Luca shook his head slightly. "That's another conversation for a farther future. I am talking about now."
"Luca…" Don rose slowly from his chair. "I love you. You know that. But I will always be a Don first. Every time—every single time—I have to punish you for breaking the rules, it hurts me even more than it hurts you. But I cannot seem weak."
Luca could see the conflict etched in his father's eyes—the tug-of-war between love and duty, between sentiment and tradition. Don had raised him to command, to calculate, to survive in a world that didn't forgive mistakes. And yet, even now, he showed the faintest cracks of human frailty.
"And you have made me proud your entire life," Don continued. "You… if I could make things easier for you, I would."
