“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 acrossthe 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.
