I know what he's asking.
I've practiced this answer.
The good thing about Alejandro is that he doesn't know me. Doesn't know how I speak. Doesn't know my tells, my patterns, the way my voice changes when I'm lying versus when I'm telling the truth. To him, I'm a stranger who shares his blood. A weapon he's recruited. A tool he thinks he controls.
That makes this easy.
"Satisfying," I say.
He raises an eyebrow. "Just satisfying?"
"What do you want me to say?" I lean back in my chair, forcing my body into a casual sprawl that feels nothing like how I actually feel. "Lorenzo Sartori is dead. The family thinks I'm grieving with them. Everything went exactly as planned."
"It did." He nods slowly. "It did."
He watches me over the rim of his glass.
I watch him back.
"I wondered," he says, "if you would hesitate. At the end."
"I didn't."
"No." A smile curves his lips. "You didn't."
He takes a long sip of whiskey.
I still don't touch mine.
"Twenty years you served them," Alejandro continues. "Twenty years you killed for them. Protected them. Called them family." He sets his glass down on the side table. "And in one night, you helped me take the first step toward destroying everything they built."
I nod.
"That takes strength, brother. Conviction." He leans forward. "Giuseppe would be proud."
The name hits like a fist to the chest.
I don't let it show.
"Giuseppe is dead," I say flatly. "His pride means nothing."
"True." Alejandro tilts his head. "But his legacy lives on. In both of us."
I want to kill him.
The urge is physical. A pressure in my chest. A tightness in my hands. Every instinct I have screams at me to move, to act, to end this conversation with violence instead of words.
But not yet.
Not here.
I need to wait.
The first shot shatters the window behind Alejandro's desk.
Glass explodes inward. Shards rain down like ice.
I'm on my feet before the second shot hits.
