The Crushing Weight

Corrado POV

Her fingers dug violently into the fabric of my suit jacket, her hysterical sobs vibrating against my spine with every heavy step I took up the staircase. My jaw still pulsed with a dull, stinging heat from where she had struck me.

The exact second she had choked out those words downstairs—*Giovanni is dead*—the brutal reality had finally clicked into place. She genuinely hadn't know