Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Vittoria
"Sit," Pietro says from behind his desk.
Nico stands by the window, arms crossed, face unreadable.
I drop into the leather chair across from Pietro. "What's going on?"
My brother shuffles some papers on his desk. A delay tactic. I've seen him do it a thousand times before delivering news he knows I won't like.
"Rogers called."
My spine stiffens. "And?"
"He wants dinner."
"No."
The word comes out flat. Final. I don't even need to think about it.
Pietro sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Vittoria—"
"I said no. I'm doing the three-month trial with Dmitri. That was the agreement."
"This isn't about replacing Baganov." Nico's voice cuts through from his spot by the window. He hasn't moved, but his dark eyes track my every reaction. "It's about optics."
I turn to face him. "Optics."
"The Rogers family represents legitimate business connections," Pietro explains. "Connections we need regardless of who you marry."
"So go have dinner with him yourself."
Pietro's jaw tightens. "You know that's not how this works."
I do know. That's the problem.
"Let me get this straight." I lean back in my chair, crossing my arms to mirror Nico's stance. "You want me to go on a date with James Rogers just so I have an excuse to tell his father why I'm not marrying him?"
Silence.
Then Nico nods. "Yes."
Unbelievable.
"You're asking me to waste an evening with a man I have zero interest in, so you can maintain a business relationship without looking like you rejected them outright?"
Pietro has the decency to look slightly uncomfortable. "When you put it that way—"
"There's no other way to put it."
"The Rogers alliance matters," Nico says. "Even if it's not sealed by blood. Giving James a fair chance—or the appearance of one—makes negotiations easier going forward."
"Easier for who?"
"Everyone."
I hate this. Hate being moved around like a chess piece on their board. Hate that my dinner plans, my time, my life gets decided in conversations I'm not part of.
But then I remember something.
Dmitri's voice in my ear at Celestine, low and amused: Rogers has a fiancée. Secret one.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.
James Rogers doesn't want this dinner any more than I do. He's playing the same game I am—keeping his father happy while buying time. The only difference is I know his secret and he doesn't know that I know.
This could actually be entertaining.
"Fine."
Both my brothers stare at me.
"What?" I shrug. "You want me to go, I'll go. One dinner. I'll be polite, and then I'll come home and tell Mamma he's not the one. Everyone's happy."
Pietro's eyes narrow. "That was too easy."
"Would you prefer I throw a tantrum? Break something? Storm out dramatically?"
"I'd prefer to know what you're thinking."
"I'm thinking that you're right." The lie tastes like honey on my tongue. "One dinner to close the door properly. Makes sense."
Nico pushes off from the window, studying me with that unsettling intensity he inherited from God knows where. "You're agreeing because you're planning something."
"I'm agreeing because I'm a team player."
"Since when?"
"Since right now. Personal growth. You should try it sometime."
Nico's expression doesn't change, but he has suspicion in his eyes. He's too smart for his own good.
"Saturday," Pietro says. "Seven o'clock. He's making reservations at—"
"Let me guess. Somewhere expensive with tiny portions and a three-month waiting list?"
"Bellini's."
Of course.
"I'll wear something appropriate." I stand, smoothing my hands over my jeans. "Anything else?"
Pietro shakes his head. "Just... be civil."
"I'm always civil."
"You told Marco Benedetti his cologne smelled like desperation."
"That was an observation, not an insult. And I was right—he got divorced six months later."
I'm almost to the door when Nico speaks again.
"Vittoria."
I pause, hand on the doorframe. "What?"
"If Rogers says or does anything that makes you uncomfortable, you tell Dante. Immediately."
Something in his tone makes me turn around. Nico's face is still unreadable, but there's a protective edge underneath the ice. The same edge all my brothers carry, buried beneath their various layers of damage.
"I can handle James Rogers."
"I know you can. That's not what I said."
For a moment, we just look at each other. Then I nod.
"I'll tell Dante."
I leave before either of them can add more conditions, more warnings, more reminders that I'm the Sartori princess who needs protecting.
Bruno waits in the hallway.
His wheelchair blocks the path to the stairs, positioned like he planned it. Maybe he did. His eyes track me as I step out of Pietro's office, and I can already see the storm brewing behind them.
"What happened in there?"
I keep my voice light. Casual. "Nothing important."
"Nothing important." He repeats the words like they taste rotten. "Then why wasn't I called?"
"Bruno—"
"Everything is important." His voice rises, bouncing off the marble floors and high ceilings. "Every fucking discussion that happens in this house involves me. I should be in that room. I should know what's being decided."
"It was about my dinner plans. That's it."
"Bullshit."
The word cracks through the air like a whip. Bruno's hands grip his wheelchair armrests, knuckles white against the leather. Two years ago, those hands could break a man's neck. Now they just grip and release, grip and release, searching for something to control.
Pietro's office door opens behind me.
"What's going on?" Pietro steps into the hallway, Nico a shadow at his shoulder.
Bruno wheels himself around to face them. "What's going on is that I'm being excluded. Again. From my own family's business."
"We weren't discussing business." Pietro's voice stays level, measured. The Don's voice. "We were talking about Vittoria's schedule."
"I don't care if you were discussing the fucking weather!" Bruno's shout echoes through the corridor. . "I have a right to be present. I have a right to know."
Pietro raises one hand, palm out. A calming gesture. "Bruno. Take a breath."
"Don't tell me to take a breath."
"Then don't shout at me in my own hallway."
"Your hallway." He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Your office. Your decisions. You play Don for everyone else, Pietro, but you don't have the right to speak to me like I'm one of your soldiers."
