Chapter Nineteen #2
His nostrils flare, breath shallow and pissed. Eyes narrowed, he steps closer, so close I can smell the gun oil and cologne clinging to his skin. The weight of everything we’ve never said settles between us like smoke.
“You think you’re ready to die for her?” he hisses, voice sharp enough to bleed.
I don’t blink.
“No,” I rasp, my voice thick with everything he never taught me. Loyalty, love. The kind of love that doesn’t kneel. Doesn’t run. “I’m ready to kill for her.”
The men around me shift, subtle but telling, hands tightening on their rifles, muscles coiled, waiting for the command. One nod. One twitch from him. That’s all it would take to end me.
And still… he doesn’t give it.
Because I fucking know. The second his mask slips, that tiny pause, that flicker of hesitation, it’s there. A crack in the armor. Barely visible, but I know my father too well not to see it.
And the way he’s looking at me, like I’m the ghost of a future he never planned for. One he can’t shape or bend. Can’t fucking control anymore. Because I’m not just his son. I’m his heir. I’m the thing he molded with blood and fire and all the sharp edges he carved into me.
Killing me doesn’t just sever bloodlines. It cuts the throat of his legacy.
And he knows it. Plus if he kills me here, in front of his men, in the place where he turned boys into monsters his men will ask themselves a question he can’t afford: If he can kill his own son, what the fuck does loyalty mean?
And that’s the one thing he can’t survive. Doubt.
But no bullets come.
Just silence. Then he nods.
A single, quiet motion. Small. Precise.
That’s all it takes.
His soldiers move like shadows. Trained, merciless, silent as death. They’re on me before I can shift, grabbing my arms and wrenching them back with a force that sends white-hot pain ripping through my shoulders. I grunt, but I don’t scream. I won’t give him that.
They shove me down, my knees hitting the floor first, then my face slamming into the concrete. Hard. Grit tears into my cheek, and blood bursts in my mouth. It’s bitter, flooding my tongue like punishment.
This is what he wanted. Not to kill me. Not to break me. To remind me who the fuck I belong to.
“Stay fucking put,” one of them snarls, pressing his boot between my shoulder blades the way a hunter pins down prey, just flesh, just a trophy, nothing more.
The pressure grinds into bone, pinning me like an animal, and it takes everything I have not to move, not to snap, not to rip his fucking leg out from under him and crack his skull open on the concrete.
I wait. Breathing heavy, jaw clenched so tight my molars threaten to crack from the pressure. Blood pools in my mouth, all rust and rage.
My father steps past me.
Calm.
Unhurried—this is just business to him. As though I’m not even worth a glance.
His polished shoes, perfect, expensive, soulless, stop inches from my face, the leather catching the fractured light above like it’s something holy.
I tilt my head, just enough to see him standing over Dante Moretti.
The man’s still on his knees, trembling like a coward. And he looks smaller by the second, shrinking under the weight of the reckoning he helped build but never had the spine to own.
And for a heartbeat, I forget the pain in my body, because I know what’s coming.
“You,” my father spits, disgust curling each syllable as if he’s choking on bile. “I gave you everything. Power. Respect. My fucking trust. And you repay me by slithering into the shadows—a rat crawling through the same dirt you once sent others to die in?”
Emery’s father shudders. He’s weak and pathetic. Sweat clings to his face, his skin ashen, as though he's already partway to the grave.
“Please,” he breathes, barely audible. A whimper, not a defense. “I didn’t… I was—”
“You were what?” my father growls, stepping in so close the bastard goes stiff, spine pulled tight as if fear alone might snap it in half.
“I made you. Protected you. Gave you a seat at my table when you were nothing but bloodstained hands and empty threats. And still you have the fucking nerve to betray me.” He circles him, slow and deliberate, a predator savoring the moment before the kill.
“Now look at you… shaking, pathetic, trembling the way a mutt does after pissing on the wrong boot. Begging.”
Dante flinches like he’s been struck, the shame and fear rolling off him in waves.
My father crouches beside him, calm now. Too fucking calm. That’s when he’s at his most dangerous. His voice drops to a low, slicing whisper.
“Tell me,” he leans in close, their faces inches apart, breath hot with fury, “was it worth it?”
“N-no,” Dante stammers like a fucking coward, voice cracking, as his body shudders uncontrollably. “It was a mistake, please… I didn’t mean—”
“You’re goddamn right it was a mistake.” My father straightens, rising with all the weight of a man who knows he owns every soul in this place.
All except mine. His expression is stone.
But his eyes… fuck, his eyes burn like fire eating through flesh.
“And now you’re going to fucking pay for it.
Slowly. Painfully. Second by fucking second. ”
From where I’m pinned, cheek pressed against the rough concrete, I watch as Emery’s father crumbles. The tremble in his limbs turns violent, his breathing spiraling into ragged panic.
And then it happens.
The bastard pisses himself.
The sharp, acrid scent hits the air, cutting through the metallic tang of blood and dust. The last shred of pride leaking out of him, soaking the floor beneath his knees.
My father stares down at him, lips curled in disgust. He shakes his head slowly, like he’s looking at roadkill that used to mean something.
“Pathetic,” he mutters, not even looking at him anymore, as if the sight alone offends him. Then he turns to face me and gives a single nod.
