Page 38 of The Owner's Temptation

He hums like that answer doesn’t surprise him.

“Then why are you here?”

I nudge the bottle forward.

The glass scrapes across steel.

He watches it with the same dead expression he used to give corpses we dumped in the river.

Then—finally—he cuts his gaze up to me.

Silent. Waiting.

I look him in the eye.

“Enrico crossed a line.”

Lorenzo’s expression doesn’t change. Not yet. But I see the pressure building behind his eyes.

“He used one of my girls as a fucking shield,” I continue, tone even. Controlled. “Owed money to men too dangerous to default on, and instead of taking the hit like a man, he threw a civilian in front of the bullet.”

Lorenzo doesn’t blink. But the muscle in his jaw jumps.

“He laid hands on her,” I say, voice dropping. “Split her lip. Bruised her ribs. And all while screaming about how his family would protect him.”

I pause.

“You and I both know what happens to a man who uses that name to justify cowardice.”

The table shakes.

Lorenzo’s fist slams down like thunder, and the bottle between us rattles violently. His cigar jumps, rolls, and sears a black scorch mark across the surface before settling.

“You think I don’t fucking know that?” he roars.

The room shifts around us. Every man present goes still—fingers twitching near triggers. I don’t move.

He glares at me across the table, eyes burning with grief and fury.

“I taught him better,” he growls. “I raised him better.”

“I know you did.”

“You think I wanted this? You think I’d want my brother to die over some goddamn?—”

“Careful,” I cut in, my tone sharp enough to slice through the storm building between us. “She’s not some goddamn anything. She’s Ledger. She’s mine. And your brother knew the rules.”

He breathes hard through his nose, fists clenched on the table, but I see it—under the rage, under the hurt—he knows I’m right.

If someone had laid hands on one of his, he’d have done the same.

He just didn’t think I would have the balls to do it to his brother.

But he forgets—we wrote these fucking rules together.

And I never forget a debt.

No matter who owes it.

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