Damien POV

The ghost of a smile felt entirely foreign on my ruined face.

*She never did.*

Isabella Falcone, a twenty-one-year-old girl with nothing left but a six-year-old brother and a blood-soaked legacy, had stared down a Capo and refused to bend. In the suffocating darkness of my room, her defiance was a blinding spark. But sparks were easily crushed by men like my father, or suffocated by cowards like Leo Gallo.

If my body finally gave out, Isabella and the boy would be devoured. My father would use her as a pawn, and the Gallos would slaughter them for the Brooklyn docks. I could not let that happen. I was her husband-to-be. I was still a Moretti.

"Enzo," I rasped, the sound tearing at my dry throat. "Paper. Pen."

Enzo moved silently, retrieving a heavy fountain pen and a sheet of parchment from the desk. He placed them on the tray across my lap.

My right hand was stiff, the muscles atrophied and trembling as I gripped the pen. Agony flared up my arm, but I forced my shattered nerves to obey. I wrote a *testamento* (will). It was a direct, undeniable order. If I died, Enzo was to immediately unlock my hidden Swiss accounts—two hundred thousand dollars the Don didn't know about—and mobilize my remaining loyal Soldiers. Their only mission: escort Isabella and Luca Falcone out of New York to a safe house in Europe, ensuring their absolute safety for the rest of their lives.

I finished the signature, my chest heaving from the exertion, and pushed the paper toward my Enforcer.

"My final Underboss command," I told him, my voice dropping to a lethal gravel.

Enzo took the paper. He didn't read it. He simply folded it and placed it over his heart. "I will defend this order with my life, Underboss."

I leaned back against the pillows, the darkness of the room no longer feeling like a grave. I was no longer just waiting to die. I was setting the board.

*

Isabella POV

The frantic phone call from my driver shattered the quiet of the following afternoon. I barely remembered the cab ride to St. Ignatius Academy. I burst through the wrought-iron gates of the school courtyard, my heart hammering violently against my ribs.

And then I saw him.

Leo Gallo. He had my six-year-old brother pinned to the cobblestones near the statue of the Virgin Mary. Luca’s lip was split, blood trickling down his pale forehead, but his dark eyes blazed with pure Falcone defiance.

"Tell them the truth, you little bastard!" Leo roared, his face purple with a manic, humiliated rage. He shook Luca by the collar. "Tell them your whore sister started the rumors! I am no *cornuto* (cuckold)!"

Angelica Russo stood a few feet away, her arms crossed, watching the assault with cold satisfaction. The rumors of her infidelity had already reached the Five Families, and Leo, too cowardly to confront the real threats, was taking his emasculation out on a child.

Luca spat a mixture of blood and saliva at Leo's polished shoes. "You are a coward who doesn't deserve honor."

Leo snapped. He reached into his tailored jacket and pulled a switchblade, pressing the steel toward Luca's small throat.

I screamed, sprinting across the manicured grass, but a shadow moved faster than I ever could.

Enzo Romano materialized like a demon from the ether. He didn't shout. He didn't hesitate. With a sickening crack, Enzo’s heavy boot connected with Leo’s wrist. The knife clattered across the stones as Enzo shoved the Capo backward, sending Leo crashing into the dirt.

I dropped to my knees, pulling Luca into my chest. He was shaking violently, his small hands gripping my coat, but he refused to cry. I kissed his bloody forehead, a lethal, freezing calm washing over my panic. Enzo stood between us and the Gallos, an immovable wall of black suit and silent violence.

I stood up, my hand slipping beneath the slit of my skirt to the thigh holster. The *stiletto* (dagger) slid free, the six-inch blade catching the late afternoon sun.

Leo scrambled backward, clutching his rapidly swelling wrist. "Isabella, be reasonable," he stammered, his bravado vanishing the moment he faced actual steel. "I was supposed to be your brother-in-law. The boy was disrespecting—"

"Shut your mouth," I cut him off, my voice dropping to an icy whisper that carried across the courtyard. I stepped around Enzo, the tip of my blade pointed directly at Leo's chest. "This is not over, Leo. This is a Vendetta. You touched my blood. I will burn your family to the ground."