The men don’t hesitate.
They haul me to my feet. Their hands clamping down on my arms so tight I swear I can feel bone scrape against bone. Pain rips through my shoulders, a deep, dragging throb, but I bite it down. I don’t give them the satisfaction. I keep my eyes locked on my father.
Cold.
Unflinching.
Exactly how he trained me.
But not for the reasons he ever fucking understood.
The stench of piss still clings to the air, thick and sour. Leaking from the broken shell of Emery’s father, who’s collapsed in a quivering heap at his feet. The man who once held power in his fists now trembles like a kicked dog, too far gone to even lift his head.
My father stares down at him, disgust carved deep into every cruel line of his face. He doesn’t rush. Doesn’t speak. Just stands there, letting the man at his feet feel every second of it.
Then, slowly, he lifts the gun. No warning. Just the cold certainty of a man who’s done this too many times to pretend it means something anymore.
“You’re a waste of fucking breath,” he says, almost bored. As if the man groveling at his feet is just another name to strike off the books.
He shifts the barrel, tilting it slightly, and presses it to the side of the traitor’s head. Not centered. Not clean. Cruel.
Dante jerks, flinching like he still thinks there’s room for mercy. His eyes go wide. Pure panic, glistening with tears. His breath hitches, shaky and broken, chest rising in shallow bursts as the finality of it sinks in.
“Please—” he chokes, the word collapsing out of him as though it might save his life.
My father doesn’t flinch. No hesitation, no second thoughts. He just pulls the trigger.
The gunshot tears through the silence, a brutal, deafening crack that ricochets off the walls and punches straight through the moment. A scream made of smoke and steel, ripping the air apart.
Blood sprays across the concrete… hot, violent, final. It splatters his shoes. Paints the floor.
Dante drops instantly, his body collapsing with a dull thud, eyes wide open but already empty.
My father exhales through his nose, calm as ever, like he just took out the trash.
“You see that, Matteo?”
His voice rings out, calm and cruel as he turns toward me slowly. The gun is still in his hand, smoke curling lazily from the barrel as if it’s the ghost of a prayer no one ever bothered to answer.
“This is what weakness gets you,” he says, gesturing to the lifeless heap bleeding out on the concrete. “A bullet. On your knees. Covered in your own fucking shame.”
The words slip from my mouth before I can stop them, laced with every ounce of hate I’ve swallowed for years. “Better fucking dead than crawling at your feet.”
His smile vanishes. Just snaps off his face like a switch.
In one swift, lethal move, he closes the distance—faster than I can brace. He grabs me by the collar, yanking me forward like I’m still some kid he can drag into line. Then he slams the gun into my head, hard, a crack of bone against steel that rattles straight through my skull.
His men tighten their grip, clamping down on my arms and pushing my knees back onto the floor. Their fists dig into my biceps, crushing down with all the force of men who think pain is the language I’ll finally understand.
They think they can hold me. Break me. Force me to beg. They have no fucking idea.
I stay still.
Spine straight.
Shoulders squared.
He steps into me and lifts the gun, the barrel aimed squarely at my head. It’s meant to intimidate, to remind me who still holds the power in this place. It's a performance. The same tired threat he’s used a thousand times to keep men crawling at his feet.
But I don’t flinch. Instead, I move.
I lean into it, pushing the barrel until the cold steel is pressed flush against my skin. I drive it harder into my own forehead. The metal digs deep, bruising already, unforgiving in the way it kisses bone.
I don’t break eye contact. I want him to see it. This isn’t fear. It’s a challenge. I’m daring him, right here, right now. Because if he wants to kill me, he’s going to have to do it while looking into the eyes of the man he created and the man he will never control again.
My heart pounds. A brutal, violent rhythm slamming against my ribs like it’s trying to break free, but I force myself to breathe slowly, steady, controlled. I won’t give him the satisfaction. I won’t let him see fear on my face. Not now. Not ever.
“You were supposed to inherit everything,” he growls. “I built an empire for you. For our family.” He spits the word like it still means something. “And you threw it all away for a fucking girl.”
I meet his eyes, unflinching. Let him rage. Let him scream. Let him writhe in his own delusion. He can’t reach what I feel. He can’t shatter what’s already been reforged. He doesn’t get to erase what’s mine.
His snarl sharpens, lips curling in frustration as the silence stretches.
“Say something,” he snaps, voice cracking just slightly around the edges as he shoves the gun harder against my skull. “Don’t think I won’t do it because I fucking will”
But I don’t break. I never fucking will.
Even with the barrel pressed to my head, even with his men holding me down like I’m nothing but a body to be disposed of, I hold steady. Because in this moment, if these are my last minutes on this fucked-up earth, it isn’t his face I see. It’s not the stone-cold bastards holding me down.
It’s her.
Emery.
Her eyes burning fierce, defiant, beautiful like a wildfire that won’t be tamed. Her mouth curling into that stubborn, reckless smile I fell in love with before I even knew what love was. That’s what fills my vision. That’s what grounds me when the world is shaking.
If I die here, on this blood-streaked floor, I won’t regret it. Because I chose her. And I’d choose her again. Every. Single. Fucking. Time.