Page 50 of Crown of Blood

The room goes still, the air suddenly thick with ghosts. This is the closest my father has come to discussing my mother's death in fifteen years.

"Is that a threat?" I ask, each word precisely measured.

He sighs, suddenly looking every one of his sixty-seven years. "It's a warning, my son." His hand trembles as he reaches for his glass again. "Love makes men weak. Weak men lose empires."

"Is that what you told yourself?" I feel my muscles clench at the disrespect, but I can't help myself. "When Mother died?"

His eyes flash, a glimpse of the predator still lurking behind the illness.

"Your mother's death was a tragedy. A price we all paid for prominence in this world."

"The Volkovs," I say, the name bitter on my tongue.

"So we believed." Vito nods slowly. "The attack was meant for me. Elena was just... collateral damage."

I remember blood. So much blood. Splashed across cathedral steps, soaking into my suit as I held her. I was fifteen, frozen in horror as my mother's life drained onto marble that had seen generations of Ravelli prayers.

"And now they're targeting Bianca," I say, connecting the threads he's laying out.

"Perhaps." He steeples his fingers. "Or perhaps someone closer to home is using them as convenient scapegoats." His gaze is steady, penetrating. "Just as they may have fifteen years ago."

The implication sends ice through my veins. "You think Mother's death wasn't the Volkovs?"

"I think," he says carefully, "that a man in my position collects many enemies. Some wear their hatred openly. Others..." He trails off, letting the silence speak for him.

I move closer to the desk, hands braced against the cold obsidian surface. "If you know something about Mother's death—something you've kept from me all these years—"

"I know that power is never given, Luciano." He cuts me off, voice suddenly hard. "It's taken. Claimed. Held against those who would rip it away."

His hand gestures to encompass the room, the mansion, the empire beyond.

"Everything I built, everything your grandfather, and his father before him built was on blood and loyalty. And if you want to protect what's yours—your wife, your future, thisfamily—you'll remember that lesson."

The emotions start to take hold, and the dark memory crashes over me.

The cathedral bells tolled three times as I knelt beside her on the steps. Blood soaked through the knees of my dress pants. Her blood, my mothers, cooling rapidly in the autumn air.

"Luca," she whispered, her hand clutching mine with fading strength. "Listen to me."

My father's men swarmed around us, guns drawn, screaming into radios as bullets flew around us. But all I could see was her face—Elena Ravelli, beautiful even as death claimed her.

"The throne will be yours, my son." Her eyes locked onto mine, fierce even as they dimmed. "When you are ready, take it. Take it, and own it."

Her fingers pressed something small and cold into my palm. Her wedding ring—the Ravelli crest etched in gold, still warm from her skin.

"Promise me," she gasped, blood bubbling at the corner of her mouth. "Promise me you won't become him."

Before I could answer, before I could promise anything or ask questions, her hand went limp in mine.

My father arrived moments later, his face a mask of stone. He didn't kneel beside her. Didn't touch her. Just stood there, looking down at his wife's body with eyes that revealed nothing.

"Get him up," he ordered, and hands pulled me away from her, dragging me backward as I struggled to hold onto her for just one more second.

"Clean this up," Vito said to his men, his voice colder than I'd ever heard it. "Discretely."

As they led me away, I looked back over my shoulder. My father hadn't moved. He just stood there, watching as they covered my mother with a black coat, as if she were nothing more than a stain to be hidden from public view.

That was the moment I knew: I would never be like him. I would be worse.

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