Elena POV:

The bass of the music thumped against my ribcage, a heavy, suffocating counterpoint to the erratic rhythm of my heart.

The Made Man Gala was a churning sea of black tuxedos and blood-red dresses.

It was the night the Associates graduated to Soldiers.

It was supposed to be a celebration.

For them, it was a coronation. For me, it was a funeral.

I stood in the shadows of the corner, clutching a glass of sparkling water like a lifeline.

I watched them.

Dante and Matteo were holding court near the polished mahogany bar.

Sofia was sandwiched intimately between them.

She wore white—a calculated attempt at innocence—though the neckline plunged deep enough to advertise exactly what she had to offer.

She was laughing, her head thrown back, exposing the pale, vulnerable line of her throat.

Dante leaned in, whispering something against the shell of her ear.

Matteo was dutifully refilling her drink.

They looked like a family.

And I was the ghost haunting them.

Whispers floated around me like smoke.

"Did you hear? Elena rejected the High Council."

"She's crazy."

"No, she's jealous. Look at how Dante looks at Sofia."

I tightened my grip on the crystal glass until I feared it would shatter in my palm.

I had one last task before I could escape.

The Family Guest Book.

It was a sacred tradition.

Every graduating class signed it.

It was a symbol of unity, of blood binding blood.

I needed their signatures to close the chapter officially.

To validate the transfer of power before I exiled myself to Europe.

I forced my legs to move, walking toward them.

The air seemed to drop twenty degrees as I approached.

Sofia saw me first.

"Oh, look," she chirped, her voice sugar-sweet and grating. "The Princess is finally coming down from her tower."

Dante turned.

His eyes were glazed with a toxic mix of alcohol and arrogance.

"What do you want, Elena?" he asked, his tone flat.

I held out the heavy leather-bound book.

"Sign it," I said, keeping my voice steady. "Just sign it so I can hand it to the Don and leave."

Dante looked at the book as if it were garbage.

"I'm not signing anything for you," he sneered. "Not until you apologize to Sofia."

"Apologize for what?" The question tumbled out before I could stop it.

"For existing?"

"For breathing the same air?"

"For making her feel insecure," Matteo cut in. He leaned against the bar, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. "You intimidate her, Elena. You walk around like you own the place."

I *do* own the place, I wanted to scream. *My father built this hall brick by bloody brick.*

But I remained silent.

"I just need the signatures," I repeated, my patience fraying.

Matteo smirked.

"I'll sign," he said.

He leaned in close, invading my space.

"If you give me your tactical notes. The ones you made for the entrance exams."

My notes were legendary within the Family.

I had spent years analyzing the rival territories, mapping their weaknesses.

"Sofia is struggling," Matteo continued, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "She needs help passing the written test. Give her your notes, and I'll sign your little book."

It was extortion.

It was pathetic.

"Fine," I said, the fight draining out of me.

I didn't care about the notes anymore.

Knowledge was useless to people who refused to learn.

"I will leave them at the front desk."

Matteo snatched the book from my hands.

He pulled a gold pen from his pocket.

He didn't sign his name.

He wrote something in jagged, angry letters.

Then he handed the pen to Sofia.

She giggled, a hollow sound, and wrote something underneath.

Dante didn't write anything.

He just stared at me with that familiar look of possessive disappointment.

"Here," Matteo said, shoving the book back into my chest.

I looked down at the page.

Under the column for "Future Ambitions," Matteo had scrawled:

*Disgust.*

And under it, in Sofia's bubbly, childish handwriting:

*Love, Sofia.*

They were mocking the sanctity of the oath.

They were mocking me.

I looked up at them.

In my past life—the life that ended ten minutes ago—I would have cried.

I would have run to the bathroom and sobbed until my eyes were swollen shut.

But tonight, I felt nothing but a hollow clarity.

I looked at the book.

Then I looked at the trash can next to the bar.

I didn't say a word.

I walked over to the bin.

"Elena!" Dante barked. "What are you doing?"

I let go.

I dropped the heavy leather book into the trash.

It landed with a dull, final thud among the discarded napkins and lime wedges.

"What I begged for is now worthless," I said, my voice cutting through the noise.

The music seemed to stop.

People were staring.

Dante's face turned a violent shade of red.

"Pick that up," he ordered.

"No," I said.

I turned on my heel.

"You are making a mistake!" Matteo yelled after me. "You will regret this!"

I walked toward the exit, my head high.

The only thing I regretted was that I hadn't done it sooner.

Elena POV:

The morning sun was a dull gray, struggling to filter through the smog of the city.

My suitcase stood by the door.

It contained everything I owned.

Two suits.

A gun.

My passport.

And absolutely zero photographs.

I was checking the chamber of my pistol when the door to my safehouse burst open.

Dante and Matteo stormed in.

They carried a volatile energy, dark and suffocating.

Sofia was trailing behind them, sobbing into a handkerchief.

"You vicious bitch!" Matteo screamed.

He threw a notebook at my head.

I dodged it without flinching.

It hit the wall with a heavy thud and fell open.

It was my tactical notebook.

The pages were torn, covered in black marker.

"What is this?" I asked, my voice dangerously even.

"Don't play innocent," Dante growled. He marched over to me, towering over my frame. He used his height to intimidate, a tactic that used to work when we were children.

"You destroyed the notes before giving them to Sofia," he accused. "And you wrote insults about the Don in the margins!"

I looked at the book on the floor.

I could see the handwriting.

