The room stops breathing.
Even I don’t move.
Because what the fuck?
I look at him—hard—at Leonardo. This man, this don, has just disowned his heir, his only son, the one he groomed with wealth, whispers, and enough silver-spoon entitlement to make kings look humble.
“You… what?” I mutter.
Leonardo doesn’t look away. Doesn’t explain. Doesn’t justify. He repeats it, colder, final: “He is no longer Bellini.”
Ezio gasps—like the words struck harder than the gun barrel ever could, like he’d rather I’d pulled the trigger and ended it clean.
And for the first time in years, I feel the back of my throat tighten. Because I’ve seen what it looks like when this man loves—when he chooses family, when he protects what’s his. And now I’ve seen what it means to lose that protection entirely.
Leonardo walks past me without a glance down at the crumpled figure on the floor. “Get out of my house,” he says coldly. “Before I let him finish what he started.”
Ezio scrambles—tripping over his own limbs, hands smearing blood across the marble as he crawls toward the door.
I just stand there, staring. Because I came here to kill a Bellini. But I didn’t expect his father to bury him first.
I stand there too long, still gripping the gun like it’s fused to my arm, like Ezio might somehow grow a spine and try something stupid again. But he doesn’t. He’s already crawling down the stairs like a discarded mistake, whimpering, wiping blood from his mouth with the sleeve of a shirt that probably cost more than the first car I ever stole.
Leonardo turns his back to him without a blink, without a word, without a shred of fatherhood left in his spine. I turn to face him fully as the adrenaline finally catches up. My hand—the one still wrapped around the gun—starts to shake, not from fear but from the raw aftermath, from the sheer absurdity of what just unfolded.
My voice comes out low, stripped bare. “What… is wrong with you?”
Leonardo pauses at the landing, one hand resting lightly on the mahogany banister, the other swirling wine in his glass as if this were some elegant opera and not a blood-drenched reckoning. He tilts his head slightly, that infuriating smile curling across his face—all calculation, all ice. “Whatever do you mean, dear boy?”
I blink at him, no longer sure if I’m speaking to a man or a machine. “I almost killed your son,” I whisper, voice cracking at the edges. “And instead of flinching… you disowned him. Just like that. Your own blood.”
Leonardo turns his full gaze on me now—sharp, precise, unapologetic. “He’s an idiot.” He lifts his glass, sips once, never breaking rhythm. “You’re worth ten of him.”
Silence crashes between us.
My grip tightens on the gun, but not from rage anymore. From disbelief. From the slow, cold realization that there are men worse than me—men who can smile while setting fire to their own legacy.
Leonardo steps past me, nodding once toward the door. “Now,” he says, bored, “go save the little star. The rink misses its god.”
I should leave. Every inch of me buzzes with the need to get back to the compound—to Julian, to Kai, to the echo of that flatline still scraping through my skull like a bad loop of a worse memory. But I don’t move. Not yet.
I linger at the edge of the stairs, heart still slamming against my ribs like it’s trying to outrun what just happened. My hand trembles around the gun. My jaw stays clenched with the ghost of a shot I didn’t take. Leonardo Bellini strolls past the wreckage of his own heir like it’s a minor inconvenience, sipping wine and humming something ancient under his breath.
I stare at him. The question rises like bile. “What happens,” I ask quietly, “if I disappoint you?”
Leonardo stops. Turns. Smiles.
Before I can brace for it, he steps close—too close—and lifts one perfectly manicured hand to my face. He pats my cheek like I’m five, like I just scraped my knee, like I’m something his. “You never did,” he says, voice velvet and ruin. “Rafe… you asked me to let Julian go. You asked me to let him be yours and just yours. And I said yes.”
My throat tightens.
“You asked my permission to kill Nathan Grant,” he continues, softer now, fingers still resting on my cheek. “Just because you needed it. I said yes.”
I blink. Swallow.
“You wanted the rink if you won the game.” A pause. “I gave it to you.”
He leans in closer until we’re breath to breath. “You,” Leonardo says with absolute certainty, “are my son.”
