Tommaso pulled himself into the conversation, robotically confirming, “We have intelligence in his organisation that has proved faultless. Another week and we strike.”
The only question was who would lead the strike. He should have made his pitch by now, but he could not get his head in the game. Everything in him, from his heart to his brain, had numbed.
“Good of you to join in the conversation,” their mother said, looking at him.
He shrugged. “Petty sniping bores me.”
His mother’s eyes narrowed in the exact way his sister’s did. “Really? Or is it that your mind is elsewhere? Possibly with your little rat wife?”
He clamped his jaw together. His family were the last people he wanted to discuss Gabriella with.
Still looking at him, his mother silkily said, “I was told something interesting earlier about your little rat.”
It took effort just to lift an eyebrow.
“She was seen leaving your villa. Alone, without supervision.”
The silence that followed this was so complete a feather falling to the ground would have made a noise.
“She was then seen some hours later entering her apartment. Again, alone and without supervision. To my knowledge, she is still there. Alone and unsupervised.”
It came as no surprise that Siena was the one to explode. “What the hell, Tommaso?”
Tommaso closed his eyes. He should have known this would happen. His mother took little interest in the running of the business, but she had spies everywhere. They all did. It was how they stayed safe and how they’d stayed on top for so long.
“Gabriella is no threat to us,” he said, his voice as drained as the rest of him felt. “Anything she could have used against us is in my possession. She can’t touch us.”
“I don’t care what she can or can’t do – she was working to destroy us!” Siena shouted. “We only agreed to you marrying her because you swore you would make her miserable life a living hell, not let her swan about alone whenever she pleases!”
Their mother held a hand out towards Siena as a warning to be quiet. Addressing Tommaso, she said, “You’ve let her go, haven’t you.”
He met her stare and sighed heavily. “Yes.”
The explosion from Siena at this would have made a firework manufacturer envious.
Again, their mother silenced her with nothing more than a held-out hand. “We had an agreement, Tommaso.”
He gazed into his mother’s blue eyes. Had there always been such ice in them or had he just not noticed it before because she was his mother and had always loved him as a mother should? “Did you know our father murdered Fabio Romano?”
There was an audible intake of breath from Siena. Mattia’s face turned sharply to him. From their mother… Nothing.
Tommaso nodded slowly and straightened his back. His mother’s silence was her answer. The answer he already knew in his heart. “Gabriella made a deathbed promise to her mother to destroy us to avenge her father.”
“Her betrayal was vengeance?” Siena whispered.
“Yes. Our father killed Fabio and framed the Ranieris for it – his secrecy means they’re a danger we haven’t considered – but as far as vengeance goes, Gabriella’s was a kinder one than any of us would have given if our father had been murdered in cold blood by a friend. She’s paid the price for her treachery, and…”
“She hasn’t paidtheprice,” Mattia interrupted, his jaw as tight as Tommaso’s. “I don’t care what happened two decades ago; it’s the present and securing our family’s future that I care about, which is where your head should be at too. There are no exceptions for treason. Siena was right that you’ve always had a thing for that rat, and now she’s running rings around you. The agreement stands, and if you won’t enforce it, then I will.”
A pulse was throbbing loudly in Tommaso’s temple. Breathing heavily, his hands fisted, he rigidly said, “Explain what you mean by that.”
“You know what I mean. You bring that bitch back to your villa tonight or I will do what you should have done to begin with.”
All effort at keeping a cool head wasn’t so much lost as detonated. In the beat of a moment, Tommaso had thrown himself across the table to grab his brother by the throat. Although they were similar in height and size, there was a fuel inhis veins that had him lifting Mattia off his feet and pinning him to the wall with the same effortlessness he’d lifted Gabriella into his arms.
“You touch a hair on her head, and I will kill you,” he snarled, his spittle landing on Mattia’s face. “Gabba is under my protection until the day I die. You want to kill her, you have to kill me first.”
His mother’s icy voice sailed into his pounding ears. “Tommaso, put your brother down.”
