All Chapters of The Don's Ruthless Empire: Chapter 571 - Chapter 575

POV: Isabella"Sit down, Lady Isabella. I have waited thirty years to pour you a cup of tea. Do you know how many cups I have filled for a man who never came home?"I am Isabella, and I heard it in the narrow doorway of a tiny house on Sparrow Lane, with rain dripping off my hood and my heart so loud I thought she must hear it. The woman who had spoken stood in the lamp glow, small and straight, her gray gloves folded in front of her. Behind her I could see a kitchen with a scrubbed table, two cups, and a pot already steaming. She had been expecting me.It was barely dawn. Matteo had told me everything at the foot of the stairs, one terrible sentence at a time, holding both my hands. I had not screamed. I had not cried. I had only said, "Where does she live?" and put on my cloak."I do not deserve tea," I said."No. But you will drink it."I sat. The chair was hard. The kitchen smelled of cinnamon and wood smoke and old bread. On the wall hung a small framed paper, yellowed with age,

POV: Matteo"Do not move, Matteo. Pietro is coming out of the back door with the sack. Count the loaves, and if he drops even one in the cart, tell me."I am Matteo, and it was Livia Marchetti who whispered it, crouched beside me behind a barrel of flour on a gray Friday dawn. Livia was Camilla's granddaughter, young and sharp as a needle. Her husband Adrian Rinaldi knelt on my other side with his hand on my elbow. The three of us were wedged in a stinking alley behind the Valenti bakery, with the smell of yeast and hot ash in our noses.I should not have been there. Isabella had begged me to stay home. She was meeting Camilla at the bank, and she was barred from the hall, and she wanted me to rest. But I had lain awake all night with my hand on my chest, listening to the bird beat against its cage, and I could not lie still while others did the work."Seven loaves," Livia murmured. "Eight. Nine. That is the sack. Now, the long loaf on the board. He is putting it in a separate basket.