Page 172 of Brutal Heir

“How did you get past my guards?"

He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes.

“You’re not the only one with influence, Sebastian."

I crossed toward my desk and leaned against it, crossing my arms over my chest. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

His mask of control cracked—just enough for his rage to slither through.

“You know damn well. I saw her,” he ground out.

“Saw who?”

His teeth bared in something too sharp to be called a smile. “My daughter.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Your daughter? Really? I wasn’t aware you had a child with your long-suffering wife.”

He surged to his feet and strode toward me. “I tire of this game,” he said with deadly authority. “Just tell me what you want.”

“For what?”

“To hand her over to me.”

The hairs on the back of my neck rose.

He hadn’t asked me to keep quiet.

Hadn’t asked me to send her away.

No—he wanted me to hand Sabrina over.

A dangerous proposition.

I took my time straightening from my desk, letting the silence stretch until it became suffocating. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

Delluci’s eyes darkened. “You would deny an old man the chance to meet his only daughter?”

A slow smirk curled my lips. “You expect me to believe you suddenly want a relationship with her?”

“The mistakes of one’s youth catch up eventually," he mused. "I was young and ambitious back then. But now? Now I’ve achieved my goals, only to find them hollow without children to carry on my legacy.”

Lies.

Every word sounded like a carefully rehearsed fabrication.

And we both knew it.

I shifted my weight, angling my body, muscles coiled to strike.

Something was definitely wrong.

Marzio Delluci would never acknowledge Sabrina—a secret, an inconvenience—as his daughter.

Too much risk. Too much to lose.

Yet here he was, pretending to be the grieving father desperate for redemption.

He turned back to me, his expression unreadable. “All I ask is a chance to meet her. To explain my long absence from her life.”