Page 152 of Merciless Daddy

The word cracked through the room before Sal could speak.

I turned to her. “You have not heard the complete proposal.”

“I heard enough.”

“You have a restaurant on fire.”

“And surrendering you puts another fire in Gianni’s hands.”

“He wants me.”

“He wants to win,” she said. “There is a difference.”

I stared at her.

Serafina stepped closer. She was smaller than Sal, smaller than Tonio, but she carried herself with the cold exactness of a blade laid on a table.

“If you walk out now, he learns that he can hurt people around you and control you that way. The loans stay. The trucks stay stolen. The injured guard stays injured. He gets you and keeps every advantage he prepared.”

I opened my mouth, but she did not let me use it.

“And more importantly,” she said, quieter now, “you are family.”

The word landed wrong at first.

I almost laughed.

I had a family. A father who called me his finest piece. Brothers who looked at me with a mixture of pity and resentment because nobody wanted to admit what had been done. A bloodline that treated love like an opening in a wall.

Serafina saw something on my face.

“Scordatos do not invoice family for protection,” she said. “Not in money. Not in obedience. Not in your body. Not in your future.”

The room blurred around the edges.

I looked at Sal.

He stood beside the table, broad and motionless. The cut on his cheek had darkened overnight. He had not slept much. None of them had, probably.

“This is not your bill,” he said.

“But it’s your restaurant.”

“It is Tonio’s restaurant.”

Tonio lifted his ice pack from his jaw. “And I’m very attached to it. But I’m also attached to you not being handed to that bastard.”

My throat tightened.

“You barely know me.”

Tonio’s expression turned offended. “I rescued your brother from a house full of Russians. I’ve heard him complain about my food. We are basically relatives.”

A sound came out of me. It might have been a laugh.

Pietro’s mouth shifted once. Almost a smile.

Then the guilt came back, heavy and familiar.