Page 7 of Until You Break
“The only thing I could.” Her nails tapped the stem of her glass once. “He thinks memory rots on command.”
Her lashes lowered; when she lifted them, the decision was still there.
“So I did it. I took him.”
The table tightened.
“Who?” Luciana slowed.
“His son.”
I leaned in. “Enzo? No… Salvatore?”
Luca’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. You mean they’re not already dead?”
Mama’s mouth curved, my kind of smile. “No. Not them.”
She looked at me when she said it, but Alessandro delivered the blade.
“The youngest. Emilio.”
A pause. Not because I didn’t know the name. Because I did. His eyes had once caught mine across a crowded room and held, too long, like an unseen hand closing around my throat.
“You took him?” Luciana’s voice sharpened. “And you went shopping with me and didn’t say a word?”
“I had to be sure Alesso succeeded.” Mama’s lips did something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I’m going to take that murderer down. I’m going to wipe the name Valenti clean. ButEmilio… he looks so much like Isa. I won’t let him pay for Riccardo.”
Her gaze settled on me like a crown that cut.
“I didn’t just take him.” Her words hit like steel. “I did it for you, Damiano. My son. My heir.”
“Me.” Flat. Anything else would’ve been hunger.
I hadn’t asked. She’d heard anyway. This was Mama’s truest talent, arranging inevitability and calling it supper.
“He’s all I have left of her.” Her tone hardened. “And now he’s yours. Make him useful. Make him loyal. Make sure his father knows where he sleeps. You’re the heir. He’s the lesson. Teach him who owns him.”
The word owns slid down my spine, a lock clicking shut. Heat pooled low, steady and unhurried, and I didn’t have to picture his mouth under it; the image walked in uninvited and made itself comfortable.
My glass sat full. My jaw didn’t. A pleasant surprise, then. Pleasant like a loaded gun that finally found your hand.
“Where is he?”
“In the dungeon.”
Alessandro tipped his glass at me. “I kept him in one piece for you,fratello.” A flicker in his eyes; he’d enjoyed the courier work too much to say aloud.
Luca whistled, low. “Fuck.” The grin didn’t touch his pupils. “Don’t forget to say please when you make him crawl.”
Luciana rolled her eyes, muttering under her breath, but I caught the way her fingers tightened on her glass. Even she understood what it meant to hand a living Valenti to me.
“Don’t project.” My voice came sharper than the knife in his hand.
He laughed, bright and ugly. “I’d pay to watch you pretend you’re not enjoying this.”
I stood. The chair legs grated over stone.
That sound was a boundary crossing.
