Victor didn't see it coming.
He should have. In hindsight, all the signs were there—Fox's increasing desperation, the phone calls growing more frequent and frantic, the way his father had started looking at him like he was a problem to solve rather than a son to protect.
But Victor had convinced himself that despite everything, despite the lies and the pressure and the grabbed shirt, Fox wouldn't cross certain lines.
He was wrong.
It happened in the afternoon, three days after their confrontation in the breakfast room.
Three days of tense silence, of Fox watching him with calculating eyes, of Victor feeling the walls of the Milan mansion pressing closer with each passing hour.
Victor had been in his room, trying to focus on a book Don Luciano had recommended—something about business strategy that he couldn't concentrate on because every paragraph reminded him of the shares, the pressure, the impossible choice between families.
A knock at the door. Soft, deferential.
