Chapter Four - Severo
Matteo drives like a soldier— silent, always watching the mirrors.
I whistle something low and careless from the back seat. An old Neapolitan tune that always made my mother wince and my father groan. The kind of thing you hum when you’ve just won and want the world to know it.
From the front seat, Matteo’s eyes flick toward the rearview. “Is it really a good idea to visit your family now?”
He says it carefully, like someone trying not to step on a landmine that’s already blinking red.
“You just finished a meeting,” he adds.
I grin and lean back, adjusting the cuff of my shirt. “A really successful meeting, you forget to add, my good friend. When best to visit your enemies than after a win?”
He exhales through his nose. “Still. Maksim barged in this morning like a rabid dog. Wasn’t exactly subtle about his mood.”
“Ah, Maksim.” I smile wider, looking out the tinted window as eucalyptus trees streak by. “He’s got all the charm of a wet matchbox and none of the fire.”
Matteo doesn’t laugh. He rarely does.
I rest my head against the seat and let the rhythm of the road rock me, just slightly.
Family.
What a delightful mess.
My father married Maksim and Mina’s mother, Elena Marazzi when he was barely out of his twenties. She was a brutal beauty—cold, commanding, the kind of woman who made secretaries cry and boardrooms shiver.
Together, they had twins: Maksim and Mina. Perfect Aryan children with sharp eyes and sharper tongues. They were raised with iron spines and tailored clothes, fluent in violence before they hit puberty.
And then their mother died.
A car bombing, wrapped up in the kind of tragic poetry the old dons always whispered about. Burned through the heart of Dante's legacy. My father never recovered. He softened in strange ways. Got religious. Grew nostalgic.
Then he met my mother. A woman no one expected.
She was younger, stubborn, not from wealth but with enough rage in her eyes to match his. I was their only child. Ten years younger than the twins. A gap large enough to drown in.
I didn’t grow up with them.
I grew up underneath them.
They were already halfway out the door by the time I learned to tie a tie.
Sent off to manage ports and ships, to cut deals in foreign languages, to represent the empire.
They hated that I was there. Hated that I was a reminder that they weren’t enough.
They took their mother’s last name and legacy, my father gave his blessings out of guilt.
I learned quickly: I would never be their brother. I would always be the threat.
Especially once it became clear I wasn’t stupid.
Especially when my father started to hint that maybe, just maybe, I was the one with the mind for legacy.
Then he died.
Three years ago. A stroke, they said. Peaceful. Alone in his study.
What a way for a warlord to go.
But the bastard couldn’t die cleanly. No. He had to leave behind one final trick—an absurd clause buried in his final estate brief. No single heir would be granted full control until a fourth heir was located.
Someone no one had ever heard of.
The clause stalled everything. Power seized, property frozen.
Maksim and Mina split what they could—ports, vessels, warehouses.
All the things they had managed under our father’s eye.
Their roots ran deep. But control of the estate?
Of the core seat of power? That remained with me thanks to my stunt. .
I sit up straighter, watching Matteo’s shoulder twitch slightly as he turns the wheel.
Everything is aligning.
With Lira in place, the last card is mine to play.
Maksim and Mina may have scraps of power—legacy projects and loyal men—but I’m building something bigger. I don’t want to share the throne. I want to end the bloodline with me.
And thanks to Lira… I will.
****
The Marazzi Estate – Hills of Balwyn, Inner Melbourne
We pull up to the gates and they open without a word.
Of course they do. Mina doesn’t believe in drama at the door. She prefers her warfare behind tablecloths.
The Marazzi mansion perches over the hill like it’s judging the city below—terracotta rooflines, long angular verandas, glass that reflects nothing but sky. Not a single leaf out of place. The kind of symmetry only money and control can buy.
As I step out of the car, Matteo shadows me silently. He’s dressed in pale gray—just as I asked—harmless as a dove, at least on the outside.
A valet takes the car wordlessly. No greetings. No gestures. That’s the Marazzi welcome—polished hostility.
The front doors open before I knock.
And there she is.
Mina, my sister.
Tall. Blade-thin. Elegance in the coldest form imaginable. Her black hair is twisted into a sleek coil, not a strand out of place. The structure of her face is mathematical—cheekbones you could measure with a ruler, lips painted in a red so deep it looks black in the shade of the hall.
Her dress is immaculate white.
Her eyes slide over me. They never widen. They never soften.
“I knew you would come to gloat,” she says, arms loosely crossed, voice smooth as lacquer. “I take it your meeting with the Don went well.”
I grin. “You knew about my meeting? Oh a sister that knows me well. Touching, really.”
Her gaze flicks to Matteo.
“Join me for lunch,” she says, already turning. “Let’s pretend we’re family.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
She leads us down a hall lined with mirrors and cherrywood accents. Light pours in from glass slits at the ceiling. Everything smells faintly of citrus and steel polish. The scent of wealth that’s scrubbed every trace of history off the walls.
The dining area opens up like a showroom: one long dark wood table with just two chairs set. No other guests. Just a battlefield with linen napkins.
I take my seat. Matteo remains standing behind me like the statue he is.
A maid enters. Blonde. Young. Eyes a little wide for someone working here. She carries two covered plates and a silver tureen.
She places the first dish in front of me—a delicate portion of veal over saffron rice, a sprig of something green leaning artfully on top.
I smile at her and hold out a spoon.
