Page 40 of Broken Honor

Carmela’s expression darkens.

“You think this is about money?” she spits. “You think I’m scared of you or your offers?” She leans forward now, voice rising. “You think I don’t know what you’re trying to do? You want to blackmail me? Pressure me? My life is an open book, Signore. You want dirt? Here it is.”

She jabs her finger into her own chest.

“I was born to addicts. I stole to eat. I slept in alleyways. I did things with men just to get through the day. I’m filth, and I know it. I was forty before I even tasted dignity. Forty before I looked in a mirror and saw someone worth saving. And when I begged God for a second chance, he gave me one.” Her voice cracks. “He gave me that child.”

She points to her heart now, tears in her eyes but no weakness in her spine.

“Twenty years I’ve protected that child. Twenty years I’ve poured everything into raising the child right. You want what’s mine?” Her voice drops cold. “You’ll pry that child out of my cold, dead hands.”

I study her for a moment, impressed in spite of myself.

“I can kill you now,” I say, tone neutral.

She smiles. “I dare you.”

There’s no bluff in her eyes.

Just a soul so used to loss, it doesn’t fear death anymore.

I glance at Bugatti. He exhales slowly, frustrated.

Carmela waves us toward the door, standing up and turning her back to us like we’re nothing more than dust in her café.

“You’ve done enough,” she mutters. “Get out of my café.”

I look around the room again. The small frames on the wall. The delicate lace over the windows.

And then—the doorbell chimes.

The soft jingle cuts through the tension like a knife.

Two girls step in, arms looped together, laughing in that careless, youthful way that doesn’t belong in a world like mine.

The tall one is all sharp limbs and sass—slim, pretty, light on her feet.

But my eyes don’t stay on her.

They land on the other one.

The one with a full figure wrapped in soft fabric—a deep burgundy cardigan hugging round hips and a chest that pulls at the buttons, a calf-length floral skirt, curls tied in a loose bun atop her head. She carries light like a flame, just like Lena did.

Her cheeks are flushed from the cold. Her smile slips when she sees us.

Something about her stops me completely.

“Nonna?” she says, her voice gentle, sweet, soaked in innocence. “Is everything okay?”

She rushes toward the old woman, her hands lightly touching Carmela’s arm. The tall girl—the sharper one—watches us with a frown.

Bugatti sighs softly beside me. “This has to be a joke.”

And I chuckle as I stare at the girl holding the old woman. So this is it.

The child Lena and Vasco died protecting. She looks exactly like them. She has her mother’s charm and her father’s eyes. It's been years but I remember their faces clearly.

A girl who now stands with her arms around her grandmother, eyes wide, trying to understand what she’s just walked into.

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