Page 6 of Brutal Crown

And I was the one to bring death to his doorstep, because that’s what La Mano Nera wants: your humanity, your soul. It’s not for loyalty or power. It’s just to prove that I’ll never be free from their shackles.

I hate how helpless that makes me.

The driver opens the door, and cold air rushes in. I step out onto the gravel and close my eyes for a brief second. I’m back where I belong.

The estate looms above me. It’s strange how a place can be exactly the same and yet feel completely foreign.

We step inside, and somehow, the suppressing feeling is much worse.

The halls are too quiet. Staff freeze mid-step when they see me, their faces smoothing into polite and fearful masks. A few things have changed, like some new guards I don’t recognize standing stiff as statues at the doorway.

The paintings on the walls, portraits of dead men and women, the Romanos before us, seem to glare down at me, watching and judging.

At the top of the grand staircase ahead of me, I spot Silvia waiting.

She looks like something that should be in a cathedral. Pale, beautiful, and cold.

Her dress is pure white, as Marco described, and she’s standing so still she could be mistaken for one of the statues lining the halls.

She descends slowly, the tap of her heels barely making a sound. Her eyes lock on mine, cool and assessing.

“You’re late,” she says as she approaches the ground floor.

“I had to do something important,” I say, moving toward her. My steps are dictated by tradition more than any real emotion. I take her hand and brush my lips over her knuckles like a good fiancé should.

“I would have dropped by to see you, but family comes first,” I say.

Her hand trembles slightly before she pulls it back, her expression faltering for a moment.

She knows that when I say ‘family,’ I don’t mean her.

I wish I could feel remorse, but I can’t. We’ve known our fates since we were barely teenagers. We’ve accepted it, however bitter it might be.

Before the silence can stretch too long, Antonio, her shadow of a bodyguard, appears behind her. He gestures a stiff nod my way before leaning in to whisper something only she can hear.

I study him. Before he was hired to guard Silvia, I’d dug up some information about him. He’s an orphan, the sole survivor of a tragic fire that killed his parents. He was recruited by La Mano Nera at a very young age and was trained to be a special soldier for the Society.

Digging up information on him made me discover the sick tradition that I’d somehow never learned about the Society. How young children, mostly orphaned boys, are taken, given food and shelter, and trained to be killers from a young age. Their sole purpose is to make human weapons for the protection of the elite members of the Society. Most of the boys end up dying due to the extreme training sessions and brutal punishments for disobedience.

No one has ever escaped, and those who manage to survive and live up to all their expectations have every atom of humanity stripped off them. Their only purpose is to blindly obey the commands of La Mano Nera and whoever hires them.

That is something we have in common.

Silvia nods at whatever he tells her before casting me another glance. Her lips part like she wants to say something else, but she just presses a soft kiss to my cheek instead.

“I have to leave for something important. I’ll see you soon,” she murmurs.

And then she glides away.

I feel Marco drift up beside me, tsking as he takes my side.

“I feel sorry for her. She deserves better.”

His tone is a bit playful, but he is right. Silvia deserves someone who will love and cherish her. I am not that man.

Elio appears just then, and a genuine smile spreads on his lips as he approaches me.

“Welcome home, brother,” he says, wrapping his arms around my shoulders.