90 "**“STOP WAVING YOUR HANDS! YOU'RE EMBARRASSING ME!”

The name hung in the chilled air of the recovery room like a suspended executioner’s axe.

Don Valenti.

One of the oldest members of the Moretti Commission. A man who had sat at Luca’s father’s table, who had poured wine at Luca’s coronation as Don, and who had kissed Isabella’s forehead at her fifth birthday party.

"Valenti," Luca repeated. The word didn't leave his mouth as a shout; it dropped like a piece of lead into deep water. A sickening stillness settled over him. When Luca yelled, he was dangerous. When Luca went dead silent, people died by the dozens.

"Are you certain?" I asked Marco, my voice tight. "A clearance code can be stolen. Hacked."

"It wasn't hacked," Marco answered, pulling a sleek, encrypted tablet from his suit jacket and tapping the glass. He held it out so Luca and I could see the security log. "The biometric thumbprint scanner was triggered at 8:42 PM, ten minutes before the speech. It was authorized directly from Valenti’s personal handheld device. And there’s more."

Marco swiped the screen, bringing up a grain of grainy, high-definition security footage taken from an alley two blocks from the ballroom.

"Our spotters caught this three minutes after the shooting," Marco continued. "A black Mercedes sedan leaving the scene with an escort of private security. The plates belong to the Volkov Syndicate’s front company in Brooklyn. Sitting in the back seat was Valenti’s nephew, Dario."

"The Russians and Valenti," Luca murmured, his voice dropping into a register that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "They thought if they killed me, Valenti could step in as regent over the Five Families, and the Volkovs would take back the northern shipping ports without firing another shot."

"They assumed you wouldn't survive the night," Marco added grimly. "Right now, the rumors in the city are spreading like wildfire. The media thinks it was a lone madman. The underworld thinks you're already dead on an embalmer's slab."

I felt a surge of cold fury coursing through my veins. They had targeted my family. They had shot my husband in front of his child. They had made Isabella think she was the cause of her father’s death.

"Then let them think it," I said, the words slipping out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Both Luca and Marco snapped their eyes to me.

"Elena?" Luca’s brow arched, a flicker of dark intrigue dancing in his black eyes despite the pain lining his features.

"If Valenti thinks you're dead," I explained, stepping closer to the bed, my mind racing through the terrifying chessboard of their world, "he will move to consolidate power. He will call a meeting of the Commission to declare himself head of the family. He will expose his alliances with the Russians because he won't fear your retribution."

Luca stared at me. For a second, I thought I had overstepped, that I was just the quiet, traumatized girl who used to hide behind silence. But then, a slow, predatory grin carved its way across his pale, aristocratic face. It was the smile of a wolf watching its prey walk willingly into the snare.

"My clever, beautiful viper," Luca whispered, his uninjured hand reaching up to grasp the nape of my neck, pulling me down until his warm breath ghosted over my lips. "You have Moretti blood in you after all."

He turned his gaze back to Marco, the warmth evaporating instantly. "Marco. Put a blackout on this safehouse. No one leaves. No calls in or out. Leak to our discreet contacts in the press that Don Moretti underwent emergency surgery and did not make it through the third hour."

"And the body, Boss?" Marco asked, completely falling into the strategy.

"Tell the Commission the funeral will be private, held at the estate chapel in forty-eight hours," Luca ordered, his voice hardening like tempered steel. "Let Valenti think the crown is lying on the floor, waiting for him to pick it up. In two days, we will hold a feast for the traitor."

"Understood," Marco nodded, his eyes gleaming with lethal anticipation. He turned and strode out of the room, barking orders into his radio before the heavy steel door even clicked shut.

I turned back to Luca. The brief burst of adrenaline was already beginning to fade from his features, leaving him visibly exhausted, his skin gray and glistening with a cold sheen of sweat.

"You need to rest," I told him gently, sitting on the edge of the bed beside Isabella, who had curled her small body into a ball, exhausted by trauma.