The blunt accusation makes my jaw clench involuntarily. “That’s not?—”
“Isn’t it?” He leans forward, his eyes boring into mine. “You were there when she shot Torrino. I heard about the way you looked at her afterward. Like you wanted to fuck her right there on the table with his blood still warm.”
Heat flashes through me, part anger and part something I don’t want to examine too closely. “My personal feelings don’t affect my professional judgment.”
“Your personal feelings are why you’re enabling her transformation into a sociopath.” His voice is getting louder, more agitated. “You want the monster, Alessandro. You want Giuseppe’s daughter because she reminds you of him, because she can match your own darkness.”
Matteo is getting dangerously close to being thrown out on his ass. “You’re wrong.”
“Am I?” His eyes glitter dangerously. “Then explain to me why you’re perfectly comfortable watching a nineteen-year-old girl turn into something inhuman.”
The words sting because there’s truth in them I don’t want to acknowledge.
Part of me is fascinated by Bianca’s evolution, aroused by her embrace of power and violence.
But it’s more complicated than Matteo’s making it sound.
“I’m comfortable with it because the alternative is watching her die,” I say finally. “The Families are testing her, pushing her, looking for signs of weakness they can exploit. If she showed guilt or hesitation or any human reaction to killing Torrino, they would have marked her as unsuitable for leadership.”
“So you helped her become someone who feels nothing about taking lives.”
“I helped her survive the first trial. And I’ll help her survive whatever comes next, regardless of what that requires.”
Matteo slumps back in his chair, looking older and more defeated than I’ve ever seen him. “She’s lost to me, isn’t she? The daughter I raised, the person I tried to protect—she’s gone.”
The pain in his voice is raw, genuine, and it cuts through my defenses despite everything.
This isn’t just about losing political control or family authority.
This is about watching someone he loves transform into something he doesn’t recognize.
“I don’t know,” I admit quietly. “Maybe the person you raised was always temporary. Maybe this is who she was meant to become.”
“Or maybe I failed her.” He covers his face with his hands. “Maybe I should have told her the truth from the beginning, should have prepared her for what she might become instead of trying to shield her from it.”
It’s something I’ve thought of myself, but I’m not about to tell the man that. “You did what you thought was best,” I say neutrally.
“I did what was easiest. What allowed me to pretend she could be normal, that Giuseppe’s blood didn’t matter, that love and protection could overcome genetics. I thought with enough love I could prevent her from turning into Mario.” His voice is muffled by his hands. “I was naive.”
“You were human.”
He looks up at me then, and the desperation in his expression is almost physical. “Will you at least try to keep some part of her intact? Some piece of the person she was before all this started?”
The request hits me harder than it should.
He’s asking me to save his daughter’s soul while helping her win trials that require her to abandon it.
He’s asking for the impossible.
“I’ll try,” I lie, because it’s what he needs to hear.
But I don’t want to save the person Bianca was before.
I want the woman she’s becoming—dangerous, powerful, unafraid of the darkness inside her.
I want someone who can stand beside me as an equal, who can match my own capacity for necessary violence.
I want Giuseppe’s daughter, not Matteo’s.