“Would you, bella? Just a taste.”
Her hands shake. Just a flicker. But I see it. Mina had something put in my food.
Mina leans forward, one elbow on the table, watching like she’s watching a play she already knows the ending to.
The maid blinks at me, frozen.
Mina’s voice is velveted command. “Take it away. Incinerate the tray.”
The maid nods fast and disappears with the plate like it’s ticking.
I sigh dramatically, setting my spoon down with exaggerated sorrow.
“Now, sister, we were getting along so well. Poison? Really? What are you mad about?”
Mina smiles. Not with her mouth—with her eyes. The kind of smile that tells you you’ve been marked long before you walked in the door.
“You’re breathing confidently lately,” she says, folding her hands. “It was just a reminder.”
She leans forward slightly, and her voice slices through the calm like piano wire.
“I will kill you, Severo,” she says. “One way or another.”
I laugh softly under my breath, brushing invisible lint from my sleeve. “Sore loser’s talk, Sorella. And here I thought you’d learned to play fair.”
Her eyes flash. “Stay away from my ports.”
“Ports? What ports?” I widen my eyes, faux-innocent. “I’m just a humble man trying to enjoy a meal.”
She stands, slowly. “You think you’ve won something with that meeting today? You think that sweet-talking the Don buys you the throne?”
I sip from the water glass the maid didn’t dare touch. Lukewarm. Tasteless. Like most of these power games.
Mina steps around the table until she’s level with my chair. She bends slightly, close enough that I smell bergamot and cold steel.
“Maksim and I will find the other heir before you do,” she whispers.
Before I can answer, the double doors open behind me.
Heavy steps. Controlled aggression.
Maksim.
He strides into the room, jaw clenched, blazer stretched tight across his shoulders, hair slicked neat. He always looks like he’s trying to pass for someone respectable and failing at it.
Trailing beside him—another figure.
Broader. Older. A presence made of weight more than noise.
Uncle Nereo.
Our father’s younger brother. Dressed in tailored navy, wedding ring polished, walking like he’s still owed applause from a different generation. I dont understand
Maksim doesn’t waste time. “What’s he doing here?” he growls.
Mina doesn’t flinch. “Lunch.”
I lean back in my chair, spreading my arms like I’m welcoming applause. “Can I not come for a meal with my beautiful sister?”
Maksim stops short, nostrils flaring. His hand twitches like he wants to reach for something. I can almost taste his restraint.
I shift my gaze to the uncle. Smile slow. “Uncle Nereo.”
He doesn’t smile back. Doesn’t even greet me.
Good boy.
I know his price. I’ve paid it enough times.
In public, Nereo stands firm behind the “true heirs”—Mina and Maksim. He attends their meetings, signs their papers, and carries their banner like a faithful hound.
But every report, every contract, every whisper of who’s moving which shipment?
It comes to me.
Because loyalty is cheap.
And Nereo is a man who enjoys silk sheets and Cuban cigars too much to care who actually wins—as long as he’s paid in full.
I raise my glass to him. “Looking sharp as ever.”
He looks past me like I’m air. My grin widens.
Let them play their little alliance.
I own the floor they’re standing on.
Mina’s jaw is angled like a blade, arms crossed just so. Maksim’s eyes practically steam behind me, and Nereo stays exactly where he should—silent, unreadable, performing neutrality.
I swirl the wine slowly and take a sip.
I set the glass back down, careful not to smudge the stem.
“Well,” I murmur, rising and adjusting my cufflinks with a snap, “I guess the fun’s over.”
I sweep an appreciative glance across the table, my voice bright with mock warmth.
“I loved eating with you and almost getting killed. No one does it quite like you, sister.”
Mina’s lips twitch—but she says nothing. Maksim looks ready to charge. I look straight at him, and wink.
His fists clench like they’re itching to grab something solid.
Uncle Nereo watches it all from behind the quiet mask of elder diplomacy. I turn, Matteo falling in behind me as we head back down the mirror-polished hall.
The doors close with a quiet hiss. Matteo pulls away from the estate, eyes on the road, hands on the wheel.
I loosen my collar and stretch like a man who just left a spa instead of a den of knives.
The road bends into an open stretch, and Matteo finally speaks.
His voice is calm, low.
“Why do you always go back there?”
“To where?” I say, eyes half-lidded, fingers drumming lightly on my thigh.
He doesn’t take the bait.
“You know exactly where. The Marazzi estate. You know they’ll try again.”
“Try what?” I ask innocently.
He exhales hard enough to fog the window. “To kill you.”
I smile.
“Matteo,” I say, leaning back and lacing my hands behind my head, “when people hate you, they give you so much power .”
He flicks his eyes up at the rearview.
“My presence ruined their entire day,” I continue. “I didn’t even have to raise my voice. No threats. No mess. Just me—existing.”
I shift my weight, settling deeper into the seat. “They spend all that energy hating me, and I walk away with their nerves shredded. Why wouldn’t I enjoy that?”
Matteo mutters, “You almost died.”
I laugh. “Well worth it.”
He shakes his head like a tired schoolteacher and returns his attention to the road.
Then a soft buzz rattles across the console. Matteo glances down at the screen lighting up.
He reads it silently, then looks up at me.
“She’s awake.”
My pulse doesn’t change. But I sit up slightly, just enough to meet his gaze in the mirror.
A slow smile curls at the edge of my mouth.
“Now the fun begins.”