Sienna Rossi POV

An hour passed in the cold silence before a new soldier entered the room.

He brought no food, no water, only a digital tablet which he held inches from my face.

The screen's glare was blinding, displaying the Syndicate's encrypted network, the main forum already alive with thousands of users.

The top headline was rendered in bold, red letters:

"THE DON EXECUTES A CAPO AT THE ALTAR."

The soldier tapped the screen, playing a video file. The footage was raw and unsteady, filmed from a guest's table inside the ballroom.

I was made to watch again as Luca's hand forced my father's head down onto the glass.

In the background, a chaotic scene unfolded; I saw the blur of my mother's dress as she fell.

I pushed the tablet away, a wave of nausea rising in my throat.

At that moment, Sofia reappeared, leaning against the doorframe as if she were a casual observer.

"Who leaked this?" I asked, my voice a raw scrape.

She offered a negligent shrug.

"Blood was drawn in front of three hundred witnesses," she replied. "There is no silence for that."

My fingers trembled as I pulled the tablet back and scrolled through the comments.

The words were vicious.

Made men and associates from all five families were mocking my father's modest reputation, calling him a rat and demanding his head.

My father valued his honor above all else.

He had lived a quiet, clean life to protect our family from this exact nightmare.

Now he was the laughingstock of the entire Mafia Commission.

Sofia walked over to the table and handed me a printed inventory list.

"The penthouse you shared with Luca has been searched," she announced.

She pointed to the bottom of the page, her finger tracing the line that cruelly reminded me the luxury estate was solely in Luca's name.

She even mocked the handwritten recipe book I kept on the kitchen counter.

"The Don has no use for a traitor's cooking," she sneered.

Before I could form a reply, a thin, wailing sound came from the tablet.

Sofia had tapped the screen, switching the feed to a live security camera in the estate's holding area.

It was my mother.

Her muffled cries pierced the small speakers as she knelt on the marble floor of the lobby, begging the impassive guards for her husband's life.

The pixelated image showed her doubling over, her cries turning into violent, dry heaves.

I lunged from my chair, a desperate, animal instinct to get to her driving me forward.

But Sofia moved to intercept me, slamming both hands into my shoulders and shoving me back.

I hit the metal chair hard, the impact knocking the breath from my lungs.

I snarled at her, my grief finally transmuting into rage.

"She knows nothing of this life," I screamed, pointing a shaking finger at her face. "What justification do you have for terrorizing an old woman?"

"And do not call me Donna again."

Sofia's smug mask slipped, her dark eyes flashing with genuine anger.

She stepped close, her voice a low hiss as she delivered an ultimatum.

"Confess the origin of the money, now," she said, "or your father will be taken to the Don's torture chamber."

My mother's wails echoed through the walls again.

"Giovanni never broke Omertà!" she was screaming.

Hearing her voice, something inside me broke.

The frightened bride died in that chair.

I looked up at Sofia and agreed to confess, but on one condition.

"I will require my Consigliere," I declared, my voice a deadly calm.

Without pausing, I began to cite the Syndicate's own internal codes, the legal loopholes I knew by heart.

I pointed out the procedural illegality of a blood tribunal initiated without a formal sit-down with the Commission.

Sofia's smile vanished.

She realized I was far more dangerous than the docile housewife I had pretended to be.

She walked to the door and grabbed the handle, stopping to look back at me with pure venom.

"What would you like for dinner?" she asked, her tone thick with mockery. "Since you missed your wedding feast."

I stared at the closed door long after she was gone, my heart hammering against my ribs. She had expected tears. She had expected begging. She had expected the frightened bride who had been dragged from the altar in handcuffs. What she got instead was a woman who had just cited Syndicate law from memory, who had demanded legal counsel like a seasoned Capo, and who had just revealed that beneath the silk wedding dress beat the heart of a strategist. Sofia Moretti had spent seventeen months orchestrating my destruction. But she had made one fatal miscalculation: she had assumed I was prey. And I was about to show her exactly how wrong she was.