Page 136 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
"I don't know what you think you're accusing me of?—"
I move fast, slamming Cristiano against the garden wall, gun pressed beneath his chin. Alessandra screams, backing away, hands to her mouth.
"You think Luca won't let me pull this trigger?" I continue, drawing each word out with great care. "If I tell him I'm doing it to protect this house, he'll hand me the bullets himself."
Cristiano's eyes widen in alarm and he begins struggling beneath the grip, but he doesn't fight back.
He knows I'm right.
"Please," Alessandra gasps. "You don't understand."
"Then explain."
She shakes her head once, violently, like she wants to undo the last ten years. Then her voice cracks.
"Giovanni isn't my real brother."
"What?"
She takes a breath, choking on it.
"His mother married my father when I was sixteen. He came with her."
Cristiano groans beneath me. I keep him pinned. "You're saying he's your stepbrother."
My voice feels hollow coming out of me. Like it already knows what's coming next.
"Yes."
She says it without hesitation now, and that makes it worse. Like she's been carrying this truth in her throat for years, and it finally broke loose.
"Who was his father?"
The silence is immediate and thick. Her breath stalls, her gaze flickers.
Cristiano shifts underneath me, but I don't take my eyes off her. The weight of her silence says more than a scream.
"Alessandra."
I don't raise my voice. I don't need to. Just her name, steady and low, like a warning before the world tilts.
She meets my eyes—and for once, the mask is gone. No poise. No polish. Just raw, unvarnished fear.
"Cesare Gotti."
My stomach drops.
Everything in me locks up.
Giovanni Gotti.
Born of a woman who married into Alessandra's house, brought her son with her like luggage.
No last name, no trace.
Just a boy planted into the Salvatore world like a seed waiting for the right season to bloom.
He wasn't working with us all this time. He was studying, plotting. Earning trust the way only a bastard son of a dead empire would know how.