Isabella POV

The blade of my *stiletto* gleamed inches from Leo Gallo's chest. Enzo Romano stood beside me like a shadow of death, his mere presence paralyzing the Capo. Leo swallowed hard, his eyes darting to the Enforcer, but his wounded pride made him reckless.

"He started it!" Leo snarled, pointing a shaking finger at my six-year-old brother. "The little bastard was spreading lies about Angelica. I was just teaching him respect. He needs to learn his place."

Angelica stepped forward, her face a mask of fake concern. "Isabella, please," she sighed, playing the voice of reason. "Don't escalate a simple misunderstanding into a family war. Have the boy apologize, and we can forget this ever happened."

My blood boiled. I didn't lower my blade. But before I could speak, Luca stepped out from behind my skirt. His lip was bleeding, and his small suit was covered in dirt, but his posture was rigid, echoing the proud stance of our late father.

"I am not a liar!" Luca's high, clear voice rang across the manicured courtyard. He didn't cry. He stood tall, his dark eyes blazing. "I demand to see the Don! Let him decide who is lying!"

The silence that followed was deafening. Leo and Angelica paled instantly. In our world, taking a dispute to Don Luciano meant a death sentence for whoever was proven wrong. They knew they couldn't survive the Don's judgment.

Before Leo could formulate another lie, the heavy crunch of tires on gravel broke the tension. A black Cadillac had pulled up to the wrought-iron gates. Giovanni Valenti, the Moretti family *Consigliere*, stepped out. He leaned heavily on his silver-headed cane, but with his other hand, he was dragging his seven-year-old grandson, Leo Valenti, by the ear.

The air in the courtyard turned to ice. The Elder's presence demanded absolute submission.

Giovanni pushed his weeping grandson forward. "Speak," the old man commanded, his voice a low rumble of absolute authority.

Little Leo sniffled, avoiding Luca's eyes. "I... I said the bad things about Miss Angelica. And when Mr. Gallo came, I got scared and hid. I let Luca take the blame. I'm sorry."

Giovanni turned his piercing, ancient gaze to Leo Gallo. The Capo looked as if he wanted the ground to swallow him whole.

"My grandson spoke the truth, perhaps... a little too loudly," Giovanni said, his tone polite but laced with lethal warning. "If you still feel wronged, by all means, take your complaint to the Don."

Leo Gallo's jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth would shatter. He lowered his head, utterly humiliated. "No, *Consigliere*. It was a misunderstanding."

Giovanni nodded once. He gave me a brief, unreadable look—a silent acknowledgment of my stance—before leading his grandson away.

The immediate threat was neutralized by the Elder's law. But as Leo Gallo and Angelica turned to leave, my eyes caught the torn fabric of Luca's jacket and the scraped, bleeding skin on his small shoulder. The *Consigliere* had delivered justice, but he hadn't delivered Vendetta.

I moved before they could take three steps. I blocked their path, my *stiletto* still gripped tightly in my hand.

"What more do you want, you bitch?" Leo snarled, though he instinctively took a step back.

I didn't answer. I looked at Luca's bleeding shoulder, then locked my eyes on Leo's tailored suit. With a flick of my wrist, the blade flashed.

Leo gasped as the razor-sharp steel sliced through his expensive wool jacket and bit deep into the flesh of his shoulder—the exact same spot, the exact same length as my brother's wound.

"This is for Luca," I whispered, my voice colder than the October wind. "A debt paid in blood."

Leo clutched his bleeding shoulder, his eyes wide with shock and pain. He couldn't comprehend that I had actually drawn his blood in broad daylight.

"You will pay for this, Falcone. I swear it," Leo hissed, stumbling away and leaning heavily on a terrified Angelica.

I stood my ground, wiping the blood from my blade. Let them plot. Let them rage. They had touched my blood, and I would not stop until their entire empire burned to ashes.

