Chapter 3

Siena POV

The click of my heels on the cold marble of the East Wing corridor sounded like the ticking of a bomb.

This exact hallway was a graveyard of my past mistakes. In my previous life, I had walked this path with Chiara clinging to my arm, arriving late to the morning coffee ritual. We had found Valentina-the loyal widow of a Castillo Soldier-pinned to this very floor by two female Enforcers.

Elder Elmira Castillo had ordered the punishment. Valentina's crime? Defending my commoner blood against the sneers of the high-ranking women. I had wanted to scream, to invoke my absolute authority as the Mafia Queen, but Chiara's nails had dug into my wrist.

*"Don't, Siena,"* my sister had whimpered, her eyes wide with manufactured terror. *"You'll start a war with the Elders over a lowly widow. Please, I'm so scared."*

I had swallowed my power to protect my sister's fragile feelings, leaving Valentina to be brutally slapped while Elder Adeline watched from her velvet chair.

That cowardice cost Valentina her life.

Days later, Chiara had volunteered to visit Valentina's cramped apartment in the Associates' District to "comfort" her. That night, Valentina hung herself with the silver Castillo rosary I had gifted her. Her last words to her maid echoed in my nightmares: *"I cannot be a weakness to the Queen anymore."*

I had knelt outside Dante's study, weeping until my throat bled, begging the Dark Don for a Vendetta. When his elite Enforcers ruled it a suicide, Chiara had whispered poison in my ear, twisting my grief into a blind hatred for Elmira.

Now, as I approached the heavy oak doors of the East Wing Suite, the truth was a sickening weight in my stomach. Elmira had struck the physical blow, but it was Chiara who had slithered into that apartment and psychologically butchered a grieving widow. My sweet sister had likely threatened Valentina's child to force her hand, neatly severing my most loyal wing.

I stopped just outside the suite. The voices inside bled through the crack, sharp and venomous. History was repeating itself, right on schedule.

"It's an insult to the Castillo bloodline," Isabella, a Capo's wife, sneered. "First a commoner Queen, and now we are expected to host her low-born sister in the estate? They are polluting the air we breathe."

"The Queen's blood is the Don's choice," Valentina's voice rang out, trembling but fiercely defiant. "You disrespect the Don by questioning his wife, Lady Isabella."

A heavy silence fell over the room, followed by the sharp scrape of a chair.

"How dare a lowly widow speak to a Capo's wife like that?" Elmira's voice was a whip crack of aristocratic fury.

"She meant no disrespect, Elmira," Lucia, another Capo's wife, murmured nervously, trying to de-escalate. "She is under the Queen's protection..."

"I don't care who she hides behind!" Elmira snapped, her voice dripping with absolute disdain. "She broke the hierarchy. Drag her out to the corridor. Let the Enforcers slap the insolence out of her before our *gracious* Queen arrives."

The heavy double doors swung open violently.

Two massive female Enforcers dragged Valentina out by her arms, throwing her onto the freezing marble. Elmira and Isabella stepped out behind them, their faces twisted in cruel, self-righteous satisfaction.

But this time, Chiara wasn't here to dig her nails into my arm.

I stood dead center in the corridor, my eyes locked on Elmira as the Enforcer raised her heavy hand to strike.