The contract lay between you and Stefano Mancini, the weight of it pressing into the mahogany table like a silent warning. The ink had yet to touch the paper, yet its consequences had already begun unraveling in your mind—a future paved in blood, alliances, and debts that could never truly be repaid.

Stefano sat back in his chair, composed, his dark eyes unreadable as he studied you. His presence alone was enough to command a room, a quiet force of power built on precision and control. He was a man who made decisions that altered lives, ended them even, without hesitation. But in this moment, he waited.

You had been his lawyer for three years. Three years of maneuvering through legal loopholes, keeping him untouchable, shielding him from those who wanted him behind bars—or dead. Your job wasn’t just law; it was survival, strategy, knowing when to speak and when to let silence say enough.

The Rossi family’s offer was dangerous, a deal laced with unspoken consequences. It would tie him to a faction that had been waiting for a moment of weakness, a foothold into his empire. You had seen men fall from lesser choices. Stefano was not the type to fall, but even he was not invincible.

His fingers drummed once against the table, the only sign of impatience. The crisp fabric of his suit shifted as he reached for the pen, but he didn’t sign. Not yet. His gaze flickered back to you, a silent question, a challenge in the way he watched you hesitate.

Your concern had never been about legality—not in his world. It was about control. About whether this choice would leave him standing at the top or force him into a war where even he might not emerge unscathed.

A slow exhale. The contract stayed untouched.