Page 137 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince
It was me trying to preserve what was left of my family in an era that was already poised to end us.
And I’ve failed.
And now he’s speaking in that voice I used to trust before I understood how he'd changed and metamorphosed into a Rossi who believed love only made sense if it brought material returns or revenge.
There are no tears left to fall.
My hand curls around the edge of the desk in my suite.
The wood creaks under my grip.
"There is no us, Rafa," I whisper.
There’s a pause, then a breath.
"Then let me remind you."
I close my eyes.
He begins speaking—not like a confession, but like a ledger being read aloud.
Line by line.
Fact by fact.
No hesitation.
No apology.
He tells me that Vincenzo Arditi was not killed.
He vanished because Rafa helped him.
Helped him erase his name from the books, helped him move west into neutral territory, where Il Sangue Nero was already gathering beneath the surface like oil waiting for a spark.
The Black Blood is not new, he says.
It is old blood.
Our blood.
Built from the men who were left behind when Valentina consolidated, when the old Salvatore allies were discarded like spent shells.
"They needed a figurehead," he says. "Someone with blood rights to power. Someone with enough legacy to make the old names rise again."
"You," I say, my throat dry.
"Yes."
It is not pride that laces the word.
It is inevitability.
"You made me marry him," I say. "You arranged this life. This house. This family. You gave me to them like leverage."
"No," he says. "I placed you where you would survive."
My pulse stutters.
