Ava Bellini looked innocently across the table at Dominic and revealed that Grandma had told her she would have to call Uncle Dominic "Daddy" once her father was gone

The sheer brightness of the natural sunlight streaming through the windows felt incredibly disjointed from the dark, suffocating tension within the room. Matteo snapped his fingers—a single, sharp sound that broke the paralysis of the surrounding staff.

"Take her," Matteo ordered, not looking away from Dominic.

A trusted nanny, a young woman with a pale, frightened face, hurried forward from the periphery of the room. She knelt beside Matteo, wrapping her arms gently around the crying three-year-old.

"Come with me, sweetie," the nanny whispered, picking Ava up. "Let's go look at your new toys upstairs."

"Daddy?" Ava whimpered, reaching a tiny hand out over the nanny's shoulder.

"I will be right there, Ava," Matteo said, his voice dropping into a register of profound, unexpected gentleness. "Go with Maria. You are entirely safe."

Matteo watched until the heavy doors opened just enough to let the nanny and his daughter slip out, the bodyguards immediately sealing the exit once again. The moment the door clicked shut, the gentle father vanished. Only the veteran Mafia boss remained.

"Matteo, you have to listen to me," Helena choked out, pushing herself upright in the dining chair. Her expensive jewelry was askew, her perfectly styled hair ruined. "You are leading this family to ruin! Your obsession with legitimizing our businesses is making us weak! The other families are laughing at us!"

Matteo slowly turned his attention back to his mother. He walked toward her, his polished leather shoes echoing against the floor.

"So you decided to orchestrate a coup," Matteo said smoothly, examining his family signet ring. "You decided that my cousin, a man who cannot even manage the southern ports without bleeding revenue, would make a better Don."

"He understands the old ways!" Helena shouted, her American accent pitching high with desperate conviction. "Dominic understands that respect is built on blood, not on corporate contracts! We were trying to save the Bellini legacy!"

"By murdering me," Matteo clarified, stating the fact with a chilling, emotional detachment. "And then forcing my three-year-old daughter to accept my murderer as her new father, to legitimize his claim to my throne."

"It was the only way to prevent a civil war within the ranks!" Helena pleaded, holding her hands up. "If you died, and Dominic stepped in as her guardian, the capos would fall in line! It was for the good of the family, Matteo!"

"The family," Matteo repeated, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. He looked around the dining table at the other capos and family members, all of whom sat frozen in absolute silence. "I have bled for this family. I have built an empire that generates billions in clean, untraceable capital. And my reward is treason conceived by my own mother."

He leaned down, placing his tattooed hands on the arms of Helena’s chair, trapping her. His angular face was inches from hers.