"We weren't discussing business." Pietro's voice stays level, measured. The Don's voice. "We were talking about Vittoria's schedule."
"I don't care if you were discussing the fucking weather!" Bruno's shout echoes through the corridor. . "I have a right to be present. I have a right to know."
Pietro raises one hand, palm out. A calming gesture. "Bruno. Take a breath."
"Don't tell me to take a breath."
"Then don't shout at me in my own hallway."
"Your hallway." He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Your office. Your decisions. You play Don for everyone else, Pietro,but you don't have the right to speak to me like I'm one of your soldiers."
Pietro's expression doesn't change, but I see his shoulders tighten beneath his suit jacket.
"I'm not treating you like a soldier."
"You're treating me like I don't exist." Bruno wheels forward, closing the distance between them. "Like I'm furniture. Decoration. Something to wheel out for family dinners and put away when real work needs doing."
"That's not?—"
"I am the Don." Bruno's voice cracks on the word. "I was trained for it. I should be sitting behind that desk, not rotting in this fucking chair while you make decisions without me."
The silence that follows is suffocating.
I watch my brothers face each other.
"Unbelievable."
The word leaves my mouth before I can stop it.
Bruno's head snaps toward me. "What did you say?"
Something cracks inside my chest. All the patience I've been hoarding, all the gentle understanding I've tried to maintain every time Bruno lashes out—it shatters like glass dropped on marble.
"I said unbelievable." I step forward, putting myself between my brothers. Stupid, probably. Definitely reckless. But I'm so tired of tiptoeing around his rage. "Do you have any idea what you've become? Any idea at all?"
"Vittoria." Pietro's warning comes soft. I ignore it.
"You sit in that chair and you snarl at everyone who tries to help you. You snap at the servants. You've driven away everyone who loves you with your cruelty and your bitterness and your endless fucking self-pity."
Bruno's face goes pale. "Watch your mouth."
"No." The word tastes like freedom. "You want to know why you weren't in that meeting? Because every time we ask you to join us, you say no. Every single time. You hide in your room or you sit by the window like some tragic figure in a painting, and then you scream at us for leaving you out."
"Vittoria."
"Giulia left."
Bruno goes still.
"She left the compound three months ago because she couldn't take it anymore. The woman who raised us, who held this family together when Mamma couldn't get out of bed after Papà died, she packed a bag and went to stay with aunt Carmela becauseyoumade her cry. Again."
"I didn't?—"
"You did." My voice breaks, but I push through it. "You called her useless. You threw your dinner at the wall because it wasn't hot enough. You told her we should have let you die in that hospital."
The color drains from Bruno's face completely now. His mouth opens, closes. Opens again.
"None of us care about the title, Bruno." Tears burn behind my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. "We don't care who sits behind which desk or who gives orders. We care aboutyou. The brother who taught me to ride a bike. The brother who stayed up all night helping Lorenzo study for his exams. The brother who used to make Mamma laugh until she couldn't breathe."
