Chapter 26 Francesco #2
“Why? You’ve set the date already?” He pauses. “Then we’ll need to send word to the Elders—”
I cut him off on his next statement. “The engagement is off.”
The room falls silent. The only sound is the damn grandfather clock ticking like a countdown to hell.
Tick… tock.
Tick…
He slams the whiskey glass against the desk so hard it cracks.
“What the fuck did you do?” he growls.
His chair screeches across the floor as he rises, hands braced on the desk like he’s holding himself back from leaping over it.
I straighten my back and pin him with a firm gaze. “I ended the engagement.” The silence that follows from my statement is a fucking threat.
Dante’s head tilts slightly, like a predator noticing weakness. I meet his gaze, even though my instincts scream at me to bow. “I already spoke to Silvia, and she agreed. We’re not doing this.”
“You arrogant little shit.” He shoves the glass off the table.
It shatters against the wall. “Do you think this is a game? You don’t just get to end the engagement.
You can’t. The Society sanctioned it. The Elders blessed it.
You’re not just breaking an engagement, you’re declaring war on a bloodline. ”
I clench my fists. “Then let it be war. I’ll be ready to handle it.”
He laughs darkly. “Handle it? What, with a love letter and a bulletproof vest? You think they’ll let this slide?”
I exhale slowly. “Silvia and I know the risks. Although I do not want to get her involved in case this all goes south, we’ll make a public show of unity, release a controlled statement about mutual incompatibility, and serve any punishment the Elders assign to me.
As for the Morettis, we’ll keep them close, offer them something bigger in return, maybe land, access to world-class secrets, power.
Something we have they already don’t. I’ll figure it out. ”
“You think this is about land?”
“No,” I say, my voice shaking from the weight of everything I’ve buried for years.
“I know it’s not about land or appearances.
It’s about loyalty. Blind, rotting loyalty to a society that’s been gutting us of our humanity in the name of tradition and bloodlines.
We keep calling it duty, legacy, but all we’re doing is handing down chains and calling them inheritance.
We can’t keep doing this. Forcing generation after generation into the same prison—just because our ancestors were too cowardly to break the locks. ”
My eyes meet his. “I know what this means. I know I’m going up against a century of rules that were written in blood.
I know what it could cost me—my life, my family, everything.
But I’ve never been more certain of anything.
Every day for the better part of my life, I’ve woken up asking myself if this is really the life I want—if it’s the life any of us want.
And I’ve never had the courage to answer.
“But now I know I have to act—not just for myself, but for all of us. For the future we deserve. I’ve sat with this.
Stewed in it. Bled for it. And I’ve made up my mind.
If I’m going down, I’m going down on my terms. And I’m not dragging your legacy through the dirt with me. Let me do this my way. Or kill me now.”
He shakes his head vigorously, like he’s still in disbelief. I stay quiet. There’s nothing I can say that’ll soften the blow. Nothing that’ll make him want to kill me any less.
“I’ve spent years arranging this alliance. Anni interi, figlio mio,” he spits. “Years keeping this family strong, impenetrable. Years protecting us from the wrath of La Mano Nera. And now you’re just going to throw it all away.”
My jaw tightens. “I know this was never mine to decide. It never has been. But I can’t keep pretending I want a life I never chose. Not anymore. I don’t love Silvia. I never have. And maybe that doesn’t matter to you. Maybe it’s not supposed to matter at all.”
A breath. Tight. Controlled. “But it matters to me. Enough to finally say it out loud.”
He laughs. He actually laughs. It’s short, dry, and undeniably bitter. The sound cracks the air and tells me exactly how furious he is.
“After thirty fucking years, you still don’t get it.
” His expression darkens. “You don’t get to make choices.
You don’t get to pick what you want and toss the rest away like a child.
You are Romano sangue, my heir, the heir to this empire your fathers before you spent their entire lives creating. Generations of sacrifice.”
He slams a hand to his chest.
“Your job is to inherit. Maintain. Protect. And then pass it on, to the child you were supposed to have with Silvia.”
“Well,” I say quietly, “then we have a problem. Because I know exactly what this means. And I’m still doing it. I’m ready to fight for this, even die for it, if I have to prove it.”
His hand trembles as he runs it through his greying hair.
“Sacrifice,” he says, more to himself than to me.
