Barone.
She’s a motherfucking Barone.
That alone is why she’s not bleeding on my floor right now, because we’ve all heard the stories. And now? I’ve got two Barone-blooded kids sitting at my table with their mother, who lied to me, to my brothers, to myclub.
But I have to get my shit together. The business still stands. The contract’s still living.
I reach out, placing a firm hand on Axel’s and Nitro’s shoulders. They’re coiled like I am—ready to go to war. But now they get it. Now they see why I snapped.
I raise my hand, calming the room.
We do not start a war we can’t finish. Not tonight.
Gabriella tsks.
My eyes snap to the boys. They reach for their weapons again.
Oh, hell no.
“What thefuckis this shit? My sons are armed?” My voice cuts through the tension like a blade. “Gabriella, this meeting doesn’t move another inch until you explain that shit. I’ll sever this deal before you can blink. Test me,bitch.”
The venom in my voice is damn near nuclear. I’m vibrating with rage, my control hanging by a thread. Axel and Nitro move in beside me, flanking me like the soldiers they are.
Gabriella speaks in Italian—sharp, clipped. The boys back down, reluctantly holstering their weapons, but not before shooting us a glare that says they’d rather be shooting bullets.
What. The. Actual. Fuck?
She meets my gaze, and for a second, I swear she looks... bored like explaining anything to me is an inconvenience.
“My sons are armed because they’re mine,” she says, her voice cool and cutting. “Where I go, they go. What I do, they do. They’re trained, disciplined, and deadly. They protect me. You don’t have to like it, but youwillrespect it.”
She pauses, letting that sit, then adds with a sharp look, “And let’s not forget—you were a gun-toting president-in-the-making at a younger age than they are now. Don’t be a hypocrite, Talon.”
Her words hit their mark.
I want to argue. Iwantto rip into her.
But she’s not wrong.
And that pisses me off more than anything.
With my eyes locked on her, I realize something bone-deep—this isn’t the shy, sweet girl I fell for eighteen years ago. I don’t know the woman sitting across from me now. But what I do know? She’s not my Gabby anymore.
And I fucking hate it.
She wants me to snap. I can feel my trigger finger twitch. Anger’s crawling under my skin, coiling tight and ready to explode. Rational thought took a nosedive when I realized who she and those boys were to me.
And yeah, I was a dick back then. I own that. But this? This cold indifference, this ice in her eyes like I’m a stranger who means nothing? It’s too damn much.
Those are my kids.Ourkids. Seventeen years, and I didn’t know they even existed. And she sits here, dropping bombs and acting like my rage is out of line? Maybe it is. Maybe I’m irrational. I don’t give a fuck.
She’s in my house now. And in here, she’s under my rule.
I stare her down—Barone or not. She was wrong, and she knows it. My attention jerks away when one of the boys speaks.He stands beside her, his stare cutting through me like a blade. And all I see is hatred.
My flesh and blood fucking hates me.
“Look, I get it. You’re pissed, but you need to check yourself. Mymammatried to tell you, and your sorry ass, about us for months. You’re the one who changed your number,” he hisses, raising a brow at me.