Page 258 of Ricardo

Tomasso looks from me to Mario, while Edoardo’s jaw shifts as if he has already heard enough to understand where this is going.

I continue anyway.

“I let Luca walk once. Blood for blood.” My voice hardens. “He basically admitted that Victoria’s attempted kidnapping was on him. Bellandi walked because Luca allowed it and Victoria almost paid for that with her life.”

Mario’s face goes cold at the reminder. We all remember very well what Bellandi did to Victoria after escaping Luca’s wrath.When Mario had refused to stand next to Bellandi as an ally, Bellandi didn’t come at Mario directly. Instead, he planted fake news articles to make Victoria doubt Mario, to make her believe the worst of him: that he had killed his own wife.

Then, when she discovered she was pregnant, the Bellandis used her vulnerability against her, luring her to the park, where they tried to kidnap and kill her.The only reason they failed was that Mario had people watching her, and they reacted quickly enough to effect her rescue. His grief for what nearly happened to her is not buried deeply. It never has been. Not with her pregnant. Not with everything he has already lost.

But I am past careful now.

“That is a debt,” I say.

Mario’s eyes cut to mine. “No.”

The word is quiet.

Final.

I stare at him.

“No?”

“He acknowledged blood,” Mario says. “Our blood.”

“He acknowledged responsibility.”

“He acknowledged family.”

“That is a convenient distinction.”

Mario steps away from the fireplace. “Blood does not hold debt over each other’s heads.”

My laugh has no humor in it. “That is beautiful. Put it on a fucking crest.”

His gaze sharpens, but he does not rise to my bait.

“If we go down that path,” he says, “we set a precedent. A bad one.”

“A precedent.” I nearly laugh in bitterness. “My son almost died tonight, and you're worried about precedent?”

“Yes, because it matters in this case.”

“Dante is in the hospital,” I say. “Unconscious. Cut open. Full of someone else’s blood because he lost too much of his own. Those men were clearly there to take Julia back to Harrison. Dante stopped them. Now Harrison sits in his ivory tower, hiding behind a name old enough to make police hesitate and politicians kneel, and you want to discuss precedent.”

Mario’s voice lowers. “I want to keep us from handing Harrison the weapon he needs to turn this back on us.”

“He already sent weapons into her home.”

“And if we answer like fools, he wins twice.”

I curse ripely in Italian.

Lorenzo speaks. “I agree with Mario.”

“Of course, you do,” I spit out.

“If Luca has enough power to take down someone as politically protected as the Winthrops,” he continues, “then he is not someone we want as a potential enemy.”