Damien POV

My room was a tomb. The heavy velvet curtains suffocated the moonlight, trapping the stench of stale whiskey, iodine, and my own rotting uselessness. I sat in the wheelchair, a ghost haunting my own decaying body.

Beside me, Enzo Romano stood like a shadow carved from obsidian. His voice was a flat, emotionless drone as he delivered his daily report—my only tether to the world I had lost.

"The Consigliere intervened," Enzo said, his hands clasped behind his back. "Giovanni Valenti dragged his grandson by the ear and forced him to confess to the lies. The boy, Luca, was cleared."

I stared at the dark wall. Giovanni was a traditionalist; his intervention was calculated, a move to maintain order.

"But Isabella Falcone did not let it end there," Enzo continued. "As Leo Gallo turned to leave, she blocked his path. She used her stiletto to slice his shoulder—the exact length and depth of the scrape on her brother's arm. She declared a Vendetta in broad daylight."

A flicker of something—pity, perhaps—brushed against my deadened nerves. Isabella was a beautiful, desperate creature thrashing in a snare. Slicing a Capo’s tailored suit was poetic, but it was suicide. She was one woman with a knife against an entire family of armed men. Her fire would only ensure she burned faster. I closed my eyes, waiting for the familiar numbness to swallow me again.

But Enzo didn't step back into the shadows. He lingered.

"There is one more thing, Underboss," Enzo said, his tone dropping a fraction of an octave. "Before the Consigliere arrived, when Leo Gallo had the knife to the boy's throat... Luca Falcone did not cry."

My eyes opened.

"He stood tall," Enzo murmured, "and he shouted, 'I demand to see the Don! Let him decide who is lying!'"

The words struck the stagnant air of my room like a crack of thunder.

*I demand to see the Don.*

A six-year-old boy. Marco Falcone’s blood. Marco had been my mentor, the man who taught me that in a world of monsters, the rules were the only weapon the weak could wield against the strong. Luca hadn't begged. He had instinctively invoked the absolute law of our world, turning my father's lethal authority into a shield.

And Isabella... she hadn't just lashed out. She was protecting that spirit.

For the first time in six months, the muscles in my ruined face twitched. The scar tissue pulled tight across my cheekbone as my lips curved upward. It was a harsh, broken thing—a smile born of irony and a sudden, violent spark of respect.

The Falcones were not prey. They were hawks, and they were refusing to die.

"The Gallos are bleeding pride," Enzo said, catching the shift in the room's atmosphere. He stepped closer, delivering the final piece of intelligence. "Old Man Gallo and his wife are in a frenzy. They sent an Associate to the Falcone estate with an ultimatum. Isabella is to deliver her mother's *Miracle Balm* and the Rossi pharmaceutical notes to their townhouse within twenty-four hours. Angelica Russo specifically demanded the notes. Furthermore, Isabella is ordered to kneel at their door for an hour to repent."

The greed of vultures. Angelica Russo’s obsession with the Rossi formulas was a dangerous variable, one I filed away in my awakening mind.

"And Isabella's response?" I rasped, my voice sounding like crushed glass.

"She didn't give one," Enzo replied, the faintest hint of dark amusement in his eyes. "Her maid, Chelsea, broke the messenger's nose with a single punch and threw him into the street."

The smile on my face hardened into something lethal.

The Gallos had been publicly humiliated twice in one day. A broken nose on their messenger was the final nail. Leo Gallo was a coward, but a humiliated coward with men at his disposal was a rabid dog. He wouldn't wait for the Don's permission. He would march on the Falcone estate with guns drawn.

Isabella’s defiance was magnificent, but she could not hold off a strike team with a stiletto and a loyal maid. She needed a shield. She needed her husband.

I looked down at my useless, paralyzed legs. The despair that had anchored me to this chair for half a year suddenly felt like a chain I needed to snap. I could not let the Falcone fire be extinguished.

I gripped the armrests of my wheelchair, my knuckles turning white.

"Enzo," I breathed, the command scraping raw against my throat, but carrying the undeniable weight of the Underboss. "Get me Dr. Bianchi."