Isabella POV

Caterina’s face turned a sickly, ashen gray. Her eyes darted from me to the heavy oak door and back again. The realization of her catastrophic blunder shattered her carefully crafted mask of Sicilian elegance.

"What are you doing out here?" she hissed, her voice trembling with a volatile mix of panic and fury.

I tilted my head, my voice a soft, confused whisper. "I don't understand. Isn't Caitlin in that room?"

That was the spark that ignited the powder keg. Caterina let out a guttural, unhinged shriek. She lunged forward, her hand slicing through the air.

*Smack.*

The slap echoed down the corridor like a gunshot. My head snapped to the side, a sharp, burning pain blooming across my left cheek. I tasted copper. I didn't stumble. I didn't raise a hand to defend myself. I simply turned my face back to her, my green eyes locking onto her wide, manic ones.

The hallway plunged into a suffocating, dead silence.

I reached up, my fingertips lightly brushing my stinging cheek. My voice was not loud, but in that absolute quiet, it carried to every corner of the wing. "Mrs. Moretti. My father, Liam Carson, may have bled out for this alliance, but Carson blood has not run dry. My upbringing is the sole responsibility of my grandmother, the Matriarch of the Carson family. Since when is it your place to strike me?"

Eleanor’s silver wolf-headed cane slammed into the hardwood floor. *Clack.* The sound made Caterina flinch.

Francesca Gallo let out a low, mocking tsk. The other wives exchanged condemning glares. Striking an allied family's daughter in front of her Matriarch was a gross violation of our world's unspoken laws.

Under the crushing weight of Eleanor’s murderous glare and the collective judgment of the Outfit's wives, Caterina’s chest heaved. She swallowed hard, her eyes burning with a promise of death. "Mi dispiace" (I apologize), she choked out, the words tasting like ash in her mouth. "My nerves... got the better of me."

She immediately tried to salvage the wreckage. "I must go find Caitlin. Come, Isabella, let us leave this mess to the staff." She reached out to grab my arm.

I stepped back, letting her hand grasp empty air. I turned my back on her entirely and faced my grandmother. I did not kneel, but I bowed deeply, my posture rigid with formal respect.

"Nonna" (Grandmother), I said, my tone ringing with solemn gravity. "I came to this wing to rest with my cousin Caitlin. Now she is missing, and there are strange sounds coming from that room. I beg you, as the Matriarch of the Carson family, to take charge. Seek the truth. Find my cousin."

Caterina gasped, stepping forward. "Eleanor, this is unnecessary—"

"Silence," Eleanor commanded, her voice a low rumble of thunder. She looked at Caterina with utter disdain, then turned to the two Carson soldiers flanking her. "Open the door."

Caterina was trapped. The color drained from her face completely.

But before the soldiers could take a step, Eleanor raised her cane, halting them. Her sharp, calculating eyes bored into mine. She needed her judgment to be airtight. "Isabella. Tell me exactly where you were resting before you came out here."

Every eye in the corridor snapped back to me. I felt the weight of their stares—some pitying, some suspicious, Caterina’s desperate and venomous.

This was it. The final trap.

I raised my uninjured right hand and pointed a steady finger directly at the closed oak door. I kept my voice eerily calm, devoid of any hesitation. "The room I was resting in, Nonna... is that one."

The air in the hallway instantly turned toxic. The sympathetic murmurs died, replaced by sharp gasps of revulsion. The wives’ faces twisted into masks of disgust. Even Eleanor’s stoic expression faltered, a flicker of profound disappointment crossing her weathered features.

Caterina’s terror vanished, replaced by a sudden, vicious gleam of triumph. She thought I had just confessed to orchestrating the entire scandal. In the eyes of every woman present, I had just transformed from a wronged victim into a venomous, calculating liar who had sacrificed her own blood for a petty rivalry.

I lowered my hand and waited for the door to open.

Isabella POV

I lowered my hand and waited. At Eleanor’s sharp nod, the two Carson soldiers shoved the heavy oak door open.

The stench of cheap gin, sweat, and sex spilled into the pristine corridor. Inside, the scene was a grotesque tableau. Caitlin was sprawled on the floor, her emerald dress torn and bunched around her waist, next to a young, half-naked Moretti Associate who looked absolutely terrified.

A collective gasp rippled through the Outfit wives. The silence that followed was deafening.

Caitlin blinked against the sudden intrusion of light. Then, her bloodshot eyes found me standing calmly among the crowd. The realization of her ruin snapped whatever sanity she had left.

"You bitch! I'll kill you!" she shrieked, a feral, guttural sound. She scrambled up and lunged at me, her manicured nails aimed directly at my eyes.

I didn't flinch. I didn't step back. As she closed the distance, I simply raised my arm and caught her wrist mid-air. My grip was like a steel vice, locking her in place. I stared into her twisted, hateful face, my voice chillingly calm. "Caitlin, what are you talking about?"

Before she could scream again, Gina broke from the crowd. My aunt didn't rush to cover her daughter's exposed skin; instead, she dragged Caitlin down, and both of them threw themselves dramatically at my grandmother's feet.

"Mother Eleanor, you must seek justice for us!" Gina sobbed, clutching the hem of Eleanor’s dark skirt. "Isabella, she... she was always jealous of Caitlin! She lured Caitlin into that room to ruin her! To ruin our family's name!"

The performance was flawless. The venomous whispers among the wives started instantly, their judgmental eyes darting back to me.

Eleanor’s face remained a mask of carved stone. She lifted her silver wolf-headed cane and struck the floor once. *Clack.* The corridor fell dead silent. Her piercing gaze shifted to me. "Isabella. Explain."

