Page 86 of Forbidden Vengeance

The crystal glasses catch candlelight like tears we’re all too proud to shed.

After dinner, Bianca storms off, the door slamming behind her with finality. The tension in the room thickens—Bella studying her wine glass with too much intensity, Matteo’s fingers tapping that familiar pattern on the table, Elena’s hands twisting in her lap.

Suddenly, Bella breaks the suffocating silence. “We should walk in the gardens,” she tells Elena. “Get some air.”

Matteo shoots his wife a warning look, but Bella meets his gaze with surprising defiance. I watch their silent communication with interest—something’s shifted in their dynamic since the twins were born. Finally, my brother sighs and gives a single sharp nod.

Elena hesitates beside me, but I see the naked longing on her face—the desperate need to reconnect with her best friend, to bridge the chasm between them. She follows Bella outside like someone walking toward execution.

“There are guards everywhere,” Matteo says casually, watching them through the window. “If she tries anything?—”

I can’t help but scoff. “Yes, because the eight-months-pregnant woman is clearly a physical threat.”

He leads me to the smoking room—Giuseppe’s old sanctuary, now stripped of his presence but not his shadow. Guards line every corner, making me roll my eyes. Always so dramatic, my perfect brother.

“What exactly are you planning with Elena and her baby?” Matteo asks, pouring scotch with deliberate precision. “After all, she’s carrying Anthony Calabrese’s child.”

I’m immediately on edge. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The child isn’t yours,” he says bluntly. “I saw how you watched her tonight, how carefully you attended to her needs. You can’t seriously be planning to raise a Calabrese bastard as your own?”

The word hits like a physical blow.Bastard. The same word Giuseppe spat at me for years, the label that marked me as less than Matteo, less than worthy. How fucking dare he use that word about my daughter? About the innocent child I’ve already sworn to protect?

Anger blazes through my veins—the same fury that made me hold Bianca at gunpoint, that drove me to try destroying everything my perfect brother built. For a moment, I imagine throwing the crystal tumbler at his head, watching that carefully controlled expression shatter like glass.

But then I catch the slight tension in Matteo’s posture, the way he’s angled for quick movement. He’s waiting for exactly that reaction—wanting proof that I’m still Giuseppe’s savage second son, still the man he banished over a year ago.

I won’t give him the satisfaction.

I force myself to breathe through the fury, to push down decades of pain and resentment. “Biology doesn’t matter,” I say, the words surprising us both with their conviction. I see Matteo’s eyebrow lift at my uncharacteristic composure, at this evidence that maybe I’ve grown beyond our father’s poison. “You taught me that with Bianca.”

Matteo’s composure changes to understanding or recognition, I’m not sure which. “Anthony won’t stop claiming what he thinks is his.”

“I know.” I accept the scotch he offers—a peace offering neither of us acknowledges. “That’s why I need your help. Not for me. For them.”

The silence stretches between us, heavy with decades of rivalry and pain. Finally, Matteo speaks: “You love her. The way I love Bella.”

“More.” The admission costs nothing now, not when Elena and our daughter’s safety hangs in the balance. Every protective instinct Giuseppe tried to beat out of me rises when I think of them. “Enough to raise another man’s child. To be better than our father’s lessons about blood and power.”

Understanding passes between us—something deeper than blood or loyalty or the games Giuseppe beat into us. I see it in the way Matteo’s shoulders relax slightly, how his grip on the tumbler eases.

Because we both know what it means to choose love over revenge, to protect a child regardless of biology. To break the cycle of violence our father created.

The smoking room holds too many memories—Giuseppe’s cigars, the sting of his rings, lessons taught with blood and broken bones. But now my brother and I stand here as men who survived, who chose different paths than the ones carved into our skin.

“I’ll help,” Matteo says finally, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. The glass catches lamplight like memories we’d rather forget. “Not for you. For her. For the baby.”

He pauses, something almost gentle crossing his face—an expression I haven’t seen since we were boys, before Giuseppe’s lessons turned us into weapons. “And because our father would hate it.”

A brittle laugh escapes me as I raise my glass, but something lighter than revenge stirs in my chest. “To spite the old man?”

“To being better than him,” Matteo corrects, and for the first time in decades, we share a real smile. Not the calculated ones Giuseppe taught us to use as weapons, but something genuine. Something that tastes like redemption.

28

ELENA

The DeLuca mansion’s terrace feels colder than I remember, though maybe that’s just the ice in Bella’s eyes as we face each other. The woman who once shared every secret, every dream, every moment of joy and pain, now stands like a stranger. My heart twists painfully at the distance between us—remembering late nights talking about everything and anything, celebrating when we found out she was pregnant, our lunch dates…

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