He's right.
"When Nora's identity came out, everyone was the same way because of her family." Pietro moves back to his desk, pouring two glasses of whiskey. "Yes, me and Nico and every fucking member here didn't want a Torrino in the goddamn house."
He slides a glass across to me. I don't touch it.
"But I don't give a fuck if that's making my brother live a little."
"I'm alive."
"No, you're not." His voice drops, deadly serious now. "If it wasn't for Nora, I would've ended up dead when I took the Don title, and you know it."
The truth of it sits between us. Pietro was spiraling after Riccardo's death, taking unnecessary risks, making enemies we didn't need. Until Nora. Until she gave him something to fight for besides revenge.
"You've been dead for years," he continues, "covering your corpse by offering everyone in here a safety fucking zone. Playing the diplomat. The fixer. The one who keeps us all from killing each other."
"That's my job."
"Your job is to be my brother. To be alive. To want something for yourself."
"I want the family safe."
"Bullshit. You want to disappear into your restaurants and your deals and pretend you don't feel anything." He takes a long drink. "If things were different, I would've wanted another woman for you. Someone without complications. Someone who didn't come with a target on her back. But this is how things are. And Sophia, may be everything we should hate, but she managed to make something move inside that corpse you call a body."
I finally grab the whiskey, downing it in one burn. "You want to know what I'm good at, Pietro?"
He waits.
"I'm an expert at ruining things. Not just breaking them. Not just destroying them. Ruining them. Taking something pure and twisting it until it's unrecognizable. Luna wasn't broken when she came to me—she became broken because of what we were together. What I turned her into."
Pietro's eyes narrow. "Luna was playing you from day one."
"Was she? Or did I create the perfect environment for betrayal? Did I push her toward it with my paranoia, my need for control, my inability to trust?" I lean forward. "You think Sophia's different? You think I won't do the same thing to her? Watch her innocence die piece by piece until she's just another casualty of this life?"
"That's not?—"
"I already started." The admission tastes like ash. "She came here terrified, desperate, but still herself. Still hopeful. Now she's learning to use knives. Planning strategies. Accepting violence as normal. How long before she's calculating deaths over breakfast? How long before that light in her eyes goes out?"
Pietro studies me for a long moment. "You really believe that."
"I know it. It's what I do. It's what we all do. We take good things and corrupt them."
"Then explain Nora."
"What about her?"
"She came from the same world. Irish mob royalty. She knew violence, knew betrayal, knew loss. But look at her now. She's not corrupted. She's not broken. She's exactly who she chooses to be."
"That's different."
"How?"
"Because you're not me." The words come out flat, final. "You don't have my particular talent for taking something beautiful and making it bleed."
Pietro opens his mouth to respond when a woman's voice cuts through the air outside, loud enough to penetrate the office windows.
"Put me down, you fucking asshole! I said PUT ME DOWN!"
We both turn toward the window. Pietro gets there first, and I see his shoulders shake with what might be laughter.
