Part 8
Lucia stared at him, utterly dumbfounded.
"Marry you? Are you insane?"
"It is the only way to protect them legally if something happens to me," Tomaso said coldly.
"As my wife, you inherit the entire empire. The boys become my official heirs."
"No one in the commission will dare to touch them if they are legitimized."
"I don't care about your empire!" Lucia shouted, stepping into the room.
"I don't want your money, and I don't want your name!"
"You can't just force me into a marriage after what happened!"
Tomaso stood up, his chair scraping loudly against the marble floor.
He walked around the desk, his aura vibrating with pure dominance.
"I am not asking for your permission, Lucia," he said, stopping just inches from her.
"I am telling you how it is going to be."
"The Rossi family will not stop."
"They know I found you. They know the boys are my weakness."
"If you walk out of these gates, you die. They die."
Lucia’s eyes filled with tears of anger.
"You're a monster."
"I am the monster that keeps the other monsters away from you," Tomaso corrected her.
His voice softened suddenly, and his hand reached out, gently wrapping around her wrist.
His touch was warm, sending a familiar spark through her body that she hated herself for feeling.
"Give me one year," Tomaso pleaded, his eyes filled with a desperate intensity she had never seen before.
"One year to destroy the Rossis."
"If you still hate me after that... I will let you go. I swear it."
Before Lucia could answer, a loud explosion rocked the villa.
The glass windows of the study shattered inward.
The alarms began to blare, a high-pitched scream that signaled a perimeter breach.
May you like
The Rossis hadn't waited.
They had followed them to Sicily.
