Page 165 of Fall Before Her Throne

“Sit quietly until we call on you,” Leona said. “You’ll wait patiently until then.”

“Fine.”

Leona hung up without another word.

I cracked my knuckles in front of me while I grinned. “Well, that worked better than expected.”

She threw her arms around my neck. “I knew it would.”

Obi nodded his approval. “Good work, Ciel. This saves us from traveling to Italy to finish it ourselves.”

“Assuming she follows through,” Wynn said while he pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Nice job, love.”

“She will,” I said confidently. Despite being on opposite sides of this war, a small part of me understood Lucia’s desperation for her computers. We had different circumstances and different reasons, but I’d been in a place before where I relied entirely on the electronics in front of me to make me feel worthy of living. Lucia had to be in a similar place.

“Her family doesn’t sound that great,” Leona said. “Maybe she’ll be doing herself a favor.”

Obi cupped the back of her head. “She is likely as trapped there as I was. I’ve met Greco’s sons and other heirs before. They are entitled and ruthless men. They live and act as if their power gives them a free pass to do whatever they want with no consequences. Now that her mother—Greco’s only daughter—is dead, Lucia is the only girl. She will do the world a favor.”

Assuming she follows through, I thought, echoing Wynn from earlier. We’d just have to wait and find out.

52

OBI

“Hey, can I talk to you for a second?” Leona asked as she followed me out of Ciel’s room.

“What is it?”

“Umm,” she started before she paused with a heavy sigh. We walked together through the halls until we reached the top of the stairs. “What happens when Lucia takes care of the heirs?”

“What do you mean?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “What’s the next part of your plan? After Greco’s dead, after they’re dead. What do we do then?”

“Then we take over. We use the Camorra for our own protection and gain.” If we were the most powerful people in the world, we would be untouchable. That’s why I’d spent my life pursuing this ultimate end.

She pressed her lips together. “Are you sure that’s the right thing for us?”

My hand rested on the bannister. “What do you mean?”

Her head tilted to the side while she appraised me. “Is this about safety, or about power, or about control?”

“To me, they are all one and the same.” We wouldn’t be safe until we held the power. My siblings wouldn’t sleep safely unless I knew no one would come after them. I wanted a home where our children could grow, happy and peacefully. I wanted Leona to walk down the street and know that she didn’t have to worry.

She let out a breath. “They aren’t, Obi.”

I curled some hair around her ear. “They are. Trust me on this. Once the criminal underworld is ours, no one will dare challenge us. We’ll have the resources to keep us all safe. We can live the rest of our lives in peace.”

She turned her cheek into my palm. “Do you want to be like they are?” Her voice was soft. “How greedy they are? How their global enterprise preys on others? They’ve never cared about safety. They only care about power. That’s what you’re trying to take over. It’s not a legacy we want or need. We don’t have to become like them.”

“Of course not,” I scoffed. “I do not want to be like Greco. Never. With us in charge, we make sure that no one ever will be again.”

“But we don’t have to take over the Camorra for that to be the case,” she argued.

If it wasn’t us, then who? Someone would fill that vacuum of power, and eventually, they’d come after us. “What do you propose, then?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know. Let Lucia do it? She clearly doesn’t care about her family’s organization. If she were in charge, I’d wager she’d do things differently.”