voice. "It's bad enough you don't go to her father and ask him how he feels about you seeing his little girl. But now you're telling me, up until a few weeks ago, she was nothing more than a body you used to keep warm?"
Victor slammed his hands down on the desk, the bang making Dante flinch.
This wasn't going good.
"It wasn't like that," Dante said. "She was a friend, and then something happened, things changed, and it turned into more."
"So it just happened, huh?"
"Yes."
"Nothing deliberate on your part? Not something you planned? You just happened to take up with one of ours?"
"Well, yeah." Dante laughed dryly, running his hands down his face. "I fucked up. I know I did. I did everything wrong. But I love her. I fell in love with her. And it had nothing to do with her being a Brazzi. If anything, it was despite her being one." His eyes shot straight to Victor. "No offense. I have utmost respect for you, and your family, but this was the last thing I needed in my life. I don't need more problems, but Gabriella? The way I feel about her? Let's just say she's worth the trouble to me."
Victor stared at him in silence.
Dante wasn't sure what that meant.
He didn't know Victor Brazzi well enough to judge if his silence meant he was considering being merciful or if the man was too busy envisioning his death to speak.
After a moment, the man glanced at his watch and leaned back in his chair, his posture relaxed, but it did nothing to ease Dante's tension.
"I heard something about you," Victor said, his voice quieter. "Something I didn't like to hear."
"What did you hear?"
"I heard you killed my grandson."
Every muscle inside of Dante seized up.
Victor stared at him again. He stared, and waited. Waited for Dante to find the words to respond. And Dante wished like hell he could deny it. He wished he could say it never happened. For years he hated that family, despising Enzo Barsanti with everything inside of him, but he'd give anything to be able to go back and keep that motherfucker breathing.
The moment Dante pulled the trigger, he regretted it. It was instant, guilt burning from within. Because it was the moment Dante became someone else.
When he became a murderer.
When the man became the monster.
He never expected to feel that way.
Never expected to regret killing a Barsanti.
He wished like hell the feeling would go away.
"You heard true."
Victor drummed his fingers against the arm of his chair, pursing his lips. "Why'd you do it?"
"He pulled a gun on me first."
"I didn't ask what he did. I know what he did. I asked why you killed him. And don't give me the cop-out answer. Don't say 'self-defense'. You shot the kid in the face in his own territory."
Dante's eyes fixed on his hands in his lap. This was sounding a bit like that psychoanalytic bullshit he refused to entertain with everyone else. "Because he was a Barsanti."
"Because he was a Barsanti," Victor repeated.
"I've spent almost my entire life wishing them dead because of what they did to my family. It made it easy to give in to the anger, made it easy to go there, made it easy to pull the trigger. So yeah, you can say I killed him because he was a Barsanti."
"I bet your father hailed you a hero for that, huh? His brave boy. Bet he was proud."
Dante looked at the man, seeing he was smiling. What the fuck?
"Did you know your father started it? Did he tell you how he woke up one morning and decided to shoot up my grandson's birthday party?"
"Nobody died that day," Dante said. "He just wanted to send a message."
"And that message was received," Victor said. "Barsanti responded. Somebody died. There's no denying that. But just because he caused the first casualty doesn't mean he's responsible for the whole war."
Dante said nothing to that. What could he say?
"You want to hear my opinion?" Victor asked. "You want to know why I think you killed Enzo?"
Dante nodded, because that was the only thing he could do.
"You killed him because your father gave you no other choice."
Victor glanced at his watch yet again before standing. "Out of all my grandchildren, Gabriella was always my favorite. She's different. She has a big heart, my little princess. She's out to save the world. When she was knee-high, she found this squirrel once. Ugly thing. Wounded. Looked like a dog got