The air in the boardroom was suffocatingly still. Even Luca had stopped his restless fidgeting, drawn into the dark, Shakespearean tragedy of the man they had only ever known as a cold, distant rival. Matteo leaned back, his eyes half-lidded but sharper than a razor, absorbing every word of the Don's origin.
"He went to her house," Donovan continued, his voice cracking. "A tomb of dust and regrets. No one had even come to say goodbye to the maid. But he found that box…the letters. He spent hours reading his mother's soul. He finally saw the rape for what it was, saw her sacrifice as love instead of abandonment. And that last letter, 'To my son'... it broke him. It was the first and last time Don Caruso ever shed a tear."
Donovan took a shaky breath, oblivious to how my heart was splintering in the corner of the room.
"The grief didn't make him soft; it made him a monster. He didn't just want to be Don; he wanted to erase his father's memory. At eighteen, he did what no one thought possible: he forced his father to sign over the empire and then slaughtered him. He was the youngest Don in history, a teenage king who ruled through absolute terror. Even your father, the great Ricci, knew better than to cross a man who had nothing left to lose. They stayed in their lanes, two apex predators respecting the fence."
Matteo's gaze drifted to the ceiling, a ghost of a smirk on his lips. "Brutal," he whispered. "Go on."
"Then came the woman," Donovan said, his voice softening. "Isabella. She was a swift, beautiful accident. She cracked the ice in his chest. For years, she begged for a child, and he refused—he didn't want to bring a life into this filth. But when she finally got pregnant by mistake, her joy became his only religion. For eight months, the man who cut out tongues for fun was kneeling at her feet, feeling for kicks, a doting father-to-be. He didn't care about an heir; he just wanted her happy."
Donovan's expression darkened, the shadow of the ending looming over him.
"But fate is a bitch. He was away on business, trying to clear his schedule for the birth, when the world collapsed. Complications. Sudden and violent. She was rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night, bleeding out, screaming for a husband who was hundreds of miles away."
Donovan looked at the brothers, his eyes wide. "The doctors had to make a choice. The mother or the child.
Donovan's voice trembled, the weight of the tragedy finally sinking into the mahogany and glass of the boardroom. Even the Ricci brothers, men born of ice and iron, seemed to lean in, caught in the gravity of a woman's final sacrifice.
"It wasn't just a complication," Donovan whispered, his eyes distant. "It was a bloodbath. Isabella knew. She was a mother, and she felt the life draining out of her even as the baby struggled to stay. The doctors were frantic, sweating under the surgical lights. They told her they could save her, but the baby would be lost. Or they could perform a procedure that would guarantee the child's life, but it would tear the mother apart."
He wiped his mouth, his gaze flickering toward the brothers. "The head surgeon wanted to call the Don. He had the phone in his hand, ready to tell Caruso his wife was dying. But Isabella... she grabbed his wrist with a strength no dying woman should have. She looked him dead in the eye and said, 'If you call him, he will tell you to kill my baby to save me. I am the one on this table. You save my daughter. Do not call my husband until she is breathing.'"
I felt the air leave my lungs. I could almost hear her voice, a phantom echo of a mother I never knew.
"She spent her final, agonizing hours writing," Donovan continued. "Two letters. One for the man she was leaving behind, and one for the girl she would never hold. She was gasping for air, her blood staining the parchment, but she finished them. She chose the child over her own heartbeat."
Donovan took a shaky breath. "When Caruso finally landed, he didn't even wait for the car to stop. He sprinted through those hospital wings like a madman. He burst into that room expecting a celebration, but all he found was a cold sheet pulled over the woman who had softened his soul. And in the corner, a small, crying infant."
Matteo's grip on his wine glass tightened until his knuckles went white.
"The letters didn't heal him. They broke him beyond repair. The letter from Isabella begged him to love the girl, but he couldn't do it. To him, that baby wasn't a gift…she was a thief. She had stolen the light of his life. He went back to the old ways, the cruel, sadistic Don Caruso that even your father feared. And the worst part? The girl grew up to be the spitting image of Isabella. Every time he looks at her, he sees the ghost of the woman he lost. He sees his own grief looking back at him with his wife's eyes."
The silence in the room was absolute. Then, Matteo slowly turned his head. His eyes weren't on Donovan anymore. They were pinned on me, tracking the way my chest rose and fell, the way my emerald dress shimmered in the afternoon light.
"A daughter who looks exactly like the woman he loved," Matteo murmured, his voice a low, dangerous vibration. He stood up, the chair scraping softly against the floor. He walked toward me, his movements slow and deliberate, like a predator who had finally caught the scent.
He stopped just inches away, looming over me. He reached out, his fingers…still wearing the brass knuckles…tilting my chin up so I had no choice but to look at him.
"You've been very quiet, Seris," he said, his eyes searching every inch of my face, comparing it to the ghost Donovan had just described. "Tell me... what was the name of that eldest daughter again, Donovan?"
My heart stopped.