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"When did you last visit this place?" she asks, breaking our comfortable silence.

"Around sixteen years ago, I think. It would have been just after my mother's death." I swirl the wine in my glass, rich burgundy and utterly delicious. "My father forbade us to come here afterward. Said it was time to put childish things behind me."

"And you obeyed?"

"Of course… I was fifteen. My mother had just been murdered before my eyes. Defiance seemed... pointless."

Her expression softens with something I refuse to identify as pity. "Can you tell me about her? About your mother?"

The request catches me off-guard. No one asks about Elena anymore. She has become a ghost, invoked only as a weapon between brothers.

"She was beautiful," I say with a heavy sigh, the words coming more easily than I expected. "Not just physically. She had a presence, a way of commanding a room without raising her voice."

Francesca listens intently, her golden eyes never leaving my face as I continue.

"She loved art, music, books—all the things my father considered useless distractions. She would read to us in secret,fairy tales and poetry that Vito would have sneered at if he knew." I take a long sip of wine, the memories sharper than I'd anticipated. "She tried to give us something normal, something beyond the violence and power struggles."

"She sounds wonderful," Francesca says quietly.

"She was weak," I tell her, though the words lack my usual dark conviction. "She couldn't protect herself. Couldn't protect her sons. She was a fraud."

"Is that why you value strength so much? Why you demand it from yourself, from those around you?"

The observation slices too close to truths I rarely examine. "You know as much as I do that weakness gets you killed in our world, Francesca. My mother's death proved that."

She sets down her wine glass, moving to stand directly before me. "There are different kinds of strength, Dante. Your mother gave you books and art when your father offered only violence. That takes its own courage. Its own strength."

Her words unsettle me, challenging beliefs I've held as absolute since that day on the cathedral steps when I was forced to drag my mothers limp body away.

A soft ping from my phone breaks the moment.

I check the message—a report on Luca's movements, confirmation that the Volkovs remain in Paris. A few other notifications flash with updates on territorial disputes requiring my attention.

The real world intrudes on this temporary haven.

"Business?" Francesca asks, her expression shuttering slightly.

"Always." I pocket the phone, my mind already recalibrating, planning next steps. "There are decisions that can't wait."

She nods, understanding without resentment.

"I should review these reports," I tell her, already moving toward the door. "Make yourself comfortable. Explore if youwish, but stay within the property boundaries. Romano will show you the exact perimeter."

"Of course," she says, her tone deliberately neutral. "The cage may be larger, but it remains a cage."

I pause at the doorway, turning back to study her silhouetted against the Italian sunset. Strong, proud, undeniably mine yet somehow increasingly beyond my complete control.

"The difference, Francesca, is that now I'm in the cage with you."

Chapter Twelve

Dante

Hours later, after reviewing intelligence and issuing commands to my network across Europe, I seek her out.

The sun has set, stars emerging in a sky unspoiled by city lights. I find her on the terrace where I left her, now wrapped in a light shawl against the evening chill.

She doesn't turn as I approach, her gaze fixed on the valley below.