“Cristiano!”
I spin around, my heart lurching into my throat.
Mina is in the doorway, clutching the frame for balance, her bad ankle puffy and red and hovering above the floor. Her hairis wild and tangled, her face streaked with tears. She’s wearing only my T-shirt, the one I used to gag her, and there are red marks on her arms where she worked herself free of my belt.
Dad turns around as well.
I look back and forth between the two of them, gripping the gun and keeping it aimed at Dad. His eyes narrow at the weapon and the scratches marking my flesh. His gaze flicks past me to Mina. My T-shirt falls mid-thigh, and her legs are bare.
Dad’s lip curls.
“So,” he says, his voice dripping with disgust. “This is what my son has become, a boy who rolls in the sheets with any slut who opens her legs.”
“Don’t talk about Mina that way,” I say through clenched teeth.
Dad walks toward me, slow and deliberate, like I’m not holding a weapon capable of ending his life.
“I’ve given you everything. I’ve raised you to be my heir and turned you into a man. And this is how you repay me?” He’s close now. Too close. “Are you going to shoot me? Go ahead. Pull the trigger.”
“Cristiano, please.” Mina sobs. “Don’t do this.”
My hand is steady. My aim is true. All I have to do is squeeze.
“Mina, go upstairs.” My voice comes out strained. “I don’t want you to see this.”
“Cristiano—”
This moment of distraction is all my father needs.
He moves faster than I’ve ever seen him move before. Decades of violence compressed into one explosive instant. His hand clamps around my wrist, twisting viciously, and the gun goes off with a deafening CRACK.
The bullet buries itself in the ceiling.
I don’t even have time to react before he rips the weapon from my grip and shoves me away. I stumble, off-balance, andthen I hear the door slam shut. Dad locks me in the study with him, with Mina on the other side. Her scream is muffled by the heavy wood.
I scramble to my feet, ready to fight, but Dad is already on me. The butt of the gun hits me across the temple with brutal precision. The world explodes into white.
I stagger, my vision swimming, and then I’m on my knees. Blood trickles down my face, warm and wet.
“Pathetic.” My father’s voice seems to come from very far away. “Absolutely pathetic.”
I try to stand. His leather-shod foot catches me in the ribs, driving the air from my lungs. I collapse onto my side, gasping.
“Did you really think you could get the better of me?” Dad seethes. “I’ve known you were weak since you were a child, Cristiano. You’re soft and sentimental. There’s too much of your mother in you.”
Another kick. This one catches my stomach, and I retch, bile burning my throat.
“I tried to train it out of you. I tried to make you into something worthy of the Montoni name.” He crouches down, grabbing a fistful of my hair, forcing me to look at him. “And instead you point a gun at me. Your father. For what? A piece of ass?”
“She’s not—”
He slams my head into the floor.
Stars burst across my vision. The taste of blood fills my mouth.
He releases my hair and stands, straightening his cuffs like he’s annoyed I’ve discomposed him.
“I built this empire. I’ve killed men twice your size, men five times as cunning, men who actually knew how to hold a gun. You thought you could walk in here and take it away from me?”
