Chapter 4 4

Isabella POV

Leo's grip tightened on my wrist, his nails digging into my skin. "You vicious *puttana* (whore)," he repeated, his breath reeking of stale liquor and wounded pride.

I looked down at his trembling hand, then up into his bloodshot eyes. I didn't flinch. "The Don didn't humiliate you because of me, Leo," I said, my voice a deadly calm. "He humiliated you because you are incompetent. You lost the docks the moment you thought you could outsmart Luciano Moretti."

Leo raised his free hand, his face twisting into a violent snarl. Luca let out a sharp breath, pressing his small body harder against my legs, his tiny arms still stretched out to protect me.

"Leo, enough!" Angelica's sharp voice cut through the tension. She stepped forward, her manicured hands wrapping around his raised arm. "Not in public. You are making a spectacle of the Gallo name."

Leo hesitated, his chest heaving, before shoving my arm away with a disgusted scoff.

Angelica smoothed her pristine skirt and turned to me. Her eyes gleamed with a predatory, calculating light that completely betrayed her peacemaker act. "We are willing to be reasonable, Isabella," she said, her tone dripping with fake pity. "To compensate for the public embarrassment you've caused Leo today, we will assume control of the Brooklyn docks and your mother's trust fund. It is the least you owe him."

"She owes me everything," Leo spat, adjusting his lapels.

I watched them storm out of the shop, the heavy glass door slamming behind them. My pulse hammered, but not from fear. Angelica's behavior was entirely contradictory. She had stopped Leo from hurting me, yet she was obsessively fixated on my family's assets. A woman as selfish as Angelica didn't care about Leo's bruised ego. She wanted something specific hidden within the Falcone legacy.

*

That night, the Falcone study was suffocatingly quiet. I bypassed the velvet boxes of my mother's diamonds and spread my father's shipping routes, warehouse deeds, and my mother's pharmaceutical contracts with the Rossi company across the mahogany desk.

I studied the documents until my eyes burned. What was Angelica looking for? A hidden smuggling route? A secret ledger detailing the Five Families' black-market trades?

The papers offered no immediate answers. But as I gathered the files and locked them inside my father's heavy iron safe, a cold certainty settled over me. Whatever secret lay buried in my family's empire, Angelica Russo would never touch it.

*

Enzo POV

The air in Damien Moretti's room was a stagnant pool of whiskey, iodine, and despair. Heavy velvet curtains suffocated the moonlight, leaving the space in perpetual twilight.

I stood beside his wheelchair, a silent shadow fulfilling my duty. Damien sat motionless, his hollow eyes fixed on the dark wall. He looked like a corpse waiting for a casket, but he was still my Underboss.

My voice was a low, emotionless monotone as I delivered the day's report. I spoke of Don Luciano's decree, the humiliating gifts delivered to the Gallo Social Club, and the confrontation on Fifth Avenue.

Damien didn't blink. He hadn't reacted to a single word in months.

"Leo Gallo cornered her in the tailor shop," I continued, keeping my posture rigid. "He was violent. But the boy, Luca Falcone, stood to protect his sister. He is six."

Silence stretched, heavy and absolute.

Then, a millimeter of movement. Damien's index finger, resting on the armrest, twitched.

The sound that followed was like dry leaves scraping against stone-a voice destroyed by disuse and agony.

"Isabella..." Damien rasped, his chest rising with a shallow, painful breath. "Did she kneel?"

I stared at the man I had sworn my life to, feeling a strange, unfamiliar tightness in my chest.

"No, Underboss," I answered softly. "She never did."

In the suffocating darkness, the faintest ghost of a smile touched Damien Moretti's lips.