"Marcello." He doesn't stand to greet me. "Thank you for coming."
"You wanted to talk." I sit across from him, keeping my posture relaxed but alert. "Talk."
"Straight to business. I can respect that." He pours himself a drink from the bottle on the table, his hand not quite steady. Offers me one. I decline with a slight shake of my head.
"You've been busy," Roberto says, taking a long drink. "Taking my suppliers. Shutting down my operations. Making it very difficult for me to do business in this city."
"You kidnapped my fiancée. Did you think there wouldn't be consequences for that?"
"Former fiancée," he corrects, and I can hear the satisfaction in his voice. "I heard the Costa girl is no longer your concern. That Dominic called it all off."
"She'll always be my concern."
"Then why are you here with me? Why not go to her? Try to win her back?" He leans forward, eyes glinting. "Unless youknow it's hopeless. Unless you know Dominic Costa will never forgive you for what happened to his daughter."
I don't respond, because anything I say will just confirm what he already knows. He's right, and we both know it.
"Instead, you're taking your anger out on my family," Roberto continues, his voice bitter. "Destroying everything we've built over three generations. For what? Revenge?"
"Protection." I lean back in my chair, meeting his eyes. "As long as the Benedettis exist, Liana is a target. You proved that when you grabbed her. I'm eliminating the threat permanently."
"By eliminating us entirely." Roberto studies me for a long moment, and then he laughs—bitter, hollow, the laugh of a man who's lost everything. "You're in love with her."
I don't answer, don't give him the satisfaction.
"You are." He shakes his head slowly. "The great Santino Marcello. Brought down by a woman he barely knew."
"I wasn't brought down by a woman. I was brought down by my own stupidity." I lean forward now, my voice hard. "And now I'm fixing it."
"By destroying my family."
"Yes."
"And if I refuse to let you? If I fight back with everything I have left?"
"Then you lose everything. Your suppliers. Your warehouses. Your contracts. Your reputation. Everything you've built. Everything your father and grandfather built."
"You can't take it all."
"Watch me." I stand, buttoning my jacket. "This meeting is over. You have forty-eight hours to get out of the city. Take whatever you can carry. Leave the rest."
"And if I don't?"
"Then I stop being merciful." I head toward the door. "Forty-eight hours. After that, it won't just be your business that's gone. It'll be your family too. Every single member."
I walk toward the door.
"She won't take you back, you know." His voice stops me before I reach it. "The Costa girl. Even if you destroy us. Even if you eliminate every threat to her. She won't forgive you for what you did."
I turn back slowly. "That's not why I'm doing this."
"Then why?" He sounds genuinely curious now. "Why destroy us if not to win her back?"
"It's the right thing to do." I meet his eyes directly. "I failed to protect her once. I won't fail again. Even if she never speaks to me again. Even if I never get her back. She'll be safe. And that's all that matters now."
Roberto stares at me then he nods slowly. "Forty-eight hours," he says quietly, accepting his fate.
I leave without another word.
