Chapter 4

The room went dead silent. Raphael, Matteo, and Luca stared at her, the color draining from their faces.

For the first time, they seemed to realize that I was seriously considering marrying Vito. Until that moment, they had mistaken my years of devotion for a promise that I would always choose one of them, no matter how they treated me.

My mother rose slowly, murder in her eyes. She called an emergency family meeting and summoned everyone to the main salon.

Blair dropped to her knees, sobbing.

“Mrs. Rossi, it wasn’t me. Miss Rossi knocked the bowl over herself.”

Raphael, Matteo, and Luca fell over one another trying to shield her.

Matteo even attempted to take the blame.

“I put the cleaning solution in the porridge. Blair had nothing to do with it.”

“Shut up. All of you.”

My mother’s laugh was cold. She looked at the three men as though they were rabid dogs she regretted ever sheltering.

“Effective immediately, Raphael, Matteo, and Luca are stripped of all managerial authority and access to Rossi funds. You are no longer candidates for my daughter’s hand. From this moment on, you are merely guests living under my roof. Without my express permission, none of you may use a single Rossi employee, vehicle, account, or family resource.”

With my mother cutting off their access, the power they had taken for granted disappeared overnight.

The Capellos sent over a regenerative salve reserved for their own inner circle. Over the next two weeks, the infection was brought under control and the burns healed enough for me to leave my bed. With continued treatment, they eventually faded without leaving any noticeable scars.

Once I was back on my feet, I summoned Blair to the main salon.

I did not have Blair thrown out. Instead, I gave her one final chance to prove her loyalty.

“If you want to remain under this roof, then show me where your loyalty lies,” I told her. “The Rossi family repays loyalty with loyalty and betrayal in kind. Whoever committed the offense must answer for it personally.”

I thought Blair would finally admit the truth and accept her punishment.

Instead, she seized on Matteo’s earlier confession.

He had already claimed that he was the one who put the cleaning solution in the porridge. Blair clearly decided that if someone had to pay, it would be the man who had confessed for her. Sacrificing Matteo was the easiest way to prove her “loyalty” and keep her place in the Rossi family.

The following afternoon, Blair asked Matteo to meet her in the guest wing.

She had prepared another bowl of porridge herself and poured sulfuric acid into it with her own hands.

Matteo believed she was finally ready to confess. When she approached with the bowl, he stepped toward her without the slightest suspicion.

Blair flung the acid-laced porridge straight into his face.

His scream echoed through the entire villa.

As Matteo collapsed, clutching his face, Blair dropped the empty bowl and turned to me.

“Matteo confessed,” she said quickly. “I was only carrying out Miss Rossi’s order. The person who committed the offense had to pay for it himself.”

Raphael and Luca could not accept that Blair had chosen to hurt Matteo on her own.

“You knew exactly what she would do!” Raphael shouted at me.

“You threatened to throw her out and forced her to do this!” Luca added.

Blair immediately seized on their accusation.

“I was afraid,” she sobbed. “Miss Rossi said I had to prove my loyalty if I wanted to stay. I didn’t have a choice.”

I had offered Blair the chance to tell the truth. I had never ordered her to mutilate Matteo.

But Blair had sacrificed one of the men who worshipped her to save herself, and Raphael and Luca still preferred blaming me to admitting what she had done.

In a single afternoon, the four of them exposed exactly how false and selfish their devotion to one another truly was.

As scheduled, four weeks after my mother approved the match, the Rossi estate was filled with Sicily’s most powerful families for my engagement announcement.

Raphael and Luca arrived without invitations. Matteo came with them, one side of his face hidden beneath heavy bandages.

Even after everything my mother had said, all three still believed the same thing.

I could despise them, strip them of power, and threaten to cast them out, but when the time came to choose a husband, I would have to choose one of them.

The guests believed it too. They greeted the three men as though one of them would soon stand at my side as the future head of the Rossi family.

Before I could make my announcement, Blair entered the salon with tears streaming down her face.

“Miss Rossi, I’m sorry,” she cried. “I only did what you told me to do. You said I had to prove my loyalty and that whoever committed the offense had to repay it personally. I was terrified you would cast me out. Please don’t punish Raphael and Luca because of me.”

Raphael strode toward me, his expression dark with anger and something more wounded.

“Are you satisfied now? Blair did exactly what you forced her to do, and you still made her beg.”

“If you expect one of us to marry you after this,” Luca said coldly, “you can forget it.” He spoke as though withdrawing the three of them were still the surest way to make me surrender.

Even Matteo looked at me through the pain, his expression bitter and accusing.

“Keep punishing Blair, and I will never marry you,” he said, as though losing him were still the one threat capable of breaking me.

Whispers swept through the salon.

“If none of the three of them will marry her, who does Alia Rossi have left?”

“She cannot possibly mean to marry that comatose Don.”

I lifted my glass and faced the room.

“You seem to be mistaken. Tonight was never about choosing between Raphael, Matteo, and Luca.”

The enormous screen behind me lit up with the Capello crest. Beneath it appeared the name VITO CAPELLO.

The salon fell silent.

Raphael’s face twisted in disbelief.

“You can’t be serious. He’s a vegetable. This is another one of your games,” Luca said. “You’ve wanted one of us for years. You would never actually marry him.”

Raphael reached the dais and clamped a hand around my wrist.

“Enough, Alia. Tell them which one of us you’re really choosing.”

Before I could answer, the salon doors opened. Dozens of men in black suits poured into the room, armed and bearing the Capello crest. They took up positions with lethal precision.

A second later, a tall, broad-shouldered man stepped into the salon. His custom black suit fit him perfectly. His features were cold and severe, and he carried the absolute authority of a man accustomed to being obeyed.

It was Vito Capello: the Don everyone believed would never rise from his bed again.

His gaze settled on Raphael. When he spoke, his voice carried a lethal calm.

“Who gave you the nerve to lay a hand on my Donna?”