Leonardo Bellini descends the marble stairs as if this is just another quiet evening, unruffled, unrushed—like I didn’t just blow his front doors off their hinges, like I’m not standing in the foyer of his empire with blood drying on my hands, a gun heavy on my hip, and murder clawing up my lungs. “My boy,” he says, voice calm, low, civil in that unnerving way only men like him can sustain. “What is going on?”
I don’t hesitate. “Your fucking son poisoned Julian!” I snarl, pointing with the same hand that could snap a neck if it weren’t trembling with raw, shaking fury.
Leonardo pauses, one foot still resting on the staircase. He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t recoil. He regards me the way a man studies a loaded revolver left carelessly on a dinnertable—calculating, detached. He raises an eyebrow, then speaks again, voice colder now, edges honed sharper than glass. “Ezio.” A single beat of silence. “Come downstairs. Right now.”
The pause that follows could tear cities in half.
And then—there he is.
Ezio Bellini. Golden boy. Porcelain prince. His smile has vanished, his swagger evaporated. He stands at the top of the stairs like he’s only now realizing the house he crawled back to isn’t a sanctuary—it’s a goddamn courtroom, and the verdict is already written in the blood on my knuckles.
The second I see him, I go feral.
My gun is out, up, sight locked, barrel aimed dead center between his fucking eyes. He jerks back a step.
“He died,” I growl, voice ragged and burning through my throat like acid. “Julian died in my arms, and you’re going to fucking pay, you jealous little bitch!”
Ezio stumbles back another step. Leonardo doesn’t move to stop me. Doesn’t even blink.
I start climbing—slow, deliberate—one foot at a time, gun steady, never wavering. Every step is a promise carved into the marble.
Ezio stands frozen in a half-buttoned silk shirt, barefoot, defenseless, trembling behind that perfect jaw and coward’s mouth.
“Stay there,” I snarl. “Stay right fucking there.”
He opens his mouth. I don’t wait to hear whatever privileged, snake-mouthed apology is about to slither out.
I cross the last few steps in a blur—grab him by the collar, slam him back against the nearest column so hard the plaster cracks—and shove the gun into his mouth.
Ezio gags around the barrel, chokes, eyes wide and watering, lips split, teeth scraping steel. He can’t speak now. Good. I don’t want words. I want truth.
“You think this house saves you?” I hiss, voice so low it vibrates in my throat like thunder trapped in smoke. “You think Daddy’s throne makes you untouchable?”
His fingers claw weakly at my forearm, nails scraping skin, desperate and useless. I slam him harder into the wall, the impact reverberating through marble and bone. “He died in my arms, you fucking piece of shit!” I shout, the words tearing louder now, fury cracking open into something sharper, more dangerous—grief. “Julian flatlined. Cold. Blue. Foaming at the fucking mouth. And you did that.”
Ezio gurgles something incoherent, eyes wet now. Not with remorse. Not with shame. With fear. Finally.
I lean in closer, shoving the barrel deeper into his throat until his gag reflex stutters and spasms. I whisper it like a promise carved from bone. “Admit it.”
A beat. His eyes dart to Leonardo, pleading. “Don’t look at him,” I snarl. “Look at me.”
Another second. Another twitch of his jaw. Then—he nods. Once. Tight. Barely there. But enough.
The trigger clicks—right at the edge of breaking. He flinches hard. Whimpers. His knees buckle beneath him.
I let the barrel rest there, a single breath away from annihilation, and whisper, “Run. You ever look at him again—breathe near him—I’ll make you swallow something worse than lead.”
Then I rip the gun out of his mouth.
He collapses in a heap. A Bellini—coughing, choking, crying against his father’s polished floor. And I would’ve ended it there. Gun still warm in my hand, blood still singing in my ears, eyes still full of Julian—twitching in my arms, mouth foaming, ribs stuttering to a stop. I would’ve walked away and left Ezio breathing just long enough to drown in regret every time he tried to swallow.
But then Leonardo steps forward.
Still calm. Still regal. Still fucking terrifying in the way only men who’ve outlived every bullet can be. He looks down at his son—not like a boy anymore, but like a stain that needs scrubbing out. “Ezio.”
Ezio tries to lift his head, lip split and bleeding from the impact against the column, eyes red and swollen. He stares up at his father like a child caught stealing, waiting for the reassurance that it’s okay, that it can be fixed, that he’s still welcome in this house of marble and power.
Leonardo simply says, “You are no longer mine.”