I offered a perfect, respectful curtsy. "Nonna" (Grandmother), I said evenly, "I am innocent."

"Liar!" Caitlin screamed, her face red with panic. "You pushed me in with that man and locked the door! I heard the bolt slide home!"

Before I could even open my mouth to defend myself, Maeve, Eleanor’s most trusted attendant who had been standing right beside the soldiers, spoke up. Her voice was flat, carrying no emotion, yet it echoed loudly in the quiet hall.

"The door was not locked, my Lady. It opened with a simple push."

The wives exchanged sharp glances. The first crack in Caitlin’s lie had just splintered wide open.

Panic seized Caitlin’s features. She scrambled up, her eyes wild. "Even if it wasn't locked, you held it shut! I was pulling on the handle with all my might! Your hand must be torn to shreds!"

Desperate to prove her point, she lunged forward and snatched my left hand—the very hand she had pinned to a mattress with a stiletto just hours ago. She held it up high, presenting it to the crowd like a bloody trophy.

Every eye locked onto my skin.

There was no blood. There was no gaping wound. The skin was pale, smooth, and completely unblemished.

Caitlin’s eyes bulged out of her head. She stared at my flawless hand, her voice dropping to a horrified, trembling whisper. "No... impossible... it should be bleeding..."

I looked at my hand, a phantom memory washing over me. I remembered the suffocating scent of expensive cologne, the dark abyss of Damien Moretti’s eyes, and the surprisingly gentle touch of his fingers as he applied that unknown, miraculous salve to my torn flesh. His secret was my shield, a devil's miracle that had just sealed my cousin's fate.

I slowly pulled my hand from her trembling grasp, letting her sink entirely into her own madness. I met my grandmother's calculating gaze, stepping out of the role of the accused and into the role of the executioner.

"The truth is, cousin, you offered to help me to my room because I felt unwell," I said, letting the words hang in the air as Gina and Caitlin turned ashen. "I admit, I woke up shortly after I lay down. I was startled awake... by a conversation. A very interesting conversation happening right outside my door."

Isabella POV

The words hung in the heavy, suffocating air of the corridor. Gina and Caitlin turned a sickly shade of ash, the last remnants of their confidence evaporating.

"A conversation?" Eleanor prompted, her voice dangerously low, her grip tightening on her silver wolf-headed cane.

I kept my gaze steady on my grandmother, ignoring the two trembling women on the floor. "Yes, Nonna. I heard Aunt Gina and Caitlin whispering outside my door. They were discussing what to do after my... unfortunate ruin tonight." I paused, letting the silence stretch until it was almost unbearable. "They planned to use my disgrace to rally the Elders and strip me of my birthright as the eldest daughter of the main branch."

"Liar!" Gina shrieked, her voice cracking as she scrambled forward. "She's a lying bitch! She's making it all up to save herself!"

"But that wasn't the worst part," I continued, my voice slicing through her hysteria like a cold blade. I turned my eyes briefly to Caterina Moretti, then back to Eleanor. "To secure Caitlin's marriage to Marco Moretti, they agreed to offer the Carson family's most profitable shipping company at the Chicago docks as her dowry. A gift to the Morettis, in exchange for their backing."

The corridor erupted. Not with sympathetic murmurs, but with sharp, collective gasps of pure revulsion. In our world, jealousy was a sin, but selling out your own blood's territory to a rival family? That was treason. A death sentence.

"She's crazy, Nonna! You can't believe her!" Caitlin sobbed hysterically, clawing at the carpet, her torn emerald dress making her look like a broken, pathetic doll.

I didn't even look at them. I turned my body fully toward Eleanor and bowed deeply. It was a gesture of absolute submission to the Matriarch, yet my voice carried the weight of an executioner.

"Nonna," I said, my tone ringing clear over their pathetic cries. "My father, the legendary Capo Liam Carson, died defending the honor of our name. His blood soaked the streets of Chicago so that we could stand here today. And now, women who share his blood are trying to use the very legacy he died for to buy favor with the enemies who killed our men."

I raised my head, meeting Eleanor's piercing eyes. "I beg you, as the Matriarch of the Carson family, tell me... did my father bleed for nothing?"

The silence that followed was absolute. The Outfit wives around us—women whose husbands and sons bled as Soldiers and Capos—stared at Gina and Caitlin with undisguised disgust. I had turned a petty scandal into a referendum on loyalty and blood. And I had won.

Eleanor’s face was carved from ice. She didn't look at the sobbing women at her feet. She looked only at me. For a fleeting second, I saw something new in her weathered eyes—not just approval, but a dark, complex reverence. She recognized the weapon I had become.

She lifted her silver wolf-headed cane and struck the floor. *Clack. Clack. Clack.*

The sound echoed like nails being driven into a coffin.

"From this day forward," Eleanor's voice boomed, cold and absolute, "Gina Gallo and her daughter Caitlin are no longer members of the Carson family. Their names are struck from our bloodline. They are stripped of everything and exiled. Any Carson who offers them aid will share their sentence."

Gina collapsed, a hollow wail tearing from her throat, while Caitlin simply stared into the void, her mind finally breaking under the weight of her ruin. The execution was complete. My Vendetta had claimed its first souls.

Eleanor slowly turned her imposing gaze away from the wreckage of her own family, her eyes locking onto the smirking face of Francesca Gallo and the pale, trembling form of Caterina Moretti. The Carson cleansing was done; now, it was time to address the audience.