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“And I see a brother,” Maria told him what he could not understand. “If you expected me to fall for one of your soldiers, then you shouldn’t have raised me around them.”

“Probably,” he agreed.

Still seeing the disappointment, Maria knew she was missing something. “Why is it really that you will never be able to accept me and Dominic?”

Dom was a made man, sure from the wrong side, but the families were supposed to be joining together as one. Her marrying Dominic only solidified that fact, which was why Lucca had encouraged it.

Dante clearly had been holding in a secret, as his ice-blue eyes pierced her soul before he revealed the truth of it all. “Dominic does not have pure Italian blood.”

Maria drew her brows together, but before she could speak, her father continued.

“We like our names to represent our Italian heritage, but have you never wondered how his children’s names differ from ours? Dominic, Angel, Matthias, Cassius are all names of … Spanish descent.” Dante finally broke the secret that not many Carusos knew. “Spanish women held the only qualities Lucifer admired and respected enough in women to father children.”

Dominic and Cassius’s looks suddenly made sense, while the other children had taken theirs from their father.

Maria couldn’t believe that this was why her father didn’t approve of their marriage and that he thought she was supposed to suddenly see Dominic differently.

“This is why you don’t approve? Because Dominic isn’t Italian enough for you? Well, thank God you don’t allow women into your organization, so what the hell do you care?”

“Lineage is everything, Maria.” He warned that any children from their union wouldn’t be able to become made.

Yes, she did know. The mafia went back generations in this country, and no matter where you were located, the only way you could become made in an Italian mafia was being one hundred percent Italian. It was the most basic requirement, written in stone long ago, and it hadn’t been changed or challenged …

Yet.

“I find it funny how the biggest piece of shit that ever walked this earth is somehow less nearsighted than you. Lucifer was smart to let go of the old ways, because yours are going to be the death of you.”

Both of them knew Chloe didn’t have an ounce of Italian blood running through her veins, yet it wouldn’t keep Lucca from marrying her or fathering children with her, and having his children become made. That stupid rule was going to end with her father’s reign, and they both knew it.

“When I took control of this family, I made a promise to uphold those values, and I will until my reign ends.” Dante spoke with finality, the blood oath he made upheld. “I cannot show support for this wedding, because then I go back on that oath. My men and the many men I’ve had to turn down because of the blood in their veins … it isn’t fair to those people that I give you an exception because you’re my daughter.”

Maria understood. Her father was stuck in his old ways and felt bound in blood to uphold the sacred family rules, but she was his daughter.

“You had no fucking trouble supporting Drago.”

“Katarina has no record of where she came from. Not even her own family knows who her mother was. Can I assume she is of Spanish descent based upon his previous relationships? Yes. But there is no proof, and she looks every bit of her father. My men would never question it.”

“Then Sal?” she asked frustratingly. “You would have supported that fucking union.”

“Salvatore Lastra is one hundred percent Italian. I can take his mother back generations.” Dante made it very clear. “The one Italian son Lucifer had, he gave up.”

Let it go, she whispered to herself.

Maria had reached the end of her rope. There was nothing more she could say to get her father to approve of her marriage, so she had nothing more to say to him. The one thing she knew about her father was that he would never change. It was why he had his hand in making her who she was, why she stood so strongly as a woman who wanted to be taken seriously and to hold power in this family. If twenty-two years hadn’t proved he wouldn’t change his ways because she was a woman, Dante wasn’t going to change his ways about Dominic not being of full Italian descent in the next five minutes.

“I’m sorry that I can’t be there.” Dante stood solemnly, saying the words that he truly meant as he went for the door. “But I hope you two enjoy my wedding gift.”

Maria didn’t know what she expected, but it hadn’t been the emotions she felt as she sat there alone. She had been fine with her father not attending her wedding before he had come in, but now she couldn’t help but feel hurt that her father refused to walk his daughter down the aisle. He chose the family over his own family yet again, and this time … it truly hurt.