He looks like a man whose world already ended and he’s just waiting for the echo.
He doesn’t look surprised when I come closer.
“You saw it,” he says.
Not a question.Just a verdict.
I stop three feet from him. Close enough to hit. Close enough to be hit.
“You talked to them,” I say. “To the Vescari.”
Romeo lets out a short, bitter laugh with no humor left in it. “You sound just like him.”
I don’t move. Don’t blink. “Answer me.”
His shoulders sag like I just cut the last wire holding him upright.
“I did,” he says. “They cornered me weeks before he died. Knew shit they shouldn’t have. Knew about Guido’s school. Dante’s girlfriend. Where Zina takes her morning coffee like it’s a ritual instead of a risk.”
He drags a hand over his mouth hard enough to redden the skin.
“They said they’d hurt them. Paralyze Dante. Skin Guido alive. Put a bullet in Zina’s head just to send a message.” His voice fractures. “They promised I’d watch.”
“So I played,” he whispers. “I thought if I fed them bad intel—fake routes, ghost schedules—I could buy us time.”
“You moved his guards,” I say.
He flinches.
I step closer.
“You changed his schedule.”
Romeo’s hands curl into fists like it’s the only thing he can still control. “I thought he’d be safe in the church,” he snaps. “I thought nobody would dare touch him on holy ground. I didn’t know Emiliano was already inside the fucking walls. I didn’t know he’d lined up the shot before I even opened my mouth.”
His eyes shine—but the tears don’t fall.
“So yeah,” he murmurs. “Congratulations. The King was right. His son helped kill him.”
He finally looks up at me.
And it’s not defiance in his eyes.
It’s surrender.
“Is this the part where you judge me?”
Everything within me surges at once.
Miguel’s sermons.Giovanni’s last orders.Carlo’s laughter in the dark.Pia’s voice when she bled truth into the open.
A thousand roads explode in my head, and every single one ends in blood.
I could end him.Drag him home by the collar and drop him at Dante’s feet. Tell Guido. Let Zina burn him with her eyes and Emiliano finish it with his hands.
I could turn him into a sacrifice and call it justice.
Instead, I see my brother.