Pietro's expression doesn't change, but I see his shoulders tighten beneath his suit jacket.
"I'm not treating you like a soldier."
"You're treating me like I don't exist." Bruno wheels forward, closing the distance between them. "Like I'm furniture. Decoration. Something to wheel out for family dinners and put away when real work needs doing."
"That's not—"
"I am the Don." Bruno's voice cracks on the word. "I was trained for it. I should be sitting behind that desk, not rotting in this fucking chair while you make decisions without me."
The silence that follows is suffocating.
I watch my brothers face each other.
"Unbelievable."
The word leaves my mouth before I can stop it.
Bruno's head snaps toward me. "What did you say?"
Something cracks inside my chest. All the patience I've been hoarding, all the gentle understanding I've tried to maintain every time Bruno lashes out—it shatters like glass dropped on marble.
"I said unbelievable." I step forward, putting myself between my brothers. Stupid, probably. Definitely reckless. But I'm so tired of tiptoeing around his rage. "Do you have any idea what you've become? Any idea at all?"
"Vittoria." Pietro's warning comes soft. I ignore it.
"You sit in that chair and you snarl at everyone who tries to help you. You snap at the servants. You've driven away everyone who loves you with your cruelty and your bitterness and your endless fucking self-pity."
Bruno's face goes pale. "Watch your mouth."
"No." The word tastes like freedom. "You want to know why you weren't in that meeting? Because every time we ask you to join us, you say no. Every single time. You hide in your room or you sit by the window like some tragic figure in a painting, and then you scream at us for leaving you out."
"Vittoria."
"Giulia left."
Bruno goes still.
"She left the compound three months ago because she couldn't take it anymore. The woman who raised us, who held this family together when Mamma couldn't get out of bed after Papà died, she packed a bag and went to stay with aunt Carmela because you made her cry. Again."
"I didn't—"
"You did." My voice breaks, but I push through it. "You called her useless. You threw your dinner at the wall because it wasn't hot enough. You told her we should have let you die in that hospital."
The color drains from Bruno's face completely now. His mouth opens, closes. Opens again.
"None of us care about the title, Bruno.
" Tears burn behind my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall.
"We don't care who sits behind which desk or who gives orders.
We care about you. The brother who taught me to ride a bike.
The brother who stayed up all night helping Lorenzo study for his exams. The brother who used to make Mamma laugh until she couldn't breathe. "
I crouch down so we're eye level. So he can't look away.
"That brother is still in there somewhere. But this person you've become? This angry, bitter, cruel person who hurts everyone around him?" I shake my head. "I don't know him. And I don't think I want to."
Bruno stares at me. His hands have stopped gripping the armrests. They just hang there now, limp and useless.
Behind me, Pietro and Nico say nothing.
Then Bruno wheels himself backward. Once. Twice. He turns without a word and disappears down the hallway toward his room.
Dmitri
I sit in the study adjacent to his bedroom, laptop open, spreadsheets glowing in the dim light. Shipment schedules. Distribution routes. The mundane machinery of empire that doesn't stop turning just because the emperor is dying.
The numbers blur. I rub my eyes and reach for the vodka I poured an hour ago, still untouched. Can't afford to be drunk. Can't afford to be anything but ready.
Through the wall, I hear the soft beep of monitors. The shuffle of Nurse Katya's shoes. My father hasn't spoken since yesterday morning, when he grabbed my wrist with surprising strength and said Yelena.
I should go in there. Should sit beside him, hold his hand, say something meaningful. Tell him I'll make him proud.
But I don't move.
Because what if he looks at me with those fading eyes and sees exactly what he created?
My phone rings. Yuri's name flashes on the screen.
"Da."
"Boss." Yuri's voice carries that particular tension I've learned to recognize. Bad news incoming. "We have a situation."
I minimize the spreadsheet. "Talk."
"Vittoria Sartori. She's having dinner with James Rogers tonight."
The vodka glass shatters in my grip before I realize I've squeezed it. Crystal shards bite into my palm. Blood wells up, warm and red against my skin.
"What?"
"Megan just confirmed. Dinner at Bellini's. Eight o'clock."
I stare at the blood dripping onto my father's antique desk, watching it pool on the wood grain. "When did this happen? Why am I only learning this now?"
"That's the thing." Yuri pauses. "They didn't discuss it openly.
No family meetings, no formal announcements.
Megan says the past two days, things have been intense at the compound.
Something happened between Vittoria and Bruno.
Big argument. But Megan wasn't present, so she doesn't know the details. "
I grab a handkerchief from the drawer, wrapping it around my bleeding palm. The pain barely registers. All I can see is Vittoria sitting across from that boy, his smug smile, his wandering hands—
"She agreed to this?"
"Apparently. Megan overheard her telling Amanda she has a 'plan.' Whatever that means."
A plan. Of course she does. My little sun, always thinking she can outmaneuver everyone.
But Rogers isn't just some lovesick fool. His family wants the Sartori connection. They'll push. They'll pressure. And if Vittoria thinks she can handle him alone—
"What time?" I ask again, needing the specifics, needing something concrete to hold onto.
"Eight. Bellini's on Michigan Avenue."
I check my watch. Six-thirty. Ninety minutes.
"Get me everything on Rogers's movements today. Who he's talked to, where he's been. And find out what happened with Bruno."
"Already on it." Yuri hesitates.
I end the call and stand, moving to the window.
Behind me, I hear Aleksander's footsteps in the hallway. He stops at the study door.
"Papa's awake. He's asking for you."
My hand throbs. Blood seeps through the handkerchief.
"I'll be there in a minute."