THE DON WHO COULDN'T LOVE
"I'm done protecting a legacy that required destroying people like your mother to maintain its polished surface."
Tomas's composure finally cracked fully, something between disbelief and cautious hope breaking through the exhausted anger he'd maintained throughout the conversation. "I spent eight years assuming this conversation, if it ever happened, would end with your security team dragging me away in restraints, not with you offering the one thing I actually wanted more than any revenge I'd been planning."
"Revenge rarely delivers what grief actually needs," I said gently. "You wanted your mother seen, acknowledged, remembered honestly. Destroying Dante's family wouldn't have given you th