He glanced up from his seat, eyes half-lidded with disinterest. He had been nursing a glass of whiskey, the amber liquid swirling lazily in the dim light of the private kitchen. The scent of fine aged liquor clung to the air, mixing with the faint aroma of whatever the kitchen had been used for last. His mood, as usual, was unreadable; which ettled somewhere between indifference and barely restrained irritation.
āPanettone?ā he repeated, voice low, almost amused, but with an unmistakable edge of derision. He turned his gaze toward Visconti, sizing him up with the slow, measured look of a predator assessing whether something was worth the effort of hunting.
The warmth of the private kitchen did little to thaw the ice that had settled deep in his chest, the ice that had been there since the day he had learned the truth. The day he had been cast aside. The day he had burned.
He had been their young master once. Their pride, their future. The Vongolaās hidden, unspoken strength. And yet, when the time came when he reached out to claim what should have been his and he had been rejected. By the rings. By the family. By the man he had once called āfather.ā
The flames that consumed him that night had long since died down, but the embers of his resentment still smoldered beneath the surface. He didnāt dwell on the past, not the way Coyote did. He didnāt waste time mourning what was already lost. But that didnāt mean he had forgiven.
āI donāt eat sweets,ā he finally said, his voice low, even, but carrying the unmistakable weight of finality.
He lifted his glass, tilting it slightly, watching as the whiskey caught the light. Strong, sharp, burning like something real, something that didnāt hide behind layers of sugar and false comfort.
āIf itās not meat, I donāt want it.ā He took a slow sip, savoring the burn as it slid down his throat. āAnd if itās not paired with something that kicks harder than a gunshot, donāt waste my goddamn time.ā
There was no room in his world for soft things. No room for empty gestures. No room for anything that dulled the edges of reality. He had spent too long in the cold to start pretending now.