The table goes quiet.
"Excuse me?" I turn to him slowly.
"The pregnancy." He grins, oblivious. "You're already getting a little thick around the middle."
I'm not. I'm barely six weeks along, still flat as ever. But he's trying to humiliate me, trying to remind everyone I'm damaged goods.
"Leo," Axel warns.
"What? I'm just saying, she's eating for two now. Nothing wrong with that. Besides, she’ll still look beautiful no matter how big she gets. Just like her mother.”
The table goes quiet again.
I freeze.
"I saw a picture in Don Luca's office," Leo continues, grinning. "It’s Aurora’s mother from when she was younger. Before she… what was it? Had that accident with the car?"
Mom didn't have an accident. She was murdered. Shot by a rival family when I was eight.
"Leo," I say quietly. "Don't."
"What? I'm just saying, she was beautiful, and so are you. Shame about what happened." He takes a sip of wine. "Though I guess at least she went quickly. Didn’t have to suffer."
The blood drains from my face.
This fucking bastard!
“That's enough." Axel's voice cuts through the room like a knife.
Leo blinks. "Dad, I was just—"
"I said enough." Axel's staring at him, expression cold. "Show some respect."
"I wasn't being disrespectful—"
SLAM.
Axel's hand hits the table so hard glasses jump. The entire room goes silent.
"Apologize." His voice is ice. "Right now."
Leo blinks. "Dad, I was just—"
"I don't care what you were doing." Axel's staring at him, and there's something in his eyes that makes even me flinch. "You just made a cruel joke about your fiancée's dead mother. You're going to apologize. Now."
The silence is suffocating. No one moves. No one breathes.
"I didn't mean—" Leo starts.
"NOW." The word is a command, absolute and terrifying.
Leo's face goes red. He turns to me, and I see it—the flash of anger, of humiliation.
Shit.
He's going to make me pay for this later.
"I'm sorry, Aurora," he says tightly. "That was inappropriate. I apologize."
