II. Ad Finem Fidelis

I feel like laughing, as if Cesare just told a joke.

And it could be a joke, if I didn’t know him well enough to understand that there’s not a single thread of humor in his body, carved from muscle and veiled in violence.

That’s why I only grit my teeth and swallow any provocation, any sound that might seem like mockery. I know better than to anger him. Especially with Matteo just one table away, staring at me so intensely, so sharply that it wouldn’t surprise me if he could see straight through me.

“Why me?” I ask, keeping my eyes locked on Cesare. “I’m not family.”

And that, they’ve always made a point of reminding me.

I’m not Famiglia, in any sense.

I don’t belong here, in this life, and it’s never been a secret.

“Hah, you’re really an ungrateful bitch!” Matteo scoffs, leaning back with a dull thud, his thick arms crossing over his chest, stretching his shirt tight. “We fed you, gave you a roof over your head, even though we had no responsibility for the daughter of a woman who couldn’t even live long enough to make it to the altar! And this is how you thank us? With that bold, arrogant tongue?”

A bitter taste fills my mouth. My teeth tighten, but I still don’t reply. Not because I’m scared of Matteo, but because, in a way, he’s right.

Even if I hate this house, this world of blood and gunpowder, the smell of fear, blind loyalty, and warped purpose… This is my reality.

And all because of my mother, who dragged me out of Spain to stain my colorful days with the gray filth of the Società Romano, operating right under everyone’s noses.

I used to be happy. But then she met Angelo. She fell in love. And she paid the price for it.

I’m still paying.

“That’s exactly why it has to be you.” Cesare ignores Matteo, who only exhales sharply in frustration. “You’re not on any records, Marina. We’ve kept you well-hidden all these years. No one would recognize you as a Romano or tied to the Società.”

He pauses, his eyes sliding from my face to my neckline, but he’s not looking at my breasts. It’s like he’s looking through me, before he adds, voice rougher, “You don’t carry our honor on your back. Not yet.”

The massive wooden clock fills the silence, its long hand ticking each second until it makes a full circle, a long minute dragging me closer to the inevitable fate I’ve been so desperately trying to escape—months spent thinking, searching for openings, ways to get as far away from this place as possible when that same clock strikes midnight on my birthday.

Yet here I am now… so close yet still so far away.

“What if I say no?” I ask, not boldly, not really with challenge or bite.

But Cesare lifts his eyes—now dark enough to remind me of burnt honey— and drums his own knuckles.

“Of course, you can say no.” Finally, he speaks, and I release a relieved breath that catches in my throat too soon. “You can always say no and keep following that foolish escape plan of yours… which, honestly, will only end one way: with your body beaten and your throat cut…”

He pauses, revealing in my crumbling expression, as my heart skips a beat, and a shiver runs through every damn inch of me.

My chest turns cold.

My stomach, my blood, everything freezes completely.

I blink once, twice, three times fast, my eyes stinging, my breath faltering, threatening to break into a strangled sob.

Cesare knows.

He knows!

And yet, he just rests his elbows on the arms of the chair, fingers still interlaced, as if he hasn’t just sentenced me.

“Or…” His thumb glides slowly across his beard, tracing his jawline. “You can be a good girl for me and buy the freedom you want so badly.”

This time, I can’t help the bitter, sarcastic laugh that escapes me—not that he seems to mind.

“By selling my body?”

“I don’t want you to sleep with Enzo Bianchi. I want you to seduce him, play with him.” Cesare lowers his hands. “If a quick and easy fuck worked, I wouldn’t need you.”

My stomach twists.

“He didn’t look at any of the whores I sent him.” Cesare smiles, just that hint of a smirk, the slight curl of his lips that’s so typical of him. Not exactly sarcastic or amused. Just a dangerous, irritably attractive curve.

Even though I’d rather have my throat slit than admit that out loud.

“In fact, not only did he not care about them—he even killed one.”

“Killed?” I choke out, my mouth growing even more bitter.

“Good thing you learned how to fight as well as seduce a man,” Cesare continues, thoughtfully and lightly sarcastic. “Though I’ve heard plenty of praise for your kicks, very little about your ways of bringing a man to his knees.”

Matteo’s muscles tighten, stretching his already too-small shirt to the point of discomfort. It’s unsettling. Almost claustrophobic to watch him move and constrict everything.

His demon’s clean-shaven jaw clenches when he feels my gaze, but he doesn’t look back at me. Instead, he stares at the table, the floor, anywhere but me, his posture so rigid and his shoulders so stiff that even his skin seems ready to split.

Even Cesare glances at him, eyes narrowing just enough to betray, for a brief second, that the out-of-place reaction hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“On second thought…” the Sotto Capo says again, pulling my eyes back to his face, which somehow looks even darker now. “Maybe you really don’t have what it takes to seduce a Bianchi.”

I frown, but before I can ask what game he’s playing this time, he finishes: “And if you can’t do that…I won’t need you.”

Another shiver runs down my spine.

After all, I understand what he’s saying and what he really means.

If Cesare doesn’t need me, my only option is to go back to my escape plan. But he knows. He knows exactly how I plan to run, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the heads of those who thought about helping me are already waiting outside my bedroom door.

That’s the kind of man the Società Romano’s second-in-command is—colder and more merciless than Don himself. The most feared Romano of them all, the one who makes everyone dance to his tune, not for himself, but for Salvatore. For the Famiglia.

He wouldn’t hesitate to end my life. He probably wouldn’t even feel satisfaction in ending it. To him, to this family, I mean nothing. Whether I live or die doesn’t matter.

Until I become an inconvenience.

Until the moment I breathe a hint of betrayal…

Because their motto isn’t Ad Finem Fidelis for nothing.

Loyal until the end.

No matter the price.

“Alright,” I say firmly, even though everything inside me is trembling. Even though my chest is tight and my stomach is frozen, I’ll do what he asks. I’ll follow his orders because I don’t want to die.

Because I didn’t make it this far to die like this. I didn’t survive almost six years in hell just to surrender to the devil now… not when I’m so close to walking out of these gates.

Matteo looks at me again, so intensely that I can feel his gaze physically now. But it’s not heat. It’s a stare that burns, cuts, and wants to see me broken, crawling, hopeless. A stare meant to crush and dominate, but he should know by now it doesn’t work on me.

It never has.

“If I do this… if I get close to Enzo Bianchi and find out what he’s hiding, you’ll let me walk free?”

Cesare only narrows his eyes.

“Can I really buy my freedom if I do this job for you?”

I insist, staring into those predatory amber eyes, that look like they’re considering killing me right now for daring to question his word.

After all, nothing in the underworld matters more than a man’s word. Especially for a Romano, who lives for honor, loyalty, and his own twisted sense of justice.

“If I do it… You’ll really let me leave the Famiglia?”