Chapter 20%
The silk hugged my skin like it remembered blood. Black, smooth, slippery down my legs as I stepped into the villa at Val Serano. Eighty–one years old. My father was turning eighty–fucking–one. And still–still–he stood like a goddamn mountain.
The estate was lit up like a coronation. Golden chandeliers. Crystal decanters. Every mafia name that mattered sat under that roof tonight, raising glasses and pretending to smile. I didn’t dress for mourning. I dressed like death had a pulse and walked back into the room with new lipstick. All black. All eyes. No apologies. Every head turned. A pause. Then the false smiles resumed.
“Doris,” Matteo came over, giving me a quick kiss on each cheek like the sight of me didn’t crack his mask. “You look like war.“?
“Good,” I said. “I came armed.”
“Figlia mia,” my father said as I approached, his voice warm, eyes sharper than the blade I kept strapped to my thigh.
“Buon compleanno, papà.” I leaned in, kissed both his cheeks. He smelled like cigar smoke and silver. “Still haven’t died. I admire the commitment.”
He laughed, rough and deep, and waved off his bodyguards as if he were still immortal. Idiot. Beloved idiot.
I handed him the box myself–a pistol, custom–made, engraved in steel: Per il sangue che ci resta.}
For the blood we have left.”
His eyes flickered, caught something heavy in the weight of it.”
“A reminder,” I said, quietly. “That the ones who matter still bleed together.”}
He gripped my hand harder than he used to. “And the ones who don’t?“> “They drown,” I said.
We toasted champagne. Raised crystal flutes, and everyone watched like they didn’t hate each other. Glasses clinked. False laughter. A dozen dons and a hundred knives in the room, all smiling like it was peace.§
Then-
Crack.
First shot.
It missed. Glass shattered behind my father’s head. Everyone froze except me. My heel already twisted, my back turning to shield him.
Second shot- It hit.
The bullet slammed into his chest. I heard it before I saw it. The wet cough. The red blooming over his suit like a damn rose. He stumbled back. And everything inside me snapped.
I tackled him to the marble before the screams began. Shoved my arm under his head, my other hand going for the pistol at my side. Already firing. Already screaming.”
“Get him down! Lock the fucking doors!” I shouted, voice cutting through the chaos.
The chandeliers exploded above us–more gunfire. I didn’t see who screamed next, but it wasn’t me.}
Lucien dove in like a shadow–tackled me sideways as another shot clipped my arm. Burned like fire. I bit down on the pain and kept my gun raised.
“Stay down!” he growled, eyes scanning the high windows.
“I don’t stay down,” I spat, “Get him to the panic room. Now.”
My father was barely conscious, but his fingers curled around the pistol I gave him like it was the last thing that tethered him to this world.
“Matteo! Enzo!” I roared.
My brothers appeared like wolves from smoke.
“Find the bastard. Alive if you can. Dead if it’s faster.“}
They nodded once, then vanished into the walls with half the guard team.”
Lucien and I dragged my father through the hall–his weight heavy, breath ragged. Blood smeared on my silk, but I didn’t care. The silk was a lie anyway. This was who I was.
Glass rained behind us. Screams everywhere. I didn’t flinch.
We got to the panic room. Steel doors closed behind us. Silence slammed into the air like a verdict. I dropped to my knees, pressed hard on the wound over his chest, my own arm throbbing.
Lucien checked the wound, whispered, “He’s lucky. It didn’t pierce the heart.“}
“He’s not lucky,” I said. “He’s just too damn stubborn to die on his birthday.“”
My hands were shaking. But my voice wasn’t. I looked around the room. My father gasping. Lucien bloodied. My arm burning. But I was upright. Still breathing.
“They think we’re weak,” I said, breathing out slowly. “That we’re broken. That we ran.”
I looked at the guards, the cameras, the blood dripping off my wrist.!!
“They think we’re shadows of what we were.“%
I stood, fixed my hair, wiped the blood off my lip with the back of my hand.
“Let’s show them what ghosts become.”
turien looked at me unire niet hut sure “This was Edmund”
23
S
315 PM 0
Lucien looked at me, voice quiet but sure. “This was Edmund.“N
“No doubt” I stared at the monitors, at the wreckage of the party, glass and roses and blood everywhere.}
“They think this is over,” I said slowly, my voice like smoke curling from a loaded gun.
Lucien leaned closer. “What do you want to do?”
I smiled, just slightly. It felt like a blade being unsheathed inside my chest.”
“We remind them what I am.”
“What’s that?“W
I looked at him. “I’m the daughter of Angelo Rosinni. I’m the woman they couldn’t kill. And now I’m the storm that eats dynasties.“}
And I meant it.
-10
Hospitals smell like bleach and endings. Not death–no, that has its own scent. But the before. The silence before the beeping stops, before the hands go still. That’s what I sat in. Blood–drenched silk clinging to my skin, dried stiff across my ribs, streaked where I wiped my father’s blood.
No one dared sit near me. Not even the nurses. The guards posted down the hall knew better than to ask questions. Mafia heiress. Ghost in high heels. Whatever they whispered behind my back, I had earned.
I stared at the light above. I think I hated how clean it was. How white everything was. My father was somewhere inside–his chest torn open, surgeons playing god with trembling hands–and the world outside just… kept spinning.”
Then it slid across the floor. Quiet. Like it didn’t want to be seen.
A burner phone. Black. Scuffed. Left by someone who didn’t want to stay long.”
I didn’t hesitate. Picked it up. Swiped.”
The video started instantly–no passcode, no delay.
Edmund. Laughing. Raising a glass in some high–rise lounge in Milan. Lester beside him, grinning like the devil with a new toy.”
“Let her bury her father,” Edmund said, the wine catching the light as he swirled it. “We’ll burn the rest after.”
I didn’t blink. I didn’t breathe.”
I crushed the phone in my hand. It cracked easy. Like bone.
A nurse stepped in as the pieces hit the floor. Her voice was quiet, unsure. “Ma’am… you’re bleeding. You need stitches.”}
I looked at her–really looked at her. Pale blue scrubs, trembling hands, eyes wide like she thought I might shoot her. I wiped my bloody palm on the curtain behind me.
“He needs a war,” I said flatly.
Not stitches. Not pity. Not waiting. War.
2/2 86.5%
