Chapter 23
Present
Lower Manhattan, New York City
THE DOORS OF ST. PATRICK’S Old Cathedral groaned shut behind me, the cold from Mulberry Street dragging in with me like a stubborn ghost. Outside, February hung in the air – wet stone, gray sky, slush freezing at the edges of the sidewalk.
Inside, everything softened. Candlelight trembled against vaulted stone arches.
Dust motes drifted through the shafts of pale sunlight cutting across the pews.
It was quiet. Heavy. The kind of quiet that carried secrets.
My heels clicked against the old tile floor as I walked down the aisle. Half the cathedral was empty – just a few elderly parishioners praying, burning wax, and stained-glass saints watching from above. Faded sunlight painted the altar in muted blues and wine-red shards of color.
I spotted my father instantly. He never blended anywhere.
He sat rigid in the pew toward the front – broad shoulders in a dark overcoat, back straight, hand resting on his cane like it was made for him instead of the other way around.
Gìovanni sat next to him, posture militant, jaw tight.
Tony was in the row behind them, scrolling through his phone.
I slid into the aisle seat beside my father, and the scent of old frankincense and rain-damp wool settled into my lungs.
He didn’t look at me when he spoke. “You’re late.”
“It’s Tuesday, Papà,” I murmured. “No mass. What are we doing here?”
Gìovanni picked up the conversation. “The families want a sit-down. Another one. They think the attack wasn’t random.”
Everyone still remembered the Five Families’ Christmas Gala – glittering chandeliers, champagne, the hum of old money and old grudges woven together. That gunfire splitting the ballroom open like the first crack in an empire.
My father’s jaw flexed. “Of course it wasn’t random.”
I exhaled with relief. “Good thing Tony was there.”
The Morettis got hit last time. And Tony kept Kimberley Moretti alive. He jumped in front of her. Took bullets meant for her.
“It was brave.” My father turned just enough to look over his shoulder at him. His mouth tightened. “But stupid.”
Tony waved it off. “I barely felt a thing.”
I turned to look at him. He didn’t look like someone who had been shot three times in the side. If anything, he looked better than before. Color in his skin, eyes sharper. He looked more awake, more locked in.
I wondered if he was still partying.
I raised an eyebrow. “Most people look worse after getting shot.”
He gave a shrug that strained his black leather jacket at the shoulders. “I’m not most people.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Gìovanni leaned forward on the back of the pew. “The Morettis want to pay respect to the family for what Tony did – ”
“Oh, spare me,” my father cut in. “They want an alliance.”
Something unreadable flicked through Gìo’s eyes. “Yes. That.”
Outside, a siren wailed down Nolita, thin and distant.
Inside, everything smelled like burned matchsticks and history.
My mind wandered somewhere I didn’t want it to – Matteo.
His warm hand over mine in the dark. His breath against my neck that morning.
The soft, unspoken shift between us lately – like the marriage had stopped being a deal, and started becoming something else.
The kind of shift no one here could ever know.
“We know now the Russians who’ve been attacking weren’t Bratva,” he said, fingers tapping once against the wood. “Just strays.”
“Then who sent them?”
“We’re still working to confirm,” Papà replied, “but Zane and the Sus already took the lead. They opened a line to Moscow’s Bratva leadership. We have backup.”
That actually made me exhale. I wasn’t sure I’d realized how much tension I’d been holding in my shoulders until I felt it loosen.
My father continued, “Now we need a sit-down with the New York Bratva.”
The cathedral was silent except for the faint rustle of someone lighting a candle at the front. Cold February light spilled across the marble floor in diamond shapes.
Papà turned slightly toward me. “Francesca. What do you think?”
I had a few months left as consigliere until Gìovanni took the reins – and when he stepped up, I’d step up too as Underboss.
“Will Zane and Trevor be there?”
Gìovanni nodded. “Yes, for neutral ground.”
“How many Bratva?”
“Three,” Tony answered before Gìo could.
“Then Gìovanni is enough on our side,” I said. “If we show up heavy-handed, we look threatened. Weak. We need to come across prepared, not defensive.”
Tony stretched lazily like he’d been waiting for us to reach the same conclusion.
Papà nodded. “Good. We stay balanced.”
Gìovanni stood, smoothing his coat sleeve. “I’ll arrange the meeting and send word. I’ll keep everyone updated.”
Tony stood with him, resting a hand briefly on the pew. Then they left the aisle, their silhouettes disappeared through the wooden doors, letting in a gust of February air.
I didn’t get up. Papà stayed seated beside me.
“Do you remember when you took your Omertà?”
“I remember everything.”
Those boys had taken me. And I returned the favor.
I didn’t just escape – I destroyed them.
Papà came to get me from Switzerland himself. He had gotten me out within hours, his rage disguised as silence. Tens of millions paid to bury witnesses, clean reports, erase every trace of that night. The world never learned what happened in that dormitory.
Only our world did.
We sat in this same church a week later. It was raining. The stones outside were slick with stormwater, and the pews were filled with Dons and bosses flown in from across the country – Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, Sicily’s shadow looming over all of them.
They gathered to watch the youngest woman in our history take the Omertà.
Every vow I swore that night carved something into me. I became Family in a way most people never could.
He turned to look at me fully now – the great Don DeMone, staring at his daughter like she was both his heir and his legacy.
“I have never been more proud.”
The words hit me harder than I expected.
“I trust you will do everything in your power to make the marriage with Di’Ablo work.”
My heart thudded once against my ribs.
“I need you to become Underboss. And soon.”
“I will get it done.”
He nodded once, satisfied. “For now, I want you away from Bratva dealings. Focus on this for now. Yes?”
“Yes, father.”
An approving smile. “Good daughter.”
He stood slowly, coat shifting around him like a cloak. His silhouette passed beneath the vaulted arches, then vanished into the daylight spilling through the doors.
I was alone.
The cathedral was quiet again. Incense. Candle smoke curling upward in slow ribbons. Shafts of cold light cutting across the pews.
I sat there, with the memory of Matteo’s kiss.
And the heartbreak of knowing it would eventually end.