Page 22 of Iron Roses
He says her name like it’s a problem he’s already halfway solved.
“She’s loose,” he continues. “I’ve got a feeling she’ll run to Cassian. If she hasn’t already.”
I let out a short breath. A laugh, more disbelief than anything else. “You believe in blood ties? You think because they were bound as kids, she finds him? They barely know each other. She might not know it but he chose her sister.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“That’s bullshit,” I say. “Cassian wouldn’t let her in. Not with what it means. Not with what it costs.”
Fausto shrugs. “He loved one Fontanesi girl. You think he can resist another?”
“He’s still mourning the first.”
“Exactly,” Fausto says. “He’s cracked.” Fausto’s smile sharpens. “Let me make it worth your time.”
He steps closer, voice lower now.
“I’ll give you half of the Fontanesi distribution.”
That gets my attention.
He sees it.
“My brother,” he says, “built the most efficient smuggling routes in the south. Cleaner than yours. Faster than mine. You help me secure it, and half of it’s yours.”
I narrow my eyes. “Why would you hand that to me?”
He looks at me like I already know.
“Because I know Oreste’s daughter will go to Cassian,” he says. “And when she does—I want you to deliver her to me.”
The wind picks up.
It whistles through the pine. The scent of sap and damp soil coils around us.
I watch him. I know what he is. What I am. We’ve both long since traded blood for margin.
I nod once.
“Deal.”
Fausto lights a cigarette and watches me go, but I don’t look back. The path is narrow, roots like veins under the pine needles. My boots press deep into the earth. The trees stretch taller the farther I walk. The dark thickens.
He thinks I’m doing this for greed.
He’s not wrong. But he’s not right either.
It was my job to protect the family name after my brother died. Not the blood, not the boy—but the name. Rivetti isn’t built on love stories. It’s built on structure. On fear. On remembering what happens when we let our guard down.
Cassian tries. But he’s young. Soft in places he shouldn’t be.
He loved that girl.
Giovanna.
Too much, too publicly.
She made him gentle. She made him quiet. That kind of softness? It spreads. Weakens the foundation. Love like that doesn’t keep a family alive.
