Page 26 of His Nephew's Ex
The blood on Flavio’s lip isn’t even dry when he dares to smile at me.
“You hit like you’re getting old,zio,” he says, dabbing at the cut with a silk handkerchief that costs more than most people make in a week. The casual disrespect in his voice makes my knuckles itch for round two.
I study my nephew across the marble expanse of my office, noting how he lounges in the leather chair like he owns it, like this entire empire I’ve built from ash and grief belongs to him by birthright. Twenty-six years old and already carrying himself with the arrogance of a man who’s never faced real consequences for his actions.
“The blood says otherwise,” I reply, settling behind my desk with deliberate calm. “Along with the fact that you’re no longer harassing Loriana Parlato.”
His expression shifts at her name, something dark and possessive flickering behind his eyes. “Ah, the little bartender. Is she why you summoned me here like some common soldier? Because you’re fucking her?”
The crude language makes violence rise in my chest like a tide, but I’ve learned to channel rage into strategy over the years. Flavio has always been reckless with his words, thoughtless with other people’s property, cruel in ways that I attributed to youth and circumstance.
Now I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve been blind to something far more troubling.
“I summoned you here because you haven’t listened to my orders and you kept on terrorizing an innocent woman for weeks. Vandalism, stalking, death threats—the kind of behavior that brings unwanted attention to our family name.”
“Our family name.” He laughs, the sound sharp and bitter. “You mean the empire that I’m supposed to inherit someday? The one you’ve spent twenty years building while keeping me at arm’s length?”
There’s venom in his voice that I haven’t heard before, resentment that runs deeper than typical young man’simpatience. I lean back in my chair, studying the nephew I raised from infancy with fresh eyes.
“At arm’s length? I’ve given you everything—education, protection, a place in this organization when you’re ready for responsibility.”
“When I’m ready.” His smile is sharp enough to cut glass. “I’ve been ready for years,zio. But you keep treating me like a child who can’t be trusted with real power. Like I’m not worthy of the Codella name.”
“Power is earned, not inherited. And lately, your actions suggest you’re not ready for either.”
“My actions?” Flavio’s voice rises, and for a moment, I see something in his face that reminds me of his father—my older brother Ulrico, who died on a mission I should have taken myself. “Everything I do is wrong in your eyes. Every mistake gets magnified, every success gets ignored.”
“Harassment isn’t a mistake, Flavio. It’s a choice. A pattern of behavior that shows a fundamental lack of respect for boundaries.”
“She was mine first,” he snarls, and there it is—the possessive entitlement that’s been driving his campaign against Loriana. “I was courting her properly, taking my time, being respectful of her innocence. Then you swoop in and steal her away like I’m nothing.”
The accusation hits me like a physical blow because there’s truth in it, even if his version is twisted by his own selfishness. I did want Loriana from the moment she walked into my office, and I did pursue her despite knowing she’d been involved with my nephew in the past.
But what he calls theft, I call claiming what was never truly his.
“You were cheating on her with her best friend,” I point out quietly. “In her own bed, on your birthday. Hardly the behavior of a man who valued what he had.”
Flavio’s face flushes with embarrassment and rage. “That was different. That was just sex. Loriana was special—I was saving her for marriage, treating her like themadonnashe pretended to be.”
Madonna.
The word sits wrong in my mouth, carrying implications of ownership and objectification that make my blood heat with protective fury. Loriana isn’t some pristine statue to be worshipped from afar—she’s fire and steel, passion wrapped in jasmine perfume, a woman who deserves to be claimed and cherished in equal measure.
“So you punished her for your own infidelity by terrorizing her business and threatening her safety.”
“I was trying to make her understand what she was throwing away.” His voice drops to something that might be pleadingif it weren’t so entitled. “She belonged to me, someone who understood her value. Not with someone who would use her and discard her.”
The irony would be amusing if it weren’t so disturbing. Flavio speaking of using and discarding while describing his own systematic campaign to destroy everything Loriana had built independently.
“And when she refused to understand, you escalated to stalking and death threats.”
“I was protecting my investment.” The words slip out before he can stop them, revealing the business-like calculation underneath his claims of love. “Do you know how much time I put into that relationship? How much effort I wasted on her ridiculous need to ‘wait for the right moment’?”
He speaks about the woman I’ve claimed like she’s a stock portfolio that disappointed him. The casual dehumanization makes me want to reach across this desk and show him exactly why men fear the Codella name.
“She was never your investment, Flavio. She was a woman who deserved better than what you were giving her.”
“Better than me?” His laugh is bitter, cutting. “Like you? A man old enough to be her father, with enough blood on his hands to paint this entire office red?”
