"By forcing me to choose between Savannah and the family."
"By making you understand that this girl is a weakness your enemies can exploit. By making you see that love—if that's what you want to call it—is a liability we can't afford. You're my heir. You're supposed to take over this family when I'm gone. But you can't do that if you're dead, and that's what's going to happen if you keep making yourself vulnerable like this."
"Savannah isn't a weakness?—"
"She is. She's a distraction. She's a target. She's a way for people like Edgar Beauregard to get to you, to manipulate you, to destroy you." He leans forward, and his voice drops lower. "I've seen this before, Romeo. I've seen men in our world fall in love, start families, and try to have normal lives. And I've seen what happens to them. They get soft. They get careless. They make mistakes because they're thinking about protecting their wives and children instead of protecting themselves. And then they die. Or worse—their families die, and they have to live with that."
The words hit harder than I want to admit, because there's truth in them. I know the world we live in, and the dangers that come with being part of this family. But I also know that I can't walk away from Savannah. I can't abandon my child, can't go back to being the man I was before I met her—cold and controlled, empty of everything except ambition and duty.
"So what do you want me to do?" I ask. "Pay her off? Walk away? Pretend my child doesn't exist?"
"I want you to end it. Cleanly and quickly. Before this situation escalates any further." He pulls out a checkbook, and the gesture is so calculated and dismissive that it makes my vision go red. "I'll give you whatever amount you think is fair. Enough to take care of the child, to make sure she's comfortable.But you walk away. You cut all contact. You let her go back to her life, and you come back to yours."
I stare at the checkbook, at the casual way he's trying to reduce everything I feel for Savannah to a transaction. And I realize that this is the moment where I either become the man my father wants me to be, or I become something else entirely.
"No."
The word comes out calm and absolute, and I watch him freeze, then process the fact that I'm refusing a direct order.
"No?" he repeats it like he's not sure he heard me correctly.
"No. I'm not ending it. I'm not walking away. I'm not paying her off like she's some problem to be solved." I lean forward, and I let him see the steel in my expression, let him see that I'm not backing down. "I love her. I'm going to be a father. And I'm going to protect them both, with or without your support."
"With or without—" He stands up abruptly, and his chair scrapes against the floor with a harsh sound. "You think you can survive without this family? Without the resources, the connections, the protection we provide?"
"If that's what it takes."
"You're willing to throw away everything? Your inheritance? Your position? Your future?"
"I'm willing to throw away a future that doesn't include Savannah and my child. So you have a choice to make, Dante. You can support me, or you can cut me off. But either way, I'm not changing my mind."
The silence that follows is the longest of my life. I can see him weighing his options, trying to figure out if I'm bluffing or if I really mean what I'm saying. And I know what he's thinking—that if he cuts me off, he loses his heir, loses the son he's spent decades grooming to take over the family. His only recourse will be to find a different heir, or to marry Giulia to someone he deems worthy of inheriting. Neither of those options is ideal. Butif he supports me, he's accepting a situation he can't control—accepting that I'm no longer the obedient weapon he created.
Finally, he sits back down, and when he speaks, his voice is different. Not warm or accepting, but pragmatic. "If I back you on this, if I support your relationship with the Beauregard girl, you need to prove to me that you can handle it without bringing down law enforcement on this entire family. The assault charges from Whitmore, the threats from Edgar—all of it needs to be contained, without creating more problems than we already have."
It's not approval or acceptance. But it is an opening, and I take it.
"I can handle it."
"Can you?" He looks at me warily. “All I’ve seen so far are emotional decisions instead of strategic ones. You've been reacting impulsively. That's not how we survive in this world."
"I know how to be strategic." I keep my voice level. "I know how to plan. And I know how to protect what's mine."
"Then prove it." He pulls out a file from his desk drawer and slides it across to me. "These are Edgar Beauregard's business holdings, his political connections, other information you can use. His vulnerabilities. If you're going to go to war with him, you need to know your enemy."
I pick up the file and flip through it quickly—real estate developments, investment portfolios, political donations, all the pieces of Edgar's empire laid out in meticulous detail. "You've been researching him."
He leans back in his chair. "I'm not happy about this, Romeo. I think you're making a mistake. But you're my son, and I'm not going to let Edgar Beauregard destroy you without a fight."
The words are as close to support as I'm going to get from him, and I take them for what they are. "I need your people," I say flatly. "I need access to all our resources, our connections. IfI'm going to do this right, if I'm going to handle it the way you want—I need support."
"You'll have it." He stands up, walks around the desk, and extends his hand. When I shake it, his grip is firm and businesslike, the gesture of two men entering into an agreement rather than a father and son reconciling. "But understand this, Romeo—if you fail, if you bring down law enforcement on this family, if you create problems that I have to clean up—there won't be a second chance. You'll be on your own. Permanently."
"I understand."
"Good." He releases my hand and walks back to his desk. "Now get out of here. You have work to do."
—
