Chapter 5 5

As the flashbulbs flared around me, I locked eyes with Donatella Romano across the chaotic lobby. Her sharp, calculating gaze pierced through the frenzy, assessing me. The trap was set. Now, I just needed to spring it.

I stopped fighting the agony radiating from my shattered hands. I let the adrenaline bleed out of my veins, allowing the crushing weight of my pulverized bones and the lingering poison to finally take over. My knees buckled.

I didn't brace for the fall. I let the cold marble floor rush up to meet me, collapsing like a bird with clipped wings right at the feet of the Romano matriarch.

Gia's shriek pierced the clamor. "Anya!"

Through the graying edges of my vision, I saw Donatella step forward. She didn't flinch. With a subtle, imperious flick of her wrist, her massive bodyguards surged forward, shoving the paparazzi aside and forming an impenetrable wall of muscle and tailored suits around us.

"Bring her to my suite," Donatella ordered, her voice cutting through the frenzy like a blade. "And call my private physician. Now."

Carla, Donatella's ever-present shadow, gripped Gia's arm, hauling her up from the floor. "What happened to her?" Carla demanded, her tone low and urgent.

Gia sobbed, clutching my ruined arm with rehearsed desperation. "She only wanted to honor her brother! But when she tried to speak the truth about how her family is using Angelo's death for their own greed, they... they butchered her! They called her crazy!"

The chaotic noise of the lobby soon faded into the muffled, heavy silence of the Romano penthouse. The scent of expensive cigars and faint antiseptic filled my senses, replacing the sweat and desperation of the crowd below. I was laid onto a plush, king-sized bed. I kept my eyes shut, my breathing shallow and uneven, playing the unconscious, shattered collateral. But my hearing was razor-sharp.

Footsteps approached the foot of the bed.

"Carla," Donatella murmured, her tone dropping into rapid, icy Sicilian. *"Mandate qualcuno al porto di Brooklyn."* (Send someone to the Brooklyn docks.) *"Chiedete ai topi se i Falcone hanno fatto pulizia di recente. E scoprite chi ha firmato il certificato di morte di Angelo."* (Ask the rats if the Falcones have been cleaning house recently. And find out who signed Angelo's death certificate.)

A door clicked open. The doctor had arrived. I felt the sharp prick of a needle in my upper arm-a heavy sedative and painkiller. As the blinding edge of my agony began to dull into a numb throb, I felt a different, far more dangerous presence beside the bed.

Donatella.

Cool, calculating fingers gently peeled back the edge of my blood-soaked bandages. She wasn't looking at the broken bones or the swelling. She was tracing the pads of my fingers, the base of my palms.

I knew exactly what she was feeling. The thick, hardened calluses built from a decade of gripping a customized M1911, the rough skin forged by endless hours of hand-to-hand combat and snapping necks in the dark. A pampered Falcone princess wouldn't have hands like these. These were the hands of a killer. An Enforcer.

I felt Donatella's breath hitch, just for a fraction of a second.

The air in the room instantly grew heavier, charged with a dangerous new realization. She didn't gasp. She didn't ask questions. She simply pulled the cashmere blanket up to my chin, her movements deliberate and slow.

"Let her stay," Donatella instructed Carla, her voice devoid of its previous public pity, replaced by a predator's deep intrigue. "Until we find out exactly what we are dealing with, she is a guest of the Romano family."

I had won my sanctuary. I was inside the fortress. But as I heard the doctor unlatching his leather bag, preparing his instruments for a full, invasive physical examination, my heart rate spiked. If he stripped me down, Donatella would see the bullet holes and knife scars littering my torso-the undeniable map of Angelo Falcone's ghost.