[Sofia’s POV]
The private club smells like old money and impending violence—my two favorite things, apparently, given my life choices lately.
I stand near Dante at the Caruso side of the massive negotiating table, wearing a dress that costs more than my fake identity's yearly income and heels that could double as weapons if things go sideways. Which, given the room full of Dons, underbosses, and enough security to stage a small coup, seems increasingly likely.
Every major family is here. The air is thick with tension, expensive cologne, and the kind of polite hostility that precedes either business deals or bloodbaths.
When I enter the room, my eyes find Alessandro immediately—some traitorous magnetic pull I can't seem to override despite everything. He's at the De Luca table with Vittore, dressed in a dark suit that makes him look like sin personified.
Our gazes lock across the crowded space.
Something passes between us—acknowledgment, pain, determination, and underneath it all, that devastating thread of connection that refuses to die no matter how many lies we've buried it under.
Then we both look away. Focus. Mission first.
The meeting begins with all the ceremony of a funeral procession. Vittore and Dante take their positions at the main table, and I watch Marchetti settle into his mediator's chair with the smooth confidence of someone who's played this role countless times before.
You have no idea what's coming, you murderous bastard.
"Gentlemen," Marchetti says, his voice warm and diplomatic, "we're here to finally negotiate peace between De Luca and Caruso. After a decade of hostility, it's time to move forward."
The irony is so thick I could choke on it. The man who orchestrated the war now positioning himself as the peacemaker.
Discussions begin—territory agreements, business arrangements, reparations for damages. Marchetti suggests compromises with practiced ease, steering conversations, keeping things civil. He's good at this. Terrifyingly good.
I keep my expression neutral while my pulse hammers against my ribs.
Wait for it. Wait for the signal.
Vittore speaks up, his voice casual in that way that means anything but. "Before we finalize terms, I've noticed some financial discrepancies in recent inter-family dealings. Money that doesn't quite add up."
Marchetti's smile doesn't waver, but I catch the microscopic tension in his shoulders. "I'm sure it's just accounting errors. These things happen in complex operations."
Now.
Dante stands, and the room's attention shifts like a spotlight. He pulls documents from his jacket—the evidence we've spent days verifying, cross-referencing, preparing—and spreads them across the table with deliberate precision.
"Speaking of discrepancies," my brother says, his voice carrying clearly, "we recovered some interesting documents. Your signature, Marchetti. On payments made two days before my family was massacred ten years ago."
The silence that follows is absolute. Crystalline. The kind of quiet that precedes explosions.
Every head in the room turns to look at Marchetti.
His mask cracks—just for a second, surprise and fury flashing across his features before he smooths them away. But I saw it. Everyone saw it.
"Those are obvious forgeries," he says, recovering quickly. "I don't know what game you're playing, Caruso, but this is a desperate attempt to deflect from your family's own—"
Alessandro stands, and the movement cuts Marchetti off mid-denial. He pulls out his phone, and a moment later, audio fills the room.
The quality isn't perfect—it's old, recovered from archives that should have been destroyed years ago—but the voice is unmistakable. Marchetti's voice, discussing "the Naples problem" and "removing the Caruso obstacle" and "making it look like De Luca's work."
The room erupts.
Family heads shout over each other, demanding explanations, accusations flying like bullets. Marchetti's composure shatters completely as he tries to deny—claims the recording is fabricated, claims he's being set up, his voice rising with each desperate protest.
Then Vittore stands, and somehow the Don commands silence without raising his voice.
"I have my own evidence," he says, spreading additional documents across the table. "Financial records proving Marchetti has been embezzling from all of us for years. Skimming percentages, hiding transactions, building his own empire while we destroyed each other."
The other Dons go very, very still. Because theft from the families isn't just betrayal—it's suicide with extra steps.
"This is ridiculous," Marchetti snarls, but his voice has lost its diplomatic smoothness. "You're all being manipulated by children playing at revenge—"
"Bring him in," Dante says quietly.
The doors open, and two guards drag Tommy into the room.
My former friend—my brother's trusted confidant—looks nothing like the warm, caring person who checked on me during the mission. His face is bruised, hands bound, eyes wild with fear. The sight makes my stomach turn, even knowing what he is. What he's done.
"Tell them," Dante orders, his voice cold as steel. "Tell everyone who you really are."
Tommy's gaze darts to his father—to Marchetti, who's gone pale as ash—and something breaks in his expression.
"I'm Marchetti's son," he says, the confession spilling out in a rush. "Planted in the Caruso organization after the massacre. I've been feeding him information for over a decade. Every plan, every strategy, every piece of intelligence." His voice cracks. "I exposed Sophie Caruso to Alessandro De Luca to create chaos between the families. To keep the war going."
The room explodes again, but this time the rage is directed squarely at Marchetti.
He realizes he's trapped. I watch the calculation in his eyes—the desperate search for escape routes, allies, any way out of this—and then he bolts for the door like a cornered animal.
His own guards turn on him.
Vittore and Dante bought them off hours ago.
Marchetti is surrounded in seconds, his shocked face almost comical as the men he trusted close in with weapons drawn.
The council of Dons convenes right there at the table. The deliberation takes less than ten minutes—barely a discussion, really. The evidence is overwhelming, the betrayal absolute.
"Death," Don Ricci pronounces, and the others nod in agreement. "For both of them. Traitors to everything we stand for."
Marchetti screams protests, threats, promises of information and money. Tommy just closes his eyes, accepting what's coming.
They're dragged toward a back room, and I turn away before they disappear through the door. I can't watch. Even after everything, I can't watch someone I trusted die.
But I hear it.
Two gunshots. Quick. Final.
Then silence.
The tension in the room shifts—transforms from volatile to something else. Resolution, maybe. Or just exhaustion after a decade of fighting the wrong enemy.
I look across the room at Alessandro.
He's already looking at me.
For the first time in days, something other than pain flickers in his grey-green eyes. Hope, maybe. Possibility. The fragile beginning of what comes after vengeance finally finds its target.
The threat is gone. The real enemy is dead. My parents' murderer has finally paid for what he did.
And standing in this room full of crime families and fresh corpses, I realize that the girl who walked into Alessandro De Luca's house seeking revenge has become someone else entirely.
Someone who might actually deserve a future.
We did it, I think, holding Alessandro's gaze across the crowded space. We actually did it.
Now comes the harder part.
Figuring out what we are to each other when the mission is over and all the lies have been stripped away.