Chapter 24 #2
"Had to play ball," Stephano finishes in a hollow voice.
"Yeah." Nico nods. "He sent money. He sent intel. He let them blackmail him. He let them keep me." He looks at Stephano. "He sent some of your programs to Valverde."
"Son of a bitch!" Stephano explodes, running his hand through his hair, "That's how Valverde got his hands on my software.
I knew it." He stands abruptly, breath tearing in and out of him like he’s drowning.
He turns away, shoulders rigid, fists trembling.
"And you… fuck!" Steph rakes his fingers over his face, leaving angry marks. "You could have been killed."
"Steph—" Nico says gently.
Stephano’s fist slams into the wall. Plaster explodes, raining white dust over his knuckles. Blood streaks down his wrist. "I’ll kill him," he whispers. Not shouting. Whispering. Which is worse.
"No." Nico tries to sit up, but I push him back down. "Don’t you dare. He’s mine. And you’re his heir—you can’t kill him."
"He sent you to die," Stephano snarls. "He chose you. Calculated you. Sacrificed you like—like—"
"Like a pawn," Nico finishes. "Yeah. I know."
Stephano hits the wall again with the other hand. Blood smears again. He looks like a man whose bones are cracking under the weight of truth. I reach for him, but he jerks away, not from my touch, but from the reality that is suffocating him.
"He lied to me," Stephano chokes. "He fucking lied to me for years. Told me you vanished. Told me you were dead. And all this time, he knew. All this time, he let them keep you."
Nico’s eyes soften. "Steph. I’m alive. Because of you. I’m here."
Stephano shakes his head, eyes burning, voice broken. "No. You’re here despite him."
He presses both bloodied hands to his skull like he’s trying to hold himself together. I step forward and press my palm over his heart. His chest heaves once, a choking sound lodged inside him. This is the moment—the crack—the fracture that will make a king.
I tighten my hand over his heart, feeling every shuddered breath he drags in. He’s shaking. Stephano Conti, who walked through a burning base like a man born of hellfire, is shaking.
"Stephano," I whisper, but he won’t look at me. His eyes are on the wall, on the blood, on the ghost of the father he thought he had.
"It still doesn’t make sense," he mutters. "Why would he want his own son dead?"
I inhale slowly, because someone has to think straight, and right now he can’t. "Because he plays both sides of the sword," I remind him softly. "You told me that."
His head jerks, the truth cutting deeper now.
"He sent Nico," I continue, "because a murdered Conti son in foreign territory would’ve forced Edoardo to act. Forced the other capos to unite. Forced the entire Five Families to rally behind the grieving father."
Stephano squeezes his eyes shut, agony ripping down his jaw.
"He never wanted to be Don," I say. "He wanted to be the man who makes Dons. The power behind the throne. The kingmaker." I let that settle for a moment. Before I continue, "And there’s no faster way to earn a Don’s loyalty than by losing something precious while protecting his interests."
Stephano’s breath shudders, ragged. "No—Gustave wouldn’t—he wouldn’t do that for Edoardo—"
"He would," I cut in gently, ruthlessly. "Because Donna Margarita was controlling Edoardo. She had leverage over him. Strings he couldn’t cut. If she had Leonardo killed—and Silvestre helped her—then they were both too powerful, too insulated. He couldn’t remove them through politics."
"So he used Nico," Stephano whispers, horrified. "Used him to expose them."
"Yes," I say. "A big sacrifice. Big enough no one would question it. Big enough to make Gustave look like the wronged patriarch. The man who lost a son because foreign snakes dared strike the Contis."
Stephano’s voice tears itself out of him. "He sent him to die."
"He gambled him," I correct softly. "And in Gustave’s mind, it wasn’t even a gamble. It was a win-win."
Stephano’s eyes snap to mine, shaking.
"If Valverde and Margarita killed Nico," I explain, "your father got his war. His unity. His power. Edoardo would become his puppet out of grief and obligation. Gustave would become indispensable."
Stephano staggers a breath.
"But if they didn’t kill Nico?" I continue, the blade sliding deeper.
"If they kicked him out? If they laughed at the accusation?
If they showed they had nothing to hide?
" I tilt my head. "Then Gustave would have learned something just as valuable: that Valverde and Donna Margarita had nothing to do with Leonardo’s death. That they weren’t blackmailing Edoardo.
That Gustave had been chasing the wrong enemies. "
His face drains of color.
"He would have adjusted," I say. "Recalibrated. Redirected the war machine in another direction." A cruel truth. A brilliant strategy. "He wins either way, Stephano. That’s who your father is."
Stephano’s voice breaks. "And if neither outcome played the way he wanted—if his son lived but wasn’t useful—"
"Then he still had you," I finish and squeeze his hand like I’m anchoring him to the earth. "…the son he wanted. The weapon he was shaping. The heir he intended to use next."
He stares at nothing; his chest is rising too fast, the realization slicing straight through him.
My voice softens. I hate this moment for him, but truth doesn’t bend, it straightens your back or breaks you.
"He plays both sides. And in his mind, Nico’s death wasn’t murder. It was strategy. It was… pruning."
A sound escapes Stephano, nothing weak, nothing broken. It’s a low, sharp laugh carved out of something feral. A promise. A warning. The kind of sound a man makes when the last piece of illusion has been ripped from him, and all that’s left is vengeance.
His shoulders pull tight, his spine straightens, and when he lifts his head, there’s a new light in his eyes—cold, merciless, ruthless with fury.
Not grief.
Not confusion.
Resolve.
I’ve seen killers. I’ve made killers.
But I’ve never seen a man transform so completely in a single breath. Revenge burns there, bright and clean as a blade fresh from the fire.
Not reckless.
Not frantic.
Calculated.
It’s the look of a man who has just added his father’s name to a list and fully intends to cross it out. I keep my hand on him, not to comfort, but to remind him he’s not alone as he becomes whatever this moment is forging.
A king, not a son.
A weapon, but one no longer willing to be wielded. Nico watches us both, pain swimming in his eyes. Stephano finally looks at me, and what’s in his gaze is raw—ragged—unmasked. Hurt. Rage. Betrayal.
And beneath it all, the cold, black dawning of something else.
Power.
Responsibility.
Ruthlessness.
The kingdom is shifting inside him.
This is it. The moment he stops being the man his father raised and becomes the man who will tear that legacy apart.
A king is born in blood.
Even if it’s his own.