Page 70 of Read This Before the Villain falls in Love with You

"Can I be in charge of severance packages? I want to hand out tiny fruit baskets with passive-aggressive notes." Matteo lifts a small paper bag, rattling the contents proudly like we are settling in for a movie premiere instead of a boardroom reckoning.

"Put the fucking snacks away, Matteo." I reach out and shove his arm down.

"They're almonds. Very quiet. Very useful during political tension." He cradles the bag against his chest like an injured bird.

"Eat one in that room and I will feed you the rest of the bag whole." I push through the heavy oak double doors, stepping directly into the sudden hush.

Eight men sit around the long table. Some I trust. Some I've never trusted, not once, not for a single conversation. Don Salvatore Barone sits near the head, close to where my father used to sit, acting like the empty space beside him belongs to his own bloated ego.

"Luca. Good of you to remember we exist." Barone rubs his jowls, squinting through a haze of cigar smoke.

"I remember everyone who owes me something, Salvatore. You're at the top of a very long list." I pull out the high-backed chair at the head of the table and take my seat without blinking.

"Always so generous with your bookkeeping," Barone grumbles, flicking ash onto a crystal dish.

A ripple of laughter goes around the table, thin and nervous.

"We're not here to talk about fucking debts," Barone growls, leaning forward until the wood groans under his elbows. "We're here to talk about a war you seem determined to drag the rest of us into."

"I didn't start this war." I drop my tone until it cuts straight through the low hum in the room.

"Could have fooled me with all the bodies dropping," Barone shoots back, turning his mouth down into an ugly grimace.

Barone leans forward to spit his words. "Your grandfather did, thirty years ago, and Bellini finished the job on your parents twenty years later. And now you want us bleeding for a grudge that isn't ours."

I keep my palms flat on the wood, because the alternative is breaking his nose against the mahogany. "It stopped being a grudge the moment they grabbed Sofia off the street. And it ended the minute Nonna put a bullet through Vincenzo Bellini's hand to bring her back."

Don Fabbri, younger, sharper, and the only man in this room with any sense, leans forward on his elbows. "Sofia is back home safe at the villa. Nora Blake helped pull that off, and we all know it. Vincenzo is nursing a shattered hand. That is great news for your bloodline, Luca. But good news for you does not mean peace for the rest of us."

"Meaning what, exactly?" I demand, narrowing my eyes at him.

"Meaning three families at this table have had approaches made to them. Quiet ones. Bellini people, talking about neutrality agreements, talking about protection, talking about how much smoother business would run if certain other families weren't around to complicate things."

Cigar smoke drifts straight up, unbroken by a single breath. Barone's heavy jaw freezes mid-chew, the tobacco trapped behind his teeth.

"Which three families," I ask.

Fabbri glances sideways, and that's answer enough. Nobody volunteers. The men keep their hands folded against the mahogany, refusing to make eye contact with me or anyone else.

I tap my index finger on the mahogany tabletop. "This is the part where somebody's honest. Or this is the part where I start assuming everyone in this room is compromised, and I plan accordingly."

"That's a threat," Barone barks, his face flushing red.

"It's an itemized list." I tilt my head, measuring his reaction. "There is a distinct difference, and you're smart enough to know it."

"Don't lecture me on vocabulary, boy," Barone spits, gripping his cigar tighter.

Fabbri exhales through his nose, twirling a gold pen between his knuckles. "You always did talk like your father. Cold as hell and twice as polite about it."

"I'll take that as a compliment." I offer him a cold, razor-thin smile.

"Wasn't necessarily meant as one," Fabbri murmurs, tapping a gold pen against his knuckles.

A man near the far end, Don Costa, clears his throat, breaking the stare-down. He leans forward slowly.

"There's a leak," Costa announces, meeting my stare without blinking. "In the network. Someone has been feeding Bellini our shipment routes for months. That is not a rumor anymore. We traced two intercepted trucks back to information only a handful of people had."

I look around the table slowly, letting the silence stretch until it's uncomfortable enough that somebody has to fill it.