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“We’re not giving it back,” Elio stated firmly. “Control remains with us. The shadowed world belongs to us.”

“How can you say that when you’ve declared Siena number one with you?”

“Siena is my wife. She is one of us now. So is Tommaso, and need I remind you that Tommaso’s wife is the daughter of the man sacrificed by Lorenzo to start the whole damn war? Rico will never work for the family in any capacity but approves of the plan, and Renata has given her blessing. That Bruno’s here tells you he agrees with it. Everyone agrees this is what’s needed. None of us started the war, Elvira, but in our own ways we’ve all had to live with the consequences of it.”

“Don’t you dare compare what they’ve suffered with what we’ve suffered, Elio. Don’t you dare.”

“He’s not making comparisons,” Mattia cut in quietly.

“Don’t you butt in, you kidnapping bastard!” she cried. “I can’t believe you’re going to get away with it!”

Falling onto the space beside him, she clutched at her hair. She couldn’t even look at him. So many emotions were firing through her that she could only pick strands of them to cling to.

“Is that what you want?” he asked her. “For me to be punished for kidnapping you?”

“Yes! No! I don’t know!”

“Well, tell me when you do know, and if you still think I deserve to be punished, I will accept whatever punishment you think fit, and that’s with the promise in front of these three witnesses that I will make no retaliation and forbid my family from seeking vengeance on my behalf. How does that sound to you?”

“How can you be so damned calm and accepting about it all?” she demanded, her voice rising with an anguish she had no control of and no clue as to where it was coming from. “Only an hour ago you were saying you couldn’t let me win! You don’t want this truce any more than I do!”

“This isn’t about winning anymore,” he said in that same quiet voice. “What happens if your brother and my sister have a child? It will be a child with Esposito and Ranieri blood. It will have your blood and mine running through it.”

Oh God. Siena carrying her niece or nephew? She couldn’t bear to think of it, and truly couldn’t bear to think of the possibility of a Ranieri and Esposito conception happening inside her. It was all just too much to add to the emotions already pressing down on her.

“So we’re supposed to just forgive and forget? Put it all behind us as if none of it ever happened? Pretend my parents aren’t bones in a grave?”

“No, but you have the choice now to decide if you can rise above it and look to the future instead of keeping your head constantly turned to a past you don’t even remember. You have a chance to build a life for yourself now.”

“What life? Hating your family is the only life I’ve ever known.” And now she felt like the Japanese soldier of war she’d accused Mattia of being because there was a part of her rejoicing – rejoicing – that the war might actually be over, and because she hated herself for it, felt like the biggest traitor in the world, all she could do was fight the tide against it.

A large warm hand gripped gently to her thigh. “Do you remember how you told me that all you wanted is to save what’s left of your family?” he said, his voice dropping even lower. “This deal saves it, El. Our families joining forces makes your family stronger. If there are pockets of resistance about the Ranieris takeover of Naples, uniting will quash them. This is the best thing for everyone, and I know when you think it through with your calm head on, you’ll know it’s for the best too. This saves us all and gives us all the chance of actually having futures. Your brother and my sister have made their choices, and now it’s for us to make ours.”

She felt the squeeze of his hand before his touch left her and he was on his feet, striding to Elio with his hand outstretched.

“I accept the terms of your truce but decline your offer to run the Group.”

His words had barely registered before she heard her brother say, doubt in his voice, “You decline?”

Mattia was hugely aware of everyone’s eyes on him, most especially aware of Elvira’s, and chose his next words with care. “I had plans for surviving today, but I never seriously thought I’d live long enough to see them through, and now… Well, I don’t want those plans anymore. I’m done with this life. I think I’ve been done with it for a long time.” He turned his stare to Elvira. “I’ve been done with it since I was fourteen.”

Her eyes widened.

All these years, striving so hard to prove himself worthy of following the footsteps of a monster and being championed by a mother who’d turned a blind eye to her daughter being assaulted?

Yes, he was done with it. Learning about Siena had cinched something he’d been craving in the deepest part of his heart for over two decades.

Screw his dead father. Screw his mother. Screw their warped ideas of loyalty and familial love. A door had opened to freedom, and suddenly all he wanted was to walk through it.

He turned back to the dumbfounded Elio. “Put whatever shares I would have been given back in the pot for you all to share.”

“You’re walking away?” Siena asked. Her expression was shrewd, and he had the sudden feeling his decision was much less of a surprise to her than it had been to himself. Certainly much, much less of a surprise than it was to her husband.

“Yes. I’m going to do a Rico and walk away from it all.” And, God, it felt freeing to say it. Even more freeing to finally admit this was what he wanted to himself.

“What will you do?”

He shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Read more history books?” He flicked his stare back to Elvira and smiled wryly. “Teach myself to cook more than pizza?”