Heir apparent to the Corleone Family. My betrothed in an alliance sealed not by love, but by blood and territory. He stood with perfect posture, his expression carved from marble—distant, uninvolved, as though the scene unfolding before him held no more significance than a change in weather. He did not speak a single word in my defense. He did not even meet my eyes.
In that moment, the last fragment of delusion crumbled to ash.
I had never been part of his calculations. I was merely a clause in a contract he had already decided to void.
"Respect," I said, my fingers curling at my sides, my voice low but carrying through the silence like smoke through still air, "is not earned by standing on the winning side. And it certainly does not belong to those who have made a habit of betraying their own blood behind closed doors."
The room went utterly still.
Don Ettore Ashford rose from his chair. The sharp crack of his cane against the marble floor echoed through the courtyard like a gunshot, silencing every whisper, every breath.
"Enough."
He regarded me with the cold detachment one reserves for strangers—or enemies.