It was loopy. Childish.

It wasn't mine.

"Sofia did this," I said.

Sofia wailed louder.

"Why would I destroy the only thing that could help me?" she cried. "She hates me, Dante! She wants me to fail!"

She buried her face in Dante's chest.

He wrapped his arms around her, glaring at me over her head.

"You are sick, Elena. Jealousy has made you ugly."

Matteo kicked my suitcase.

"You are going to fix this," he said.

He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket.

"You are going to go to the Capos. You are going to kneel. And you are going to tell them you wrote those insults."

"And then," Dante added, his voice cold as ice, "you are going to sign a waiver."

"A waiver?" I asked.

"If Sofia fails her exams because of your sabotage, you forfeit your inheritance. It goes to her. As compensation for her trauma."

I stared at them.

They were serious.

They were willing to strip me of my birthright, of my father's legacy, to soothe the ego of a girl who was playing them like fiddles.

I looked at the clock on the wall.

It was 12:15 PM.

My flight was at 2:00 PM.

I reached into my pocket.

I didn't pull out a pen.

I pulled out my plane ticket.

I held it up.

"What is that?" Matteo asked.

"A ticket," I said. "To Rome. One way. Boarding in an hour."

Dante froze.

He released Sofia.

"You're bluffing," he said. "You're doing this to threaten us. To make us choose."

"I am not asking you to choose, Dante. I have already chosen."

I picked up my bag.

Matteo blocked the door.

"You aren't leaving," he said. "Not until you sign the waiver."

I looked him in the eye.

"If I miss this flight, I will call the Don myself. I will tell him exactly why his new recruits are harassing a senior officer instead of training."

Matteo hesitated.

"Senior officer?" he laughed nervously. "You are nobody."

"Check the registry," I said. "My promotion went through this morning."

Dante snatched the ticket from my hand.

He stared at it.

His hands were shaking slightly.

"Elena," he said, his voice dropping. "Stop this. Put the bag down. We can talk."

I snatched the ticket back with a sharp, violent motion.

Cardstock is sharp.

The edge sliced his finger.

A drop of blood fell onto the floor.

I stepped around him.

"Do not block my path to power," I whispered.

I walked out the door.

The black SUV was waiting.

The driver opened the door.

I climbed in.

I didn't look back.

But as the car pulled away, I saw them in the rearview mirror.

They were standing on the sidewalk.

Dante was looking at his bleeding finger.

Matteo was looking at the empty street.

And for the first time, they weren't looking at Sofia.

Elena POV:

They say Rome was not built in a day, but I rebuilt myself in six months.

The European Syndicate was different from the Outfit.

It was colder. More ruthless. Infinitely more refined.

Here, respect was currency, and I was rich.

I managed the shipping lines. I sat across from oligarchs and negotiated with the Russians.

I wore tailored suits and stilettos that clicked on the marble floors of my penthouse like the ticking of a bomb.

I didn't think about Chicago.

I didn't think about the slums or the blood.

Until Christmas.

The snow was falling over the Colosseum, dusting the ancient ruins in white, when the package arrived.

It was wrapped in plain brown paper, stamped with the Chicago postmark.

My security team scanned it.

It came up clean.

I opened it on my glass coffee table.

It was the leather Guest Book.

The one I had thrown in the trash months ago, torn and ruined.

But now, it had been cleaned.

The leather was polished, smelling of pine and expensive wax. The spine had been restitched with meticulous care.

I opened it to the page where they had written their insults.

The ink had been scraped off.

The paper was thin in those spots, fragile and translucent against the light.

Over the damage, someone had written in neat, careful block letters:

*North City has heavy snow this year. You get sick easily. Stay warm.*

It was unsigned.

But I knew the handwriting.

It was Matteo's.

He used to wrap his coat around me when we were on stakeouts. He used to warm my freezing hands between his calloused palms.

A memory flashed in my mind—Matteo holding me while I cried over my father's coffin, promising he would never let me be cold again.

*Liar.*

I stood up.

I walked to the fireplace.

The flames were hungry, licking at the iron grate.

I tossed the book into the fire.

I watched the leather curl and blister. I watched the page turn black and crumble into ash.

"Trash cannot be repaired," I said to the empty room.

The phone rang.

It was my private line. Only five people had the number.

I picked it up.

"Vitiello," I answered.

There was silence on the other end.

Then, a voice I hadn't heard in half a year.

"Did you get the book?"

It was Dante.

His voice sounded deeper. Tired. Older.

"I burned it," I said.

There was a pause.

"Why?" he asked. "It took Matteo weeks to fix it."

"I didn't ask him to fix it. I threw it away."

"Elena," Dante sighed. He sounded like he was talking to a stubborn child. "We forgive you."

I laughed.

It was a dry sound, devoid of humor.

"You forgive me?"

"For leaving. For the drama. We permit you to come back. Sofia passed her exams. She is a Soldier now. We can all be together again."

He really believed it.

He believed I was sitting in Rome, pining for his permission, waiting for him to open the cage door.

"Dante," I said, keeping my voice steady. "Do not disturb my life."

"Wait," he said quickly. Panic leaked into his tone. "Are you still mad? Is that it? Do you hate me for choosing her?"

I looked out the window at the lights of the Eternal City.

I checked my watch.

I had a dinner meeting with a Sicilian Don in twenty minutes.

"I don't hate you, Dante," I said.

I heard him exhale.

"Good. Because—"

"I don't feel anything for you."