Page 23 of Last Hand

He scoffs, a harsh, dismissive sound. “Your mother is being dramatic, as usual.”

“Dramatic?” Gina finally spits out, her voice low and venomous, each syllable dripping with contempt. “

“Enough, Gina, it has nothing to do with this!” he roars, slamming his hand down on the mahogany side table. The crystal glass of whiskey jumps, amber liquid sloshing over the rim.

“What the fuck is going on? You’re talking in circles, both of you, now fucking answer!”

My father’s head whips around, his eyes, moments ago reflecting fire, now flash with it. “Don’t you dare speak to me that way in my own house, Leone. This is between your mother and me.”

“It stopped being just between you two the moment I walked in here and found her looking like she was about to slit your throat.” He scoffs like he believes she wouldn’t. I know otherwise, having seen my mother do things before I grew up, things that made me question whether she was worse than him. Especially when he would come home smelling of another woman. How many times those women ended up missing orin our basement? “Careful father I would sleep with a towel wrapped around my neck if I were you, she may just slit it in your sleep.” By the look on my father’s face as he glances at her, he knows she would do it if given the opportunity.

“I want the truth, and now I know this has something to do with Fallon you will speak, Father, or you may just find yourself strapped down in the basement while I bleed the fucking words from you, so which it!”

“You’ve lost your damn mind threatening me. Have you forgotten who you’re speaking to?”

“No, Father. It’s not me who forgot, it’s you. I am the face of the empire you built and saved from your useless hands. So you will answer because this is bigger than me just killing Lydia. Mikhail hated me from the moment he met me, yet he let me marry his sister without a word of complaint. You’ve always feuded with the Russians. Now I want to know why.”

He frowns, and Milo shifts closer beside me, sensing the tension brewing.

My father’s gaze drifts from the fireplace with a deliberate slowness, as though the flames hold secrets he is reluctant to release. The shadows dart across his weathered features, making him appear both larger than life and hauntingly human at the same time. He exhales deeply,

“It started with a deal,” he says quietly. “One meant to seal a dynasty.”

I force a bitter laugh that doesn’t quite reach my eyes. “Doesn’t everything?” I say, moving to the bar to pour myself a glass of whiskey.

The silence stretches taut between us as I raise the glass to my lips. The sharp burn of whiskey hits my throat. It does little to dull the unease curling low in my stomach. Before I can take another sip, his voice cuts through the stillness like a knife.

“That deal was Giovanna Morreti,” he says suddenly, his words slicing clean through any pretense of calm. My hand freezes midair, the glass poised just inches from my mouth. For a heartbeat, I don’t move. Then, in one swift motion, I tip my head back and drain the glass in two gulps. The liquid burns hotter now, igniting something raw and unyielding inside me. Without hesitation, I pour another.

“You mean Mama?,” I say

He nods once. “Yes. Her father, your grandfather, was a man who understood power better than most. He owned trade routes stretching from Florence to Malta, arteries of commerce that carried not just goods, it carried influence. Men with wealth envied him; men with ambition feared him.”

He pauses for a moment, his gaze drifting back to the fire as if searching for something within its depths. “The Romanovs… they wanted those routes,” he continues quietly. “And they weren’t men accustomed to hearing ‘no.’ Her hand—Giovanna’s—was the price they were willing to pay.”

“She was Italian,” Milo says, confused. “Why give her to a Russian?”

I feel the same. My thoughts mirror his exactly. Italians are staunchly proud of their heritage—their families are their empires, their traditions are sacred, and their bloodlines? Untouched, pure. To hand over one of their own to outsiders, let alone to the Romanovs—a family with roots so foreign it’s almost laughable—was like spitting on centuries of tradition. It just doesn’t add up.

“That means nothing when money is involved. And the Romanovs offered more than just soldiers and money,” my father replies bitterly. “They promised legitimacy. Government contracts,” he elaborates bitterly.

“International laundering channels. Access to diplomatic immunity in places even we couldn’t touch.”

I glance at my mother and something dark crosses her face like she is reliving something she wishes she could forget.

“It was a merger on paper… In reality?” My father scoffs. “It was an acquisition.”

“And how do you come into this?” I press.

“I am a Pressutti,” he declares firmly, the name rolling off his tongue with all the weight and pride it carries in certain circles. His gaze flickers between me and Milo as if daring either of us to question him.

Milo arches an eyebrow.

“Old money,” Vittorio continues, lifting his chin slightly as though reciting from memory some long-forgotten lineage etched into stone somewhere in Rome or Florence. “But not Moretti money.” The distinction is clear in how he says it—there’s respect there for what the Morettis represent, and also resentment simmering just beneath the surface.

“Respected… only not in the north.”

I catch the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth—a smirk?—it vanishes just as quickly as it appeared.

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