"And at the cabin?"
My face goes hot. "We?—"
"I don't need details. I need timeline." Matteo's voice is clipped. "When did this start?"
"Everything really started at the cabin.”
"And you didn't think to tell me." Matteo's hands curl into fists on his desk. "You didn't think your best friend and boss might want to know you were sleeping with his sister."
"I was going to tell you," Enzo says. "Last night. We were going to tell you together when I got back from the factory. But then?—"
"But then you got stabbed and I had to watch my sister fall apart over you and realize what was happening without either of you having the fucking decency to tell me yourself."
The accusation in his voice makes me flinch.
"Matteo, please—" I start.
"Don't." He holds up one hand. "Don't defend him. Don't make excuses. He's a grown man who knew exactly what he was doing and chose to do it anyway without consulting me first."
I stiffen. "I don't need your permission to?—"
"Yes you do!" Matteo's voice rises for the first time. "Yes you do, Isabella, because you're my sister and he's my Underboss and there are rules about this, there are protocols, there are—" He stops and takes a breath. "There are ways to handle this that aren't sneaking around behind my back."
"We weren't sneaking?—"
"You were absolutely sneaking." His eyes flash. "Days of this. Of whatever this is and neither of you said a word. Do you have any idea how that feels? To find out this way? To have to piece it together myself because neither of you respected me enough to be honest?"
Tears are running down my face and I can't stop them, can't do anything except stand here and take it because he's right, he's completely right, we should have told him.
Matteo turns to Enzo and his expression goes colder.
"You broke her heart four years ago," he says quietly. "You stood on that porch and you destroyed her and I watched her come back different, watched her pull away from you, watched her build walls that took years to come down. And you knew. You knew what you did to her and you did it anyway because you're a coward who couldn't handle his own feelings."
Enzo doesn't defend himself, just stands there and takes it.
"And now," Matteo continues, "now you've decided you want her. Now it's convenient. Now you can't stay away. So, you seduce my sister, you sleep with her, you make her fall in love with you all over again, and you still don't tell me. You still lie to my face every single day."
"I never lied?—"
"Lying by omission is still lying." Matteo's voice is ice. "Don't fucking insult my intelligence."
The silence that follows is suffocating.
"You're not my Underboss anymore," Matteo says finally, and the words drop like bombs. "Effective immediately. You're done."
No.
No, no, no, no, no.
"Matteo—" I start, my voice breaking.
"I need you to leave," Matteo says to Enzo, ignoring me. "Pack your things. Be out of this house by tonight."
"No!" The word tears out of me. "No, you can't?—"
"I can and I am." Matteo looks at me and something in his face softens slightly but his voice stays hard. "He betrayed my trust, Isabella. He went behind my back with the one person in the world I trusted him to protect without—" He stops. "I can't have him here. I can't work with someone who would do this, not when all I want to do is kill him."
I'm crying so hard I can barely see, barely breathe, I look at Enzo and he's just standing there, not fighting, not arguing, and I want to scream at him to say something, to fight back, to not just accept this.
