Page 36 of Brutal Union
Marco steps forward, but three guns swing toward him. Even watching him prepare for violence makes heat between my thighs. I'm sick. Broken. His.
"Kill him," Father orders. "But leave my ungrateful daughter alive. She needs to watch."
The guards' fingers move to triggers. Marco tenses, assessing options, and I see his death in their eyes.
"Tell them about Mom, Father." The words explode from me like champagne from a shaken bottle. "Tell them how Chiara Bernardi really died."
Father's face drains of color. "Your mother died in an accident."
"Tell them about the brake lines. The mechanic you paid to cut them." I step forward, my voice growing stronger. "Tell them about watching her car burn. How you stood there, making sure she couldn't escape even in death."
The guards' guns waver. These men knew my mother. Loved her.
"You're lying," Father snarls, but his voice pitches high, his tell.
"Ask him why Giuseppe the mechanic disappeared two days later. Why he forbade her name in this house." My voice is steady now. "She was leaving. Taking us to Italy. But you couldn't let your property escape."
"Shut your mouth!" Father pulls his own gun, aims it at Marco.
The chaos is all Marco needs. He moves like death itself, beautiful, terrible, making heat flood my cheeks even as he disarms the nearest guard.
Alex moves with matching lethal grace. "Disappointing," he murmurs as the second guard falls. "I expected better from Bernardi men."
The third guard swings toward them, but hesitates. Marco's fist connects with bone.
"You killed her," the conscious guard gasps from the floor. "Mrs.Chiara… Madonna santa, you killed her."
Father backs toward the door, gun shaking. "She was mine!"
"She was never yours," I spit. "Just like we were never yours."
Alex scoops Alice with surprising gentleness, Mother's nightgown trailing like a ghost. We run through halls echoing with shouts, not at us, but at Father.
"Tell us about Chiara!" voices demand.
"Where's Giuseppe?"
"You murdered her?"
The estate erupts behind us, twenty years of loyalty crumbling with one truth. These men gave everything to the Bernardis, but Chiara was their heart.
We burst through the front door as gunfire erupts inside. Father's empire consuming itself.
Alex settles Alice in the backseat while I slide beside her. Marco takes the wheel, and the engine roars. As we tear down the driveway, smoke rises from my childhood home.
My whole body shakes, not from fear but from the magnitude of betrayal. I just destroyed everything with truth, lit a match to the Bernardi name. Twenty-three years of fearing him, and it took twenty-three seconds to destroy him. The girl who threw wine at Marco would be proud. The woman who bears his name definitely is.
"Masterfully played, sister-in-law," Alex says, turning with genuine admiration. "Remind me never to cross you."
Marco's gaze finds mine in the rearview mirror. The look sends heat through me despite everything. "You chose us."
The words hang heavy with meaning. He's not talking about today. He's talking about every choice: coming home instead of running, sharing his bed, promising myself to him completely if he saved her.
"I chose Alice," I say.
"Your father will come for you now," Marco says with certainty. "Both of you."
"Let him come." The words taste like freedom. "I'm done running."
