Page 48 of Crown Of Blood

The way she looked when she saw Sofia’s name in that goddamn article — like the air had been punched from her lungs.

Like it broke her.

And still, all I can hear is that headline.

The Moretti Empire: Inside New York’s Bloodline of Corruption.

By: Isabella DeLaurentis.

Her name burned into it like a signature on my death warrant.

I grab the glass off my desk and hurl it across the room. It explodes against the wall, amber streaking down white paint like blood down marble.

She was supposed to be different.

Smart. Fearless. Maybe even a little reckless. But not this. Not a liar. Not someone who would use my roof — my trust — to destroy me from the inside.

“Figlio di puttana!” I snarl, slamming my palms on the desk hard enough to rattle it.

The glass still trembles when Alessandro walks in without knocking.

He’s already braced for it — the storm, the aftermath, the violence simmering under my skin.

He’s seen me like this before—too many times.

“Don,” he says quietly, closing the door behind him. “We need to talk.”

“Not now.”

“Yes, now.”

I lift my head, jaw tight. “Choose your words carefully.”

He crosses the room, drops the paper in front of me again like I haven’t already memorized every fucking word. “I already did.”

I stare down at the front page. “Find whoever leaked it.”

“I already found her.”

“Watch yourself.”

“Then tell me I’m wrong.”

I push off the desk, moving until we’re toe to toe. “You think I don’t want answers? That I don’t want to know who sold out my family?”

“I think you’re blind because you want it not to be her.”

The words hit like a fist.

“Don’t,” I warn, voice low.

“She played you,” Alessandro snaps. “Used your roof, your protection, your fucking daughter’s trust. You think she didn’t know what she was doing? That article is a death sentence.”

“She didn’t send it.”

He laughs, sharp and humorless. “You don’t know that.”

“I do,” I snarl, grabbing the edge of the desk. “Because if she wanted me dead, she’d have been gone before the ink dried.”