I stare at the words. My jaw locks.
“I'm sorry,” I whisper. “I should’ve seen it. I should’ve fought harder for you.”
The wind stirs. A bird cries somewhere overhead.
I clench my fists.
“No one else will suffer like you did,” I vow. “Not while I’m alive.”
A storm brews inside me, one that won’t pass with time. I will become the man our world fears. A leader who protects his own. Who kills without hesitation. Who burns down kingdoms before letting another Alessio fall through the cracks.
My grief hardens into resolve.
“I’ve made all your bullies pay, brother. Every single one of them. And I’ll build a world where no one like you is ever treated like a burden again.”
I press my hand to the stone once more.
Then I rise, and I walk away, no longer just the heir.
Now, I’m a man shaped by loss.
And one day, I’ll be a Don forged in fire.
Because the world took Alessio from me.
And I plan that it will never happen under my watch again.
1
GIOVANNI
Six Years Later.
My father is dead.
Massimo Renzetti, the Don of the Renzetti famiglia, is dead.
I'd like to mourn him, but I don’t have the time to. I barely have the time to bury him. Three days ago, I stood in front of hundreds of men dressed in black, pretending I wasn’t hollow inside. Pretending I didn’t want to punch something just to feel something. But it's all pointless. The show must go on.
Now I sit in his chair, an indication of me stepping into his shoes. His ring is on my finger, his men at my back, men I'mnow responsible for. It should fill me with a sense of fulfillment, but I can't shake a sense of foreboding. Especially because I just found out earlier today that the first betrayal has occurred, and it comes from someone he trusted.
“Renato Marchelli,” Tomasso says, setting the file on my desk like it’s not about to piss me off.
Renato Marchelli. My father’s enforcer. Trusted. Ruthless. A man who should’ve known better. And yet here it is, clean-cut evidence of embezzlement. Right after my father’s death, when the organization was at its most vulnerable. He siphoned money from the Palermo operation as though no one would notice.
“He waited until your father died before he made his move,” Tomasso says, his voice carrying a hint of the anger I mirror. “That money was rerouted two days after the funeral. He didn’t even pretend to be subtle.”
I don’t respond. I’m still staring at the bank records. At the quiet, clinical breakdown of exactly how Renato skimmed over half a million euros from the Palermo port.
Half a million fucking euros.
I clench my jaw so hard my teeth ache. “He really thought I’d be too distracted to trace this?”
Tomasso’s mouth twitches. “He’s banking on you playing it soft.”
I chuckle. It's without humor. “Where is he?” I ask.
“His house in Siena.”
