything—where you keep your files, who you've been working with, how you planned to use the scandal to force me into marriage." I take another step. "Did you know he's in the hospital right now? Broken hand. Shattered ribs. And he's singing to anyone who'lllisten, trying to cut a deal with my people before your father finds out what you've done."
"You're bluffing."
"Am I?" I turn to her guards, the ones still standing. "Ask them. Ask if I'm bluffing. Ask if they want to go down with you when Don Massimo learns his daughter started a war without permission, when he finds out you've been acting on your own, using family resources for a personal vendetta."
The guards shift, uncomfortable, loyalties wavering in real time.
"You think this ends with Adrian dead?" Caterina's voice rises. "The article is already out. Everyone knows what she is, what she did. No amount of threats will make that disappear."
"You're right." I smile, cold as she is. "The article is out. And tomorrow, I'm releasing one of my own. About you."
Her face goes white.
"Sealed court records. Affairs with married men. Financial irregularities that would interest both the IRS and your father. Every dirty secret you thought was buried." I pull out another phone—not mine, but hers, the one Luca lifted from her apartment two hours ago. "Including the photos on this device. The ones you were saving for leverage. The ones your father would kill you for if he knew they existed."
She lunges for the phone but I hold it out of reach.
