Chapter 40 Father & Son's Confrontation
Chapter 40 Father & Son's Confrontation
Father & Son's Confrontation
"You planted those documents in her room," Ethan said, his voice cutting through the quiet of Diego's private dining room like a blade.
Diego didn't look up from his steak, continuing to cut the meat with methodical precision. Each slice was deliberate, controlled, almost surgical in its execution. The knife moved through the flesh like it was butter, and the sound it made against the plate was sharp and rhythmic.
"Good evening to you too, son," Diego replied calmly, lifting a perfectly cut piece of meat to his mouth. "I trust you've resolved the situation with your wife?"
"Don't." Ethan stepped further into the room, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. The classified shipping manifests, the letter to Marco Benedetti… you put them there."
Diego chewed slowly, deliberately, before setting down his fork and finally looking up at his son. His dark eyes held no surprise, no guilt, no remorse. If anything, he looked mildly annoyed at having his dinner interrupted.
"I'm not sure what you're implying," he said with infuriating calm. "But I'd be careful about making accusations you can't prove."
"I don't need proof," Ethan snarled, moving closer to the table. "I know you. I know how your mind works. You saw Sophia as a threat to your control over me, so you decided to eliminate that threat."
Diego took another bite of his steak, chewing with the same methodical care he applied to everything. The silence stretched between them, filled only with the sound of knife against plate and Diego's careful mastication.
"The meat is excellent tonight," Diego said conversationally. "Aged properly, seasoned perfectly. There's an art to preparing something this way… it requires patience, precision, and the willingness to cut away anything that doesn't belong."
The metaphor was unmistakable, and it made Ethan's blood boil. "She's my wife, not a piece of meat to be carved up according to your preferences."
"Is she?" Diego set down his knife and leaned back in his chair, studying his son with calculating eyes. "Because from where I sit, she's a liability who's made you forget your responsibilities to this family."
"My responsibilities?" Ethan's voice rose with incredulous fury. "You mean my responsibility to be your puppet? To follow your orders without question? To sacrifice anything resembling happiness for the sake of business?"
"I mean your responsibility to put family interests above personal desires," Diego replied, his voice hardening slightly. "Something you seem to have forgotten in your infatuation with that girl."
"That girl is my wife. The woman I…" Ethan stopped himself before he could complete the sentence, but Diego's slight smile suggested he'd heard enough.
"The woman you what, Ethan? Love?" Diego picked up his knife again, using it to point at his son like a weapon. "Love is a luxury we cannot afford. It makes us weak, vulnerable, predictable. It makes us make poor decisions based on emotion instead of strategy."
"Like the decision to frame an innocent woman for treason?"
"Like the decision to let that innocent woman turn you into someone I no longer recognize," Diego countered, returning to his methodical cutting. "The son I raised would never have questioned family authority for the sake of a woman. The son I raised understood that obstacles must be removed, one way or another."
Ethan stared at his father, seeing clearly for the first time the man who had shaped him. Not a patriarch protecting his family, but a control freak who saw love as a disease to be cured and loyalty as something to be commanded rather than earned.
"You destroyed her," Ethan said quietly. "You destroyed us. For what? To prove you still control me?"
"I saved you," Diego corrected, cutting another piece of meat with unnecessary force. "I saved you from making the same mistakes I made with your mother. I saved you from letting emotional attachment compromise your judgment and threaten everything we've built."
"You didn't save me from anything. You took away the only good thing in my life because it threatened your authority."
Diego's knife paused mid-cut, his eyes flashing with something dangerous. "Your only good thing? What about this family? What about the empire we've built together? What about your responsibilities as my heir?"
"What about my right to choose my own path?" Ethan shot back. "What about my right to find happiness outside of your approval?"
"Happiness." Diego spat the word like it tasted bitter. "Happiness is what weak men pursue while strong men build legacies. Happiness is what gets you killed in this business."
"Then maybe I don't want to be in this business anymore."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Diego's face went very still, very cold, and when he spoke again, his voice carried the kind of quiet menace that had terrified enemies for decades.
"Don't say things you don't mean, son."
"I mean every word," Ethan replied, though his voice shook slightly with the magnitude of what he was suggesting. "Maybe I'm tired of being your weapon. Maybe I'm tired of hurting people to protect interests that don't align with my own values anymore."
Diego set down his knife and napkin with deliberate care, then stood slowly from his chair. At full height, he was still an imposing figure, radiating the kind of authority that came from years of unquestioned power.
"Your values," he repeated softly. "And where did these new values come from? From your wife, perhaps? From the woman who was planning to betray us to our enemies?"
"She wasn't planning anything, and you know it," Ethan said desperately. "The evidence was fake, planted, designed to make me turn against her. And it worked, didn't it? You succeeded in destroying the only real connection I've ever had."
"I succeeded in protecting you from yourself," Diego corrected. "And I'll continue to protect you, whether you appreciate it or not."
Something in his tone made Ethan's blood run cold. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Diego moved around the table with predatory grace, coming to stand directly in front of his son. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried the weight of absolute conviction.
"It means that I will remove every obstacle that stands between you and your destiny as head of this family. Every distraction, every temptation, every person who threatens to make you forget who you are and what you owe to the Rossi name."
"If you hurt her…"
"I won't have to," Diego interrupted smoothly. "You've already done that. You've already chosen family loyalty over personal desire. You've already proven that when forced to choose, you'll do what's necessary to protect what matters most."
The casual cruelty of his father's manipulation hit Ethan like a physical blow. Diego hadn't just destroyed his relationship with Sophia… he'd used Ethan as the weapon to do it.
"You're a monster," Ethan said quietly.
"I'm a survivor," Diego corrected. "And more importantly, I'm a father who refuses to watch his son destroy himself over a woman who was never worth the risk."
"She was worth everything," Ethan said, his voice breaking slightly. "And you took her away from me."
Diego picked up his knife again, testing the edge against his thumb with casual precision. "I took away a weakness that would have gotten you killed. You should thank me."
"I should kill you."
The threat was spoken so quietly that for a moment Diego wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. When he looked up at his son, he saw something in Ethan's eyes that he'd never seen before… genuine hatred mixed with grief so deep it had transformed into something dangerous.
"But you won't," Diego said calmly, returning his attention to his dinner. "Because despite everything, you're still my son. And deep down, you know I'm right about her."
As Ethan turned and walked away without another word, Diego continued eating his steak with the same methodical precision, cutting each piece as if he were dissecting something that had once been alive.