Matteo didn't reply her, he simply stepped out of the bedroom, the heavy oak door clicking shut behind him.
He stood in the hallway for a moment, letting the silence of the Roman estate settle over him. To the world, this was a dangerous fortress to him, it was home.
This mansion wasn't an inheritance it was conquer.
He remembered being a nameless boy, his feet bare and blood-crusted,
Shivering in dark alleys of Sicily after finding his mother in that pool of red.
He had been a stray, a piece of dirt, until The Don had reached out a hand.
He had been given the name Matteo. He had chosen the name Ramirez.
The portraits on these walls weren't causua, they were trophies.
Every frame represented a milestone in his growth, a life taken or a debt collected to build this empire from nothing he could now call his.
The house was his first key to power. More than cold marble and high ceilings designed to bury the sound of a child's scream.