“You can’t be a powerful man if you don’t make sacrifices.
You want power, you bleed for it. You suffer for it.
That’s the price.” A shaky breath leaves him.
“The things I’ve done… Dio mio. The things I’ve done so you and your brothers could walk through this world untouched. ”
My hands curl into fists.
“How do you think Cassian died?”
I blink, stunned. The name hits me like a slap.
“Cassian?” I repeat, slowly.
We all knew Cassian was killed here a day after the engagement party. I know, because I was the one who found him.
Everyone knew he died inside this estate, but no one knew how. Or why. There were whispers, of course, but nothing substantial. Even the Elders were tight-lipped, which in itself was fucking suspicious. And the De Lucas—his family—they never raised hell. No outrage. No accusations. Just… silence.
In a world like ours, silence like that is louder than any scream.
Things like this do happen in La Mano Nera. People disappear. People die. And no one dares question it. But still, Cassian was one of ours. A founding family’s heir. His father and mine were close, allies in blood and business. If my father is admitting it to me now…
Does this mean the Elders know?
Because at the last council meeting, one of them mentioned an “ongoing investigation.” I didn’t think much of it.
Now I do.
The De Lucas are one of the original six—founders of La Mano Nera—but their bloodline is different.
Purported to descend from veggenti, seers.
Prophets. Cassian had that same gift, or curse, depending on how you look at it.
He saw things. Things most of us weren’t meant to see.
Things the Society has used in secret for generations, whispers of the future, glimpses into potential rebellion, warnings of betrayal.
And my father killed him. Just like that.
No punishment. No blood repayment. No vendetta.
Which means either the Society sanctioned it… or my father is much more dangerous than I’ve known.
I don’t know which is worse.
“I killed him because he saw too much,” my father says. “Because he was going to expose us.”
He pauses, then leans forward, his eyes gleaming dark.
“He found out about the secret. The one buried beneath the foundation of this family. The one our ancestors committed, against the order of La Mano Nera.”
My breath lodges in my throat.
“He knew,” Dante says quietly, “what we did to survive. How Vecchio Nero—one of the original Elders—found a prophecy in The Book of Silence about a child born from unsanctioned blood who would destroy the Society. He grew paranoid and started purging anyone tied to those bloodlines, including ours.”
He looks straight at me.
“He was going to expose how generations before us bound themselves—and their children—through forced unions, blood oaths, arranged marriages like you and Silvia.
All of it meticulously crafted, generation after generation, to cover our tracks and secure our survival.
So our families—the Romanos and the Morettis—formed an alliance in secret.
They murdered Vecchio Nero and they falsified the ceremony of his death, made it look legitimate, and rewrote the bloodline laws without the other founding families knowing.
“Ever since, we’ve kept the lie alive.”
I feel cold. Like the temperature in the room just dropped ten degrees.
“The other founding families, if they knew the truth, they wouldn’t just cut us out. They’d erase us. Erased, Francesco. Gone. The Morettis. Anyone tied to the lie.”
He swallows hard.
“I’ve buried a lot of my friends,” he continues. “I’ve paid blood for loyalty. I’ve mourned the people I love.”
My chest tightens, pain flaring behind my ribs as old memories slam into me—my mother’s funeral, my baby brother’s face. The silence that followed. The emptiness that never left.
“You think you’re the first man who’s ever had to make a hard fucking decision?” he snarls. “The first man who wanted something he could never have?”
Something about the way he says that last part feels loaded. Like there’s history in it. Pain. A story he won’t finish.
“You’re weak,” he sneers. “Just like your brothers. Lorenzo—”
“Don’t,” I snap. “Don’t bring him into this.”
“He wanted to get initiated first…”
I grit my teeth, hating the story he’s about to tell.
“He begged, even though he was too young,” my father continues. “Even though he was my last son and shouldn’t have been the first to get initiated, I was proud that at least one of my sons wasn’t afraid to do what was necessary.”
For the first time in a long time, I see a broken expression in my father’s eyes.
“But you know how La Mano Nera works. To prove loyalty, you don’t just kill anyone. You kill someone tied to your enemy… or someone they choose,” he recites one of the Society initiation rules. “He thought it would be like killing a rabbit.”
My heart hammers against my chest.
“Then they gave him a name. It was his best friend.”
We all knew what happened after that.