"I need to tell you something." My voice cracks on the words.
He rises from behind his mahogany desk, moving toward me with that protective instinct that's defined him since Papa died. "Sit down. You look like you're about to—"
"No." I back away from his outstretched hand, standing in the center of his Persian rug like a defendant awaiting sentencing. The pattern beneath my feet blurs as tears threaten. "I can't. I need to say this standing."
"Sofia, you're scaring me."
"I knew about the massacre."
The words hang between us like a blade. Marco goes completely still, that dangerous stillness that comes before violence.
"What do you mean you knew?" His voice is soft, careful, like he's afraid he misheard.
"Mikhail warned me. The night before." Each word cuts my throat. "About what his father was planning. He begged me to promise I wouldn't tell anyone."
Silence stretches between us. I watch understanding dawn across his face in stages: confusion, disbelief, realization, and then something worse. Something that looks like betrayal.
"When?" The word comes out rough. "When exactly did he tell you?"
"The night before. At the property edge. Where we used to meet."
"You used to meet." He's processing, that brilliant tactical mind putting pieces together. "How long had you been meeting with him?"
"Months. He was… teaching me Russian. We were friends. Maybe more."
Marco's hand finds the edge of his desk, gripping until his knuckles turn white. "And he told you they were going to attack the meeting."
"He said his father was planning something. A massacre. That everyone would die. Papa, the senior men, the Morettis, everyone." My voice breaks completely. "He begged me not to warn anyone. Said if I did, his father would know there was a leak, would know it was him. Would kill him slowly."
"So you chose to stay silent."
Words to defend myself leap to the edge of my tongue, but I swallow them down and simply say, "Yes."
"Dozens of our people died that night, Sofia." His voice is too quiet, too measured, and I watch his grip on the desk tighten until I think the wood might splinter. "Dozens of Rosettis."
"I know—"
"Do you?" He's standing fully now, and for the first time in my life, I'm afraid of my brother. "Uncle Enzo. Cousin Matteo. Tommy's brother Giovanni. Men with wives, children, lives. Men who trusted us to protect each other."
Tears stream down my face, but I don't wipe them away. I deserve this. Deserve worse.
"Papa kissed you goodbye that night," Marco continues, his voice gaining an edge that cuts. "You sat at dinner knowing he was driving to his death. You ate Maria's food, laughed at Alex's jokes, and said nothing."
"I thought—"
"No." His palm slams the desk hard enough to make me flinch, the sound echoing through the study. "Don't tell me what you thought. Don't give me excuses about being young or scared or in love with some Russian boy."
"Marco, please—"
"Papa is DEAD because of you." He erupts from his chair, advancing on me, and I see it now: not just anger but genuine hatred. "I became Don at twenty-two because there was no one else LEFT. Twenty-two years old, trying to hold together the shattered pieces of our family while carrying the weight of seventeen funerals."
My legs shake but I remain standing, accepting every word like the lashes I deserve.
"Dante lost his voice being tortured, and you could have stopped it all," he continues, circling me now like a prosecutor.
"I know, I know—" The words come out as sobs.
"You don't know." He stops directly in front of me, and the look in his eyes makes me want to die. "You weren't just silent, Sofia. You were complicit. You weren't a victim who survived. You were the reason we were vulnerable."
