Chapter 1
Dante ended the barbecue immediately.
No arguments.
No family vote.
No attempt to preserve appearances.
Leo had grass stains across his shirt and was struggling to take full breaths without crying. Mia’s elbow was scraped where Javier had shoved her down.
Dante sent both children inside with his sister-in-law’s longtime nanny and ordered his personal physician called.
Then he turned back toward Javier.
His cousin had finally climbed to his feet.
Clara stood beside him now.
“What happened before I walked over?” Dante asked.
Javier wiped grass from his trousers.
“Your son needed correcting.”
Dante’s expression changed.
“He’s eight.”
“He was running his mouth.”
“What did he say?”
Javier glanced toward the guests.
Several men looked away.
Dante noticed.
“Everybody who heard it stays.”
Clara stepped forward.
“This is getting ridiculous.”
Dante looked at her.
“You watched your husband pin my son to the ground.”
“Leo was provoking him.”
“Then tell me how.”
Clara hesitated.
“He called Javier weak.”
One of the younger capos shifted uncomfortably.
Dante turned toward him.
“You heard that?”
The man shook his head.
“No, sir.”
Another guest admitted he had heard Javier taunting Leo first.
Javier had asked whether the boy was going to grow up “soft.”
Leo told him his father said strength meant protecting people smaller than you.
That apparently made Javier angry.
Dante looked back at his cousin.
“So an eight-year-old repeated something I taught him, and you put a knee on his back.”
Javier’s face hardened.
“You make everyone around here think they can disrespect me.”
“This isn’t about respect.”
“Everything in this family is about respect.”
Dante said nothing.
That answer told him more than Javier intended.
Clara suddenly interrupted.
“Can we do this privately?”
Dante looked at her phone.
She had slipped it into her purse.
“What were you looking at a minute ago?”
“Nothing.”
“You turned your screen over when I looked at you.”
Clara stared back.
“It was a message.”
“From who?”
“My sister.”
Dante did not challenge her.
Not yet.
He looked around the lawn instead.
Twenty witnesses.
Family members.
Capos.
Bodyguards.
People who had known Javier for decades.
And almost nobody seemed surprised that Javier had challenged him publicly.
That bothered Dante more than the punch.
This had not begun on the lawn.
May you like
Something had been building around his cousin for a while.
And somehow Dante had been the last person expected to notice.
