Page 62 of Broken Crown

He sat back down in one of the leather seats facing the low burning fireplace, the flames casting demonic shadows across his face. He tugged at his Roman collar the way he always did when we were alone—the unconscious habit of a man wearing a leash his father had fastened around his throat before he was old enough to refuse. The band shifted under his grip.

I took the other seat, the chair still warm from his previous occupation. The fire crackled, sending up a shower of orange sparks.

He continued, his question deceptively casual. “So this is your Hail Mary? Seduce the poor girl into submission with wine and cheese?”

Poor girl. The way he said it—the softness in his voice, the faint hint of something that could have been concern—made my fingers tighten around the demitasse.

I’d already warned him once about the way he looked at Sabrina. The way his charm—the same charm that had left a trail of broken vows and discarded lingerie across half of Rome—sharpened whenever she entered a room.

He was my brother. I trusted him with my life.

I did not trust him with her.

“Don’t get all sanctimonious with me. We both know that Monsignor getup only goes skin deep on you.”

“You sound just like him, you know that?”

Him. Our father. The man who’d looked at his youngest son’s easy charisma and seen not a gift but a weapon to be deployed. The Vatican needed a Diamanti inside its walls, and our father had chosen the son most capable of seducing his way into its inner circles.

The irony was exquisite—a born womanizer ordained into celibacy, and the whole family pretending it wasn’t a farce.

“I’m nothing like him.”

“You’re sitting in his chair. In his study. Moving people around his board.” Arcangelo’s voice was quiet. Lethal. “The only difference is you’ve convinced yourself you feel bad about it.”

I leaned forward. “While we’re drawing comparisons—the way you looked at her yesterday at dinner. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

Without changing his expression, he stilled. The predator recognizing it had been spotted. “I was being polite.”

“You were being you. And I told you once already what would happen if you didn’t stop.”

A long, dangerous silence stretched between us. The rain intensified against the windows, filling the void neither of us was willing to break with a concession.

Then Arcangelo smiled—slow, deliberate, designed to provoke. “Jealousy doesn’t suit you, brother. Especially over a woman you keep insisting is just a pawn.”

The shot landed. Buried itself deep. Because he’d found the exact fracture I’d been trying to ignore—the widening gap between what I claimed Sabrina was and what I was terrified she’d become.

“Her father’s rash actions prove that he doesn’t want the public to know about Sabrina. My plan is working. He hasn’t announced any investigation yet. He’s rattled.”

We both stared at the flames for a moment, the hypnotic dance of red and gold a temporary distraction from the tension crackling between us.

Then finally he broke the silence. “I heard about Antonia.”

Antonia. The judge’s most recent victim.

Unlike Sabrina’s mother, the judge had learned from his past failure. When Antonia, his mistress, became pregnant and threatened exposure, he didn’t assume his order was carried through. No, he made sure there were no loose ends. Just a woman’s body abandoned like roadside trash.

Sabrina’s mother survived only through blood connections—men who dealt in shadows and favors. Men cut from the same cloth as me.

He never demanded proof of Sabrina’s mother’s death. The judge’s arrogance had been his downfall. He believed his word was law, his command unquestionable—a weakness I’d eliminated from my Diamanti operations years ago. A fatal miscalculation born of the same blind pride that poisoned all our families’ bloodlines.

Sabrina’s terrified face flashed in my mind—cornered in that alley, blood staining her dress. My revenge had nearly gotten her killed. The same revenge I’d sworn was sacred, necessary.

Minutes later. Seconds even…and she would have been another Antonia.

I swallowed the acidic guilt rising in my throat. Yet even now, I couldn’t fully release my need for vengeance. It was entwined with my family name, with oaths sworn over graves.

The Diamanti legacy demanded blood for blood.