Page 47 of His Eternal Claim

Because my Mother kneels in front of me, cups my face… and smiles.

Her thumb wipes away my tears.

“You disappoint me.” I stare at her.

And for the first time in my life… I don’t see my Mother.

I see my jailer. My drug dealer. My liar. My monster.

Chapter 17

Ruin

THE MAESTRO | Past

How can someone attack him in his goddamn house? Where was the fucking security?”

I sit at the head of the table because no one else dared to. Not even while my Father still breathed.

Not even while the old bastard lay in a hospital bed with tubes shoved down his throat, a catheter between his legs, and half his body dead because I made damn sure my bullets kissed his kidneys before tearing through flesh.

He is alive.

Unfortunately.

But breathing and living are two different things. He will never walk again.

Or fuck again.

That alone almost makes me smile.

I roll my cufflinks. Thirteen of Italy’s most powerful men avoid my eyes.

Cowards.

Every last one of them.

Except the oldest of the dons. Vane fucking Davenport.

So, when I lean back in my chair and cross one ankle over my knee, Vane gives me that knowing smile.

Like the bastard I am, I smile back.

“That…” I muse, almost politely. “…is a beautiful question.”

I look around the table. One by one.

Watching them squirm.

None of them dares to go against me. Well, some of them must suspect I tried to kill my own fucking Father, but that’s all it is, an idea, and nothing more.

And notions don’t mean shit in this business.

“Perhaps,” I continue despite Vane glaring down, “you should ask the men who were on duty that night.”

“They’re… dead.”

I tilt my head.