Page 256 of Ricardo

“You are asking me to do nothing.”

“No.” Her voice breaks. “I would never ask that. Not after what he did to Dante. I’m asking you to be smarter than he thinks you are.”

Julia holds my gaze through tears and exhaustion and fear.

“He thinks men like you are violence first,” she says. “He thinks because he grew up around power, he understands all of it. He doesn’t. But if you give him the version he expects, he’ll know how to use it.”

Mario looks at her with approval.

I stare at Julia and feel, beneath the fury, something colder and more dangerous begin to settle.

She is right. Every word.

Harrison expects outrage. A threat. A hand around his throat in some private room. Something he can turn into a story about savages with money and foreign names and a poor political heir targeted by criminals because of a woman’s unstable accusation.

He expects me to write the story for him.

I will not.

Lorenzo says, “We need leverage.”

“And evidence,” Matteo says.

“And a shield,” Diego says. “Someone who can stand against the Winthrops.”

A shield.

My thoughts shift.

Political royalty.

Judges. Donors. Governors. Presidents. Vice presidents.

Old power answers old power.

And if we do not have enough of it here yet, then we use someone who does.

Julia’s hand catches mine.

“Ricardo.”

I look down at her.

Fear for me is written plainly across her face now.

“I heard you,” I say.

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

Mario studies me. “Then tell me what you’re thinking.”

I look at my brother.

“No,” I say. “We cannot move on Harrison the way I want to.”

Diego exhales quietly, as if he expected the fight to take longer.