Chapter 1 #3
And so, when I rose—when I became one of the most powerful mafia bosses in Lombardy—word eventually reached him.
My father heard.
He tried to reach me. Calls. Messages. Back channels through men who once bowed to him.
I ignored every single one.
To speak to him now felt like an insult—to everything I had survived, to everything my sister was still enduring. So I let his calls ring into silence... while I planned his downfall.
And when everything finally aligned three months ago—maps drawn, blind spots identified, every backdoor and exit memorized, every guard accounted for and assigned to a post—I stormed his estate with my men.
Ottavio trusted his system.
That was his first mistake.
The second... was underestimating me.
We moved at night. Unhinged—but controlled.
Because this wasn’t just an attack. It was a purge.
We breached the outer perimeter without a sound—cutting power in sections, looping camera feeds, slipping through the cracks his system swore didn’t exist.
My men moved like shadows given flesh, each one knowing exactly who to take out, exactly where to strike.
No warnings. No mercy.
A guard turned the corner—steel slid across his throat before he could speak. Another barely had time to register the figure behind him before a bullet, suppressed and soft, punched through the base of his skull.
Bodies were caught before they hit the ground, dragged into darkness like they had never existed.
Some of my father’s guards saw me.
And in their eyes, I caught the exact moment it clicked—recognition dawning like a slow, terrible truth.
The prodigal son.
Returned.
Not to kneel. Not to reclaim a seat at his table—but to tear it apart.
I watched it spread across their faces. The confusion first. Then disbelief. And then... fear.
Real fear.
The kind that doesn’t come from the thought of dying—but from who is standing in front of you when it happens.
One of them actually stumbled back, his grip tightening on his weapon like it could somehow save him. Another froze completely, his breathing turning shallow, uneven, like his body had already accepted what his mind was still trying to deny.
“Boss’s son...” one of them whispered, voice cracking.
“No...” another muttered, shaking his head as if that alone could undo my presence. “He’s not supposed to be here.”
But I was.
And I wasn’t the boy they remembered.
There was no hesitation in me. No warmth. No trace of the son my father once sent away.
Just something colder. Sharper. Final.
They saw it.
And it broke them before I ever touched them.
They tried—God, they tried—to resist me.
Men who had stood by him for years came at us with everything they had. Training, loyalty, desperation—it didn’t matter. They fought hard, but not hard enough.
They failed.
By the time the alarm should have been raised—
It was already too late.
Most of my father’s men were already down, their bodies scattered through halls that once echoed with authority. Silence replaced them. Heavy. Final.
I didn’t stop.
I rushed inside, my pulse hammering, my mind already slipping past strategy into something far more dangerous. Her name was the only thing left in my head.
“Loretta!”
My voice tore through the estate, raw and unrestrained.
I moved like a madman—kicking open doors, tearing through rooms, ripping aside anything that stood between me and the chance of finding her.
Drawers crashed to the floor. Furniture splintered under my hands. I checked every corner, every shadow, every locked door.
Nothing.
“Loretta!”
My voice broke this time, but I didn’t care. I kept going.
Down corridors. Up staircases. Back down again. Blood smeared under my boots, but I barely registered it. My men called out behind me, trying to keep up, trying to redirect me, but I wasn’t listening anymore.
I wasn’t thinking.
I was hunting.
Desperate. Unhinged. Refusing to leave without her.
And then... I found it.
A door that didn’t belong.
Hidden at the end of a narrow corridor, heavy and reinforced—wrong in a way everything else wasn’t.
This was it.
I didn’t wait. I pushed it open.
The smell hit me first—thick, suffocating. It clung to my throat, heavy and impossible to ignore. Still, I kept going, forcing myself down into the darkness beyond it.
That was where I found her.
The place no one spoke about.
The Pit.
It lay beneath the estate, far below the polished floors and quiet walls.
The air there was different—stale, damp, heavy with neglect. The kind of place that felt forgotten, like time itself had turned away.
And there she was.
Loretta.
Something inside me broke the moment I saw her.
She didn’t look like the girl I remembered.
Her hair was tangled and unkempt, falling around her face in uneven strands, as if even it had given up trying to hold itself together.
Her body told the rest.
Marks covered her skin—evidence of everything she had endured. Of everything she had survived.
But even survival has its limits.
Her shoulders sagged, weighed down by something heavier than exhaustion.
Defeat.
Not weakness.
Just the quiet exhaustion of someone who had been left alone for too long.
I didn’t speak.
I couldn’t trust my voice.
So I went to her.
Slowly, carefully.
And when she didn’t pull away... I lifted her into my arms.
She felt fragile. Too light.
That was what I remembered most.
Her eyes stayed with me.
Half-open. Unfocused. Broken.
Not the kind of damage doctors could fix with time and medicine.
This was deeper and permanent.
I had promised her something that night.
Not out loud. Not in words.
But in the way I held her.
In the way I didn’t let go.
Ottavio Orsini will pay.
And I meant it.
The sudden rise of wind swept past me, sharp and biting, dragging me out of the past.
It howled across the mountain, tugging at my clothes, cold against my skin—and just like that, I remembered where I was.
Not in the estate. Not in the blood and shadows of three months ago.
Here.
Now.
On this mountain.
On my wedding day.
For a moment, I had been completely lost—drowned in memories I had clawed my way out of. But the wind didn’t let me stay there. It pulled me back, forced my eyes open to the present.
Ottavio was still on his knees—barely holding himself upright—fingers clawing at the ground as if he could drag himself away from what I’d already decided.
My dagger was still lodged across his mouth.
Not deep enough to end him.
Just enough to remind him.
Blood trickled in thin, trembling streams down his chin, pooling at his neck, soaking into his collar.
His breathing came in ragged, wet gasps—each one a fight, each one weaker than the last. His eyes burned with panic, with defiance that was slowly dissolving into something far worse.
Realization.
Pain twisted his features as he tried to speak, but the blade silenced him—forcing only muffled, strangled sounds to escape.
Good.
Let him feel it.
Let him remember exactly who he wronged.
A sharp chirp cut through the suffocating silence.
I didn’t move at first.
My gaze stayed locked on him—on the way his strength was draining out of him like blood from an open wound.
The phone chirped again.
Reluctantly, I reached for it.
I had warned them.
No calls. No interruptions. Not until I was finished.
I glanced at the screen.
Ciro. My second-in-command.
I answered, my voice cold.
“Boss...” His tone was tight—rushed, but edged with urgency.
“The bride... she’s stranded. Her family’s getting restless—angry, even. They’re threatening that if you don’t show up by—”
“The wedding can wait. This cannot.”
Then I ended the call.
I didn’t take my eyes off Ottavio.
I dropped the phone back into my pocket.