Page 100 of Brutal Crown

“And you were the only person in this house who didn’t look at me like I was already a monster.”

“You’re not a monster,” she says, stepping forward. “You’re just a product of a fucked-up legacy. So am I.”

Her fingers brush mine, not with romance but something just as powerful. Solidarity. Understanding. A soldier’s goodbye.

“I’m with you, Francesco. However this ends.”

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

A tear slips down her cheek, and I don’t know if it’s for me or for the years we wasted pretending.

“To be honest. I don’t know yet. But I just can’t keep hurting him.”

My eyes narrow. “You trust him?”

She looks away for a second, then nods. “More than I’ve trusted anyone in years.”

She brushes away a tear, then exhales slowly. “I attempted it once, you know. An escape. While I was at finishing school, where they were molding me into their perfect porcelain doll. I thought perhaps if I vanished for a few years, they might forget I existed. I felt crushed beneath the weight of my family’s expectations, trapped in this gilded cage of a society I never consented to join. I had already purchased passage on a liner and reached the harbor before I understood the truth—that they were always watching. My uncle had to beg for them not to put a bullet in my mother’s head. After that… I stopped trying.”

The silence hangs heavy.

“What’s different now?” I ask.

Her voice drops to a whisper. “I think this might be my only real chance. If I wait again… I won’t make it out at all.”

“Then go be with him,” I say. “Go before someone decides to make you regret it.”

“Thank you,” she whispers. “For letting me go.”

I lean down and press a kiss to her forehead. She closes her eyes like she’s letting go of a thousand ghosts.

“I hope he gives you a life we never had the chance to live.”

“And I hope,” she whispers back, “you get everything you’ve been too afraid to reach for before it’s too late.”

She bites her lower lip as she pulls back, and I notice the nervousness seeping from her pores. “What happens next?”

“We end the engagement,” I say with a tense exhale. “Quietly. But first…”

I sigh, then meet her eyes. “I have a plan.”

Her brows lift slightly.

“Do you trust me?” I ask.

She hesitates but only for a moment, then gives a slow nod.

“Good,” I murmur. “I’ll have to tell my father first. But until I find our way out… you need to pretend this conversation never happened.”

My father’soffice reeks of cigars and expensive leather. He’s behind his desk, pouring himself a generous glass of whiskey, not looking up as I walk in.

Finally, a glance. But it’s brief and impatient—like something’s bothering him, and he can’t wait to be done with me so he can go back to brooding over it.

“I just got off the phone with Giovanni,” he says, voice clipped. “He says Elena wants you and Silvia living together before the year’s out. The house we bought you—as a wedding gift so you both have space as a newly married couple—is almost done with renovations. You need to fix a date for the wedding.” He flips a page in the ledger with the same indifference he’d useswatting a fly. “We can’t wait for the Elders to assign another one like they did with the engagement.”

I step forward, planting myself directly in front of his desk.

“There’ll be no need.”