Page 134 of Brutal Crown

“You… killed your wife?” I refuse to believe that.

“No.” His eyes flash to me. “But I am the reason she died.”

Silence hangs in the air between us, the only sound in the room being the slight buzz of electricity coming from the bulb.

“She was the love of my life.”

His voice is broken. It is the first time I’m seeing him this way. I always thought he was an unfeeling monster, but even monsters have their people in this world.

“She was quiet. Gentle. The kind of woman you think the world would protect simply because she had no flaws. No sharp edges.” He glances up at me. “But this world—especially the Society—feeds on the soft ones first.”

I sit up straighter, ignoring the pain wracking through my entire body. “I thought…” I hesitate. “I thought she died by slipping on the stairs.”

He nods again. “That is what happened. They wanted her death to seem like a fluke, a mistake, something that just happened. No one would suspect foul play at that kind of death.”

“So you’re saying…” I finish in a shaky gasp, unable to complete my sentence.

“I was in the middle of a secret investigation of one of the Elders,” Dante starts explaining. “He broke some Society rules but used his power to cover up his atrocities. I guess someone found out I was onto them. Killing my wife wasn’t just my punishment; it was also a way to destabilize me. I lost my mind for a while. I couldn’t continue the investigation.”

A lump forms in my throat. “I’m sorry.”

He looks surprised for a moment, then his mood darkens again. “I don’t deserve your sympathy.”

I gnaw at my lower lip with my teeth.

“When I regained myself over a year later, I realized her death didn’t sit right with me. I had watched her move through that house for years. She was a careful woman, slow in speech and movement. I knew I was reaching when I concluded that she couldn’t have slipped down the stairs. I began to ask questions about what exactly happened that night. I tortured a few maids, and that was when I found out that she’d been drunk.”

His eyes harden as he stares directly at me. “She never drank a drop of alcohol in her life. That was when I knew…”

“They drugged her,” I finish the sentence, and he nods.

“It was in her tea. They put something to make her dizzy. Something that wouldn’t show on an autopsy.”

I don’t speak. I just sit there, listening, trying not to imagine the scene but failing. I have seen the flight of stairs she fell from. She never stood a chance.

“That was the moment,” he says. “That’s when I realized that obeying the Society rules only goes one way. The Elders are allowed to be traitors, but no one else is.”

“Was that when you decided to turn on them?”

He chuckles bitterly. “It was when the seed was planted in my chest. It germinated when Lorenzo broke the rule.”

Lorenzo. The missing Romano son.

No one ever speaks about him, not even Francesco or Marco, and I’ve spent quite a while with them.

“Lorenzo wanted to be initiated into La Mano Neraearly. He was desperate to be the youngest member of the Society. I could have stopped him, but he was determined, and further resistance would mean I was trying to come in the way of the custom that every noble-born son must join the Society. So I let him.”

My stomach twists and turns at where this story is going.

“To become a member, you have to kill whoever the Society appoints, without question.” Dante clenches his jaw. “Lorenzo was asked to kill his best friend.”

“No…”

“He didn’t do it,” Dante swallows. “They killed his friend and then went after him next.”

“That’s why he ran away,” I say. Now I can’t help but feel bad for him. He lost his wife and his son, all for what?

“I helped him run.”