Isabella waved a dismissive hand. “I understand. I will speak to your father. Now, both of you, leave.”
Beaming, Lorenzo pulled Chiara from the room. Isabella turned her gaze to me. “Alessia, you will receive official word at your family home in a few days. Prepare yourself.”
My mother and I walked out of the estate. Just as we reached our car, Lorenzo stepped into our path.
He confronted me, his face flushed with anger. “What did you say to my mother? I’m telling you, Chiara and I have already exchanged engagement rings. Don’t even think about breaking us up!”
“I’ll send someone to collect the ring I gave you. I know that losing the position of heir’s wife is a blow, so I’ll have some jewelry sent over as compensation. But you are forbidden from bothering me or my mother again.”
I wrenched my arm from his grasp. “Lorenzo, do you really believe that I, Alessia Rossi, am that desperate for you? That I need to scheme my way into your family? Rest assured, I am not that kind of woman, and I would never stoop so low.”
Chiara sneered from beside him. “I hate you hypocritical socialites, always pretending to be above it all. Alessia, if you really didn’t care, you wouldn’t have run crying to Mrs. Isabella. She already dislikes me, and I bet it’s because you’ve been poisoning her mind against me.”
“Besides, who are the Rossis, anyway? What do you have to be so proud of? I’m different. My father is the biggest arms dealer in Europe. He will be Lorenzo’s strongest backer. What do you have that compares to me?”
“My dad adores me. If I don’t get what I want, he’ll use his business to influence the Don’s decision. Do you think the Don wants a powerful business partner, or a useless woman from some minor family?”
I was stunned by her sheer stupidity. Here, on the Don’s own territory, she dared to threaten the family’s internal decisions with outside influence. In our world, that was the ultimate taboo, a fatal mistake. Who did she think she was dealing with?
I didn’t have to lift a finger. Every single word she just uttered would find its way to the Don’s ears.
I took a step back. “In that case, I wish you and Lorenzo a long and happy life together.”
My mother was trembling with rage. If I hadn’t been holding her arm, she would have slapped Chiara across the face.
On the drive home, my mother looked at me with deep worry. “I’ve heard that the Don, Giovanni, is a cold and ruthless man. He’s thirty-five and still unmarried. There are rumors he was badly injured in Sicily years ago… I wonder if there’s an issue with his health…”
I took her hand. “Mama, don’t worry. A daughter of the Rossi family will not be wronged, no matter who she marries. You have to trust me.”
“Besides, haven’t you noticed? Despite all the rumors, whenever the core family members speak of Don Giovanni, it is with nothing but awe and absolute obedience. I am certain he is no ordinary man.”
“And once I marry him,” I added with a small, sharp smile, “Lorenzo will have to respectfully call me ‘Madre’.”
My mother couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. “Oh, you wicked child.”
When my father came home and heard what had transpired at the estate, he let out a cold laugh. “Good riddance. We’re better off without that fool.”
“Besides, Don Giovanni is far more capable than the rumors suggest. Marrying him might not be a bad thing for you. And what that arms dealer’s daughter said today… she has crossed a line she can’t uncross.”
My father lit a cigar, slowly exhaling a cloud of smoke. “In our world, you never allow an outsider to use business to blackmail internal family matters. She thinks her father’s arms trade can sway the Don? How naive.”
Three days later, the news that Lorenzo had broken our engagement to marry Chiara, the arms dealer’s daughter, spread like wildfire through Italy’s high society. Overnight, I was a laughingstock.
Friends called one after another. Some offered genuine sympathy, others barely concealed their schadenfreude.
But by breaking the engagement, Lorenzo had made a powerful enemy of the Rossi family. We were the leaders of the northern family alliance. Since he had betrayed our pact, we were no longer obligated to smooth his path in our business dealings.
At a family council, my father announced, “As of today, we are terminating all business partnerships connected to Lorenzo’s faction. Since he chose the arms dealer’s daughter, let the arms trade support his position as heir.”
