POW. POW. POW.
Gunshots echo from downstairs. The women freeze. My hand goes to the knife in my boot. And the huntress inside me wakes up screaming.
Zanello Tower feels different today.Heavier. Charged. Even our second-in-commands, lingering in the foyer with the other bodyguards, look tense. As if the walls themselves know we’re about to uproot a dynasty.
We gather in the council chamber, Capos and underbosses—men who have shaped New York’s underworld for decades. Most of us know why we’re here, but wariness is reflected on the faces of all those who don’t.
Yesterday’s secret meeting bound us with one goal: Cut the rot out of La Famiglia before Caracas eats us alive.
The elevator dings. Edoardo storms in.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?" he bellows, slamming a hand on the table. "Why was I called here like an errand boy? You havenoright to convene a La Famiglia council without my approval! It's bad enough that the Russians presumed to do so. I will not tolerate itfrom you, too."
He looks ridiculous, in his expensive suit, with his swollen ego and bloodshot eyes from too many nights pretending he’s still in control. Gustave follows behind him, nervous sweat already visible at his temples. He probably has an idea of what is coming.
Fabrizio, Enrico's father, enters last, confusion etched across his face. "Enrico? What’s going on?"
"I'll explain later, Papa," Enrico assures him, and I'm jealous of the trust between the two of them. Not even a month ago, that was Gustave and me. Or so I thought.
Enrico's brothers, Ettoro, Matteo, and Tommaso, exchange glances but say nothing.
Edoardo finally notices the room’s stillness.
"What?" he spits. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"
Raf moves first; we decided yesterday that he should do the honors. He stands, calm and emotionless. The kind of calm that means someone’s about to be executed.
"We’re here," he begins, "because the Don of New York has betrayed La Famiglia."
Edoardo turns purple. "You watch your fucking mouth, DeSantis. I?—"
Raf clicks a remote. A projector hums to life. Files splash across the wall: emails, bank transfers, encrypted messages, and photographs. And at the top of the first email:
From: Edoardo Zanello
To: Aurelio Valverde
The color drains from Edoardo’s face. "Forgeries. These are all forged!"
Raf doesn’t blink. His voice stays cold and precise. "As you can see, Edoardo not only thanked Aurelio Valverde for removing Leonardo Zanello from power, but he also wired him large amounts of money for the favor. And, in his brilliance, he assumed that it would end there." He tilts his head. "It didn’t. He opened the door."
Raf points his outstretched finger at Edoardo, who turns beet red in his outrage and humiliation of having been caught. "And Aurelio walked straight through it."
We deliberately left the rest of the story out, the entire Margarita mess.
No one here needs to know she blackmailed Edoardo into marrying her daughter or that she facilitated the meetings. We still don’t know whether she acted as a sleeper Cell for the Voronin bloodline or because of her personal vendetta against Leonardo for what he did to her mother, Caterine.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. Whatever role Margarita was meant to play in the Voronin system, she dedicated her life to destroying Leonardo.
She married one of his capos, Ricci, to get close. At somepoint, she became pregnant with Leonardo’s child, Raf, only to be cast aside by him.
From there, her vendetta spiraled into something larger than any of us realized, intertwining with the Venezuelan Cells, tying our families into knots of betrayal we’re still unraveling.
We don’t know how much of her hatred was personal and how much was engineered —or genetic— but her legacy—her choices—brought us exactly to this moment.
And now, we have to clean it up.
Raf flips to the next slide.
