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.

Isabella POV

Eleanor's silver wolf-headed cane struck the floor one final time. The heavy thud echoed through the dead silence of the Moretti estate's corridor, a definitive period at the end of a bloody sentence. Her icy gaze swept over the ashen faces of Gina and Caitlin, before finally settling on Francesca Gallo, whose mocking smirk had completely vanished.

"We have seen enough of the Moretti family's theatrics," Eleanor stated, her voice a clear, authoritative whip that demanded absolute submission. "The Carson family will clean up its own traitors."

She didn't give Caterina or anyone else a chance to speak. She turned to the Carson soldiers flanking us. "Take them away."

The drive back to the secure suite at the Carson-controlled hotel in downtown Chicago was suffocatingly silent. The moment the heavy double doors of the suite clicked shut, sealing us away from the blizzard outside, the illusion of family shattered completely.

Caitlin violently wrenched herself free from the soldiers' grip. She threw herself onto the plush carpet, crawling toward Eleanor's feet like a madwoman.

"It was a trap! She set me up!" Caitlin shrieked, her tear-streaked face twisting with pure venom as she pointed a trembling finger at me. "She wants to ruin me! She's a lying bitch!"

I didn't flinch. I stood perfectly still, looking down at the pathetic, ruined creature she had become. As she lunged toward me, spewing vile curses, I simply tilted my head.

"Tell me, Caitlin," I asked, my voice eerily calm against her hysteria. "Did you lose because you are stupid, or because you betrayed Carson blood?"

The words stripped away her last defense. Caitlin let out a guttural, hysterical scream, thrashing wildly on the floor.

"Enough!" Eleanor roared, her voice shaking the crystal chandelier above us. "One more word of disrespect toward Isabella, and you will not just face exile. I will hand you over to the Enforcers for *punishment*."

The threat of the Enforcers—the family's brutal torturers—made the room freeze. But the silence was broken by a sharp, vicious *smack*.

Aunt Gina had lunged forward, but not to comfort her daughter. She struck Caitlin across the face with all her might. Grabbing a fistful of Caitlin's tangled red hair, Gina yanked her head back.

"You stupid girl!" Gina hissed, her face contorted in a desperate, ruthless bid for survival. "You ruined yourself, and now you want to drag your sister Bridget down with you? Her marriage to the Gallo family will not be destroyed by your filth!"

Gina forced the stunned, sobbing Caitlin to her knees. Looking up at Eleanor, Gina raised her right hand, her eyes wide with feigned righteousness. "I swear on my life, Mother Eleanor. From this day forward, I only have one daughter. Bridget is my only child."

Caitlin's eyes widened in absolute horror. The last light in her eyes died as she realized her own mother had just severed their bloodline to save herself. Eleanor watched the brutal display with cold indifference, silently accepting the sacrifice.

Eleanor pointed her cane toward the heavy oak doors. "Strip her of the Carson name. Take every piece of jewelry, every dime that belongs to this family, and throw her out. From this moment on, Caitlin Carson no longer exists in Chicago."

The soldiers moved in without hesitation. They roughly tore the pearl necklace from Caitlin's throat and dragged her toward the exit. I walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, pulling the heavy drapes aside.

Down below, the heavy doors of the hotel opened. I watched as my once-glamorous cousin was shoved out into the unforgiving Chicago blizzard, her torn emerald dress offering no protection against the freezing wind. She collapsed on the snow-covered pavement, her desperate wails swallowed instantly by the howling storm. She was nothing but trash now.

I pressed my fingertips against the freezing glass. Through the swirling snow, I could just make out the distant, glowing lights of the Moretti estate. Caitlin was just a pawn. The real monsters were still breathing in that mansion.

*No, this is just the beginning,* I whispered in my mind, the cold fire of my Vendetta burning brighter than ever. *Marco Moretti... Caterina... all of you. For what you did to my family, to my child... my Vendetta has just begun.*