“Sienna’s younger, but eventually she’ll go bratva.” He coughed painfully. “Russians want peace. A pretty little girl fixes lots of problems.”
My stomach turned. Sienna still smiled with missing baby teeth. She still asked innocent questions about snakes and zoos and whether monsters could really be handsome. And this bastard was already planning which criminals would eventually own her body.
“What about Matteo?” I asked quietly.
Lorenzo’s face twisted with disgust. “The boy’s weak. He reads too much. Thinks too much. Quiet boys become cowards.”
Matteo didn’t seem weak to me. He seemed careful. Observant. Like a kid trying not to become his father.
“I’m sending him to live with soldiers next year,” Lorenzo continued. “He’ll learn how to kill early.”
The room felt smaller. Hotter. “He’s a child.”
“He’s a Ventura,” he hissed. Lorenzo’s breathing roughened again as another spasm tore through him.
“He needs blood on his hands before he turns soft,” he hissed. “I’ll make a proper man out of him even if it kills him.”
Silence swallowed the room. I stared at him for a long time. Something inside me genuinely hurt. Not for Lorenzo. Never for him. For Chiara. For the girl begging in her sleep for her siblings while tears soaked the pillow beneath her face. For Aurora trying to become steel at seventeen because nobody else protected them. For Matteo hiding behind books because books were quieter than violence. For little Sienna smiling at monsters because nobody taught her the difference between dangerous men and safe ones.
The antidote felt heavy in my hand. Lorenzo noticed me looking at it. Hope flickered across his ruined face. Pathetic.
“You know,” I said quietly, “I came here intending to save your life.”
His pulse monitor quickened.
“She deserves that much,” he rasped. “Chiara deserves her father.”
“No,” I said coldly. “Chiara deserved a father years ago.”
His eyes narrowed viciously.
“You sanctimonious prick,” he hissed. “You think you’re better than me? You stole her from me.”
“I married her with your blessing,” I reminded him.
“You ruined her with lies,” he spit out.
The words echoed through the hospital room. And for one horrible second… I couldn’t answer. Because the truth satbetween us like a loaded gun. I had ruined her life. Maybe not in the ways Lorenzo believed. But I’d still destroyed it.
I lied about her reputation. Cornered her. Dragged her into my world kicking and screaming. I told myself I protected her from worse men. But standing there beside Lorenzo Ventura’s hospital bed… I finally understood something ugly. Chiara had spent her whole life trapped between monsters. The difference was, I was simply the first monster who looked at her and saw something precious instead of useful.
Lorenzo saw the decision happen on my face. The hope vanished first. Then came rage.
“You miserable son of a bitch,” he rasped, trying to push himself upright in the hospital bed. The movement triggered another violent spasm through his body. His hands clawed at the blankets while the monitor beside him shrieked faster. “You came here to torture me.”
“No,” I said calmly. “I came here hoping you’d give me a reason not to let you die.”
“You think you’re some fucking hero now?” he snarled. His nostrils flared. “You poisoned me. You destroyed my family.”
I looked at him for a long moment. Then laughed quietly.
“Destroyed your family?” I repeated. “Interesting choice of words coming from the man who treated his daughters like livestock.”
“Careful.”
“No,” I said coldly. “You be careful.”
The room seemed to darken around us. Rain lashed violently against the windows now, lightning flickering somewhere deep inside the clouds over the city. Lorenzo looked smaller every minute. Sicker. The poison was chewing through him beautifully tonight. And still he thought he deserved power.
