Chapter Seven #2
"You love the power I lent you," Renzo corrected coldly. He walked around the edge of the desk, closing the distance between them until he was looming over her. The aura of the Don flared to life, suffocating and vast.
"And let me make one thing crystal clear to you," Renzo whispered, his voice vibrating with a dark, violent promise.
"If you ever take a step toward Roselia Zanetti again.
If you breathe her name, if you look in her direction, if you so much as cast a shadow on the ground she walks on...
I will not hesitate. I will put a bullet right between your eyes. Do you understand me?"
Willa stopped crying. The sheer, unadulterated promise of death in Renzo’s eyes bypassed her theatrics and struck her primal survival instincts. She gave a single, terrified nod.
"Get out of my house," Renzo ordered.
Willa spun on her heel and fled.
She practically ran down the hallway, her chest heaving, her vision blurred with tears of humiliation and a sudden, toxic surge of rage. She burst through the doors leading to the grand foyer, her mind violently twisting the narrative to protect her own ego.
She did this, Willa thought frantically, her manicured hands curling into fists. Roselia did this. She must have said something. She must have manipulated him while I was gone. How else could Lorenzo change so much in a single week?
As Willa reached the bottom of the sweeping marble staircase the front doors opened.
Roselia walked in, bringing the smell of saddle leather and engine oil with her. She was wiping dirt from her palms with a rag, unbothered, her dark hair falling loose over her shoulders.
The sight of her—calm, secure, oblivious to the destruction she had supposedly caused—ignited a blind fury in Willa. The mask of the delicate flower shattered, revealing the vicious, cornered animal underneath.
"You bitch," Willa hissed, her face contorting with malice. She took a furious, aggressive step toward Roselia. "You think you've won? You think you can turn him against me?"
Roselia paused, dropping the rag. She looked at Willa, her dark eyes knitting together in genuine confusion. She hadn't said a word to Renzo in weeks. She had no idea what the blonde woman was talking about.
But before Willa could take a second step, the shadows near the doorway exploded into motion.
Bruno had been walking a few paces behind Roselia, concealed by the oak door. The moment Willa’s voice rose, carrying the sharp, unmistakable tone of aggression, the Cane Corso reacted.
He didn't just growl. He became a nightmare of muscle and instinct. Bruno lunged forward, placing his hundred-and-fifty-pound frame solidly between the two women. His jaws snapped in the air with a bone-crushing clack that echoed loudly against the vaulted ceiling. He let out a thunderous, vibrating roar, his lips peeled back to expose his fangs, his dark eyes locked dead on Willa’s throat.
Willa shrieked, stumbling backward in terror, her heel catching on the marble as she nearly fell to the ground.
"Bruno, basta," Roselia commanded immediately, grabbing the thick leather collar to hold the beast back, though the dog continued to snarl, his body rigid with the promise of violence.
Before Willa could recover her footing or her breath, two sets of hands clamped down on her arms.
Casimir Valente materialized from the adjoining corridor, flanked by two of his heaviest enforcers. The chief of security looked at Willa with the exact same dead, clinical expression Renzo had worn in the study.
"Your luggage has already been loaded into the vehicle, Signora," Casimir stated, his voice brooking zero arguments. "It is time for you to leave."
"Get your hands off me!" Willa shrieked, her composure disintegrating as she thrashed against the iron grips of the guards.
But it was useless. They simply lifted her off her feet and marched her swiftly out the front doors, her furious, humiliated screams cutting off abruptly as the oak slammed shut behind her.
The foyer fell into a strange, echoing silence.
Roselia stood in the center of the marble floor, her hand still resting on Bruno’s tense neck. She slowly released her grip, letting out a long breath as the dog gave a final, disgruntled huff and sat heavily against her boots.
She stared at the closed doors for several seconds.
Willa was gone. Not just retreating to pout in the east wing, but actively, forcefully evicted from the property by Casimir himself. That kind of order only came from one man.
Roselia knitted her brows together, scratching Bruno absently behind the ears. What on earth had just happened? Had Willa finally pushed her luck too far? Had she demanded something so outrageous that even the Don’s bottomless patience had snapped?
A fleeting moment of curiosity crossed her mind, but it was quickly replaced by a sense of detachment. She didn't really care. The politics of Renzo Falco’s disastrous love life were not her concern, and she certainly wasn't going to waste energy deciphering the drama.
"Well, you monster," Roselia murmured to the dog, stepping over the rag she had dropped. "It looks like the air just cleared up around here. Come on. I need coffee."
She walked down the hall toward the kitchens, unbothered and unaware that the Don of the Falcons was standing at the window of his study above, watching the black SUV drive away, clearing the battlefield for a war she didn't even know he was preparing to fight.