The moment of domestic sweetness should have felt uncomfortable. Instead I found myself envying it. The easy affection. The trust. The partnership that went deeper than business.
"Dinner's ready," Emilio called from the kitchen. "Everyone sit before it gets cold."
We migrated to the table. Emilio had made something Italian and complicated that smelled incredible. Wine was poured. Conversations overlapped. This was family dinner: chaotic, comfortable, real.
I caught Sandro watching me from across the table. He had that look—the one that said he saw too much and was deciding whether to comment.
"How's the journalist situation?" he asked casually, but nothing Sandro did was casual.
"Handled," I said. "Valentino's cooperating fully."
Stefan's smile was knowing. "Cooperating. Is that what we're calling it?"
"What else would we call it?" I kept my voice level.
"I don't know." Matteo's smirk was infuriating. "But he looked pretty 'cooperative' when I saw him leaving your office last week. Flushed. That look people get when they want to—"
"He'd been working on a deadline," I interrupted. "The Rodriguez exposé required extensive research."
"I'm sure that's exactly what had him looking like that." Matteo's tone made it clear he didn't believe a word.
Elio set down his wine glass. "Are you sleeping with him?"
The table went quiet. Everyone was looking at me now.
"That's not relevant to—"
"It's completely relevant," Elio interrupted. His voice was sharp. Professional. The tone he used when analyzing threats. "You coerced a journalist into compliance. If you're also sleeping with him, that creates complications. Legal exposure. Emotional entanglement. The kind of vulnerability we can't afford."
"I'm not emotionally entangled." The words came out harder than I'd intended. "Valentino is an asset. A useful one. I'm managing him appropriately."
Julian spoke up then, his voice quiet but firm. "Be careful, Luca. Coercion only works until it doesn't. I should know."
The reference to his own history—running from an arranged marriage, seeking sanctuary, falling for Elio despite everything—hung in the air.
"This is different," I said.
"How?" Julian's hazel eyes were steady. "You threatened him. Forced him into compliance. You're using power and control to keep him in line. That's exactly what my family did to me. What Dante tried to do."
The comparison stung because it was uncomfortably accurate.
"Except Valentino isn't a victim," I said. "He made a choice. He deleted the raid footage because preserving his career mattered more than his principles. That's on him, not me."
"You didn't give him a real choice." Emilio's voice was gentle but pointed. "You backed him into a corner and made him choose between two terrible options. That's coercion, not choice."
I looked at Sandro, expecting him to defend me. To point out that business sometimes required difficult decisions. That managing threats was part of what we did.
Instead he said: "If you're going to keep him, keep him properly. Don't half-ass it."
"I'm not keeping him. I'm using him."
"Luca." Sandro's expression was knowing. Patient. Infuriating. "I spent months telling myself that Emilio was just a useful attorney. That my interest was purely strategic. I was lying to myself and everyone knew it."
"I'm not lying—"
"You read his articles three times," Stefan said. "I saw the browser history on the office computer. You've got Google alerts set for his name. You mentioned him twice in yesterday'spartners meeting when he had nothing to do with what we were discussing."
Had I done that? I tried to remember and couldn't.
