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He flicked his stare to her.

She was standing propped against the doorway with her arms tightly folded across her breasts. “Did you buy it as a place to escape from your father?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“It was just something I felt I needed to do at the time.”

“So you do remember why you bought it.”

He poured the coffee, making sure to keep his voice as controlled as the hand pouring the hot liquid. “Whatever my reasons were are none of your business.”

“I’m just curious why you paid cash for an apartment and went to such lengths to keep it a secret. You were nineteen, which suggests you must have saved like hell to be able to afford it.”

He gritted his teeth. “It was cheap.”

“And daddy kept you on a very tight leash, didn’t he? He didn’t trust you, and you didn’t trust him.”

“It had nothing to do with trust,” he bit out before he could stop himself.

“Then what was it? A bolt hole to escape to if he decided to kill you for not enjoying sex or not enjoying the killing side of the job enough?”

He whipped his stare to her again before he could stop himself. “What the hell has got into you?”

“Me?” Her eyes flashed, emotion finally shining through. “I’m just making conversation. So if it wasn’t a bolt hole to hide in case daddy decided you were too shit a son to keep, then what was it? Was you trying to prove something to him?”

God damn her!

And God damn him for ever letting things go so far. For letting them go anywhere.

Right from the start, Elvira had seen straight into the heart of him and known exactly how to needle him and burrow under his skin in a way no one had ever done before and now, when he needed his head to be clear for what was coming, she was doing it again, and it was as effortless as when she’d done it before they’d become lovers.

Except it wasn’t effortless. The emotion shining in her eyes was pain, and he couldn’t stand to look at it.

“Didn’t shooting a paedophile’s cock off prove something well enough for him?” she taunted, a tremor echoing in her voice, when he turned his stare away from her.

“My father was a street kid who built an empire from nothing,” he said, determined not to react to either her taunts or the pain underlying them, striving harder than ever for calm. “I wanted to prove I was built of the same mould, and create something of my own.”

That was the excuse he’d told himself at the time, even as he’d hidden his first burner phone in the apartment and envisaged the routes he could use if the day ever came when he needed to escape.

That’s what he’d bought it for. As an escape, the same reason as he’d bought his Swiss chalet. He’d been in the process of getting his father’s name removed from the chalet’s deeds when the Ranieris had snatched it off him.

“Oh, so you were seeking Daddy’s respect. How did that work out for you?” she needled. “I’m guessing badly, seeing as you never bought another property behind his back. Is that where the scar above your lip came from?”

“The scar is a result of a fight with Tommaso when we were kids. It was nothing.”

“Beaten up by your younger brother? Bet that impressed Daddy.”

His back to her, Mattia took a sip of his coffee, swallowing back the ballooning anger with the strong hit of caffeine.

“You were a disappointment to him, weren’t you?” she goaded. “He never respected you, and he certainly never trusted you.”

“I tell you what he did do,” he said, controlling his tone by a whisker, “and that was never give up on me. He wasn’t just my father but my mentor. When he died, I was his number two in all but name.”

“Only because it suited him to let you think that. Your father was a psychopath; you said it yourself. Everyone was a pawn in the great game of his life, to be used – or abused – as he dictated, including you, and I can’t believe you’re going to all these lengths to preserve the legacy of a man who treated you like shit.”

“Why are you doing this?” he demanded, spinning around to face her. “The endgame is within touching distance, and you’re trying to goad me into a fight when our heads need to be clear.”