The Queen's Silent Reign

Chapter 1

Sienna Romano

“Perfect, my darling. Absolutely perfect.”

My father’s voice lives in the back of my mind, low and warm, a rumble of approval I’ve spent my whole life chasing. This afternoon, as he walked through the ballroom during the final walkthrough, he stood beside me in the middle of all the chaos. Staff shouting, florists swearing over centerpieces, electricians cursing dimmers, and said it right into my ear. His hand was warm on the small of my back. He smelled of expensive cologne and cigar smoke. The scent of power.

“Your mother would have been so proud,” he’d told me.

I’d offered the correct smile back then. I offer it again now.

“Thank you, Papa,” I murmur under my breath, even though he isn’t here to hear it.

Now the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza Hotel glitters in full bloom. Two hundred of the city’s most influential people are here, drinking our champagne, eating our food, and donating obscene amounts of money to the Romano Family Children’s Foundation.

My foundation. My gala. My perfect gilded cage.

A photographer calls my name and I turn just so, angling my face, letting the light catch the diamonds at my throat. The smile I give them doesn’t quite reach my eyes, but it brightens my face just enough for the cameras. That’s all anyone needs.

“Signorina Romano.” A politician’s wife clasps my hand, her bracelets chiming softly. “Everything is exquisite.”

“Thank you,” I say. “We’re honored you could join us.”

We. As if the we of it is here. As if my father isn’t late. As if my brothers aren’t conspicuously absent from their usual flanking positions like dark, smug bookends.

“Your father is delayed, yes?” she asks lightly, like it’s small talk and not the question humming under the surface of the whole room.

“Just a last-minute meeting,” I say smoothly. “You know Papa. He’d hold court in a broom closet if someone owed him a favor.”

She laughs. People always do when I make jokes like that. It lets them pretend they have no idea how true they are.

Papa and my brothers should have been here thirty minutes ago. For the last hour, everyone has been pretending not to notice that they aren’t.

I move through the crowd like I was trained to. Never in a straight line, never too fast, always available but never lingering too long in one place. I am glossy hair and red lips and a custom gown worth more than most people’s cars. I am the charitable face of a criminal empire.

Behind the smile, my mind runs a different program.

I am not looking at the gowns or the jewels.

I am looking at the exits. I am mapping the sightlines. I am identifying threats.

Senator Rawlings stands by the bar, talking a little too closely to Antonio Falcone. Uncle Tony. Papa’s oldest friend. Rawlings has a gambling problem. Falcone owns three casinos in Atlantic City. A problem and a solution having a quiet drink. I make a mental note.

My gaze drifts to the security detail. Papa’s men. The best money and fear can buy.

Two on the main doors. Good.

One on the balcony entrance. Acceptable.

But the service corridor leading to the kitchens? Understaffed. A single delivery truck, a few fake uniforms, and you could have a dozen armed men inside before anyone even noticed the canapés were late.

An unacceptable risk. Another thing to correct. If anyone ever actually listened to me.

“Sienna, darling.”

Beatrice Van Doren glides toward me, her diamond necklace worth more than the hospital wing we’re funding tonight. Her face is a tight mask of polite interest.

“Such a wonderful evening,” she says, air-kissing my cheeks. “You have such a flair for these things.”

“Thank you for coming, Beatrice.” I take her hand, her skin papery and fragile. “It means the world to have your support.”

She pats my hand. “You’re a good girl, Sienna. A credit to your father.”

A good girl.

I am twenty-six years old. I speak four languages. I can analyze a balance sheet faster than my brother Matteo, and I can read a room with more accuracy than Gianni. But to them, to all of them, I am a good girl who throws lovely parties.

My eyes find Luca.

He stands just beyond the edge of the crowd, near a marble column, a ghost in a perfectly tailored suit. Other bodyguards scan the room, their gazes sweeping constantly, cataloging everyone and everything.

Luca’s eyes are on me.

Always on me.

He watches my posture, the set of my shoulders, the tiny flicker of an eyelid. He knows when my smile is real and when it is armor. Right now, he knows I’m wearing a fortress.

He gives a nearly imperceptible nod. Our private language.

I am here. I am ready.

I give the barest tilt of my head in return.

I know.

The band changes songs. Waiters glide past with trays of champagne. The auctioneer is doing his warm-up patter at the far end of the room. On the surface, the evening is flawless.

Underneath, I can feel a hum. A wrongness. It starts small: one of Papa’s men near the doors touching his earpiece, his jaw tightening. Another, at the far side of the room, suddenly very still. The pattern shifts, and I don’t know how I know, but I know.

Something is happening.

My father’s absence presses heavier on my ribs.

They should have been here by now.

He promised, this afternoon, with his hand on my back and pride in his eyes. *“We’ll be late, perhaps. There’s a meeting I cannot miss. But we will come. I want to see my angel shine.”*

They are not here to see it.

I make my way toward the French doors to the terrace. I tell myself I need air. I tell myself it’s because the ballroom is hot, the air thick with perfume and money and lies. I don’t admit—even inside my own head—that I’m following the tension coiling in my gut like wire.

The crowd parts for me effortlessly. People step aside without thinking. I am untouchable.

Sienna Romano. The Angel of the Five Families.

A title I despise.

The cool night air is a relief against my flushed skin. The city stretches out below, a tapestry of glittering lights. Beautiful from up here. Distant. Clean.

I lean against the cold stone balustrade and close my eyes, letting the sound of traffic far below wash over me. For a moment, I imagine just…walking away. Down the side stairs, into a cab, disappearing into the blur of taillights.

I once asked Papa why he never let me sit in on the meetings. I was twenty-two, fresh out of business school with a master’s degree I had earned with honors.

He’d laughed. Patted my head like I was a golden retriever.

“Sienna, my sweet girl,” he said, his voice laced with that infuriating, gentle affection. “Your hands are not meant for holding weapons. They are for holding champagne glasses.”

My hands grip the balustrade now, my knuckles white.

He thinks my mind is the same as my hands. Soft. Delicate. Unsuited for the darkness his world is built upon.

He is wrong.

They have no idea the things I see, the connections I make. They don’t know that I was the one who spotted the discrepancy in the shipping manifests two years ago that led to them discovering an embezzler in their ranks. I pointed it out to Lorenzo, our family’s consigliere, who quietly told my father.

Papa praised Matteo for his sharp eye.

Matteo, who can’t even balance his own checkbook.

I said nothing. I just smiled and planned the Christmas ball.

That’s the game I play. I am the ghost in their machine. The silent observer. I see the rot in our foundations, the cracks in our alSiennances, the enemies who smile at our table.

And I say nothing.

Because the Don has two sons. The succession is clear. There is no place for a daughter in that world.

A shift in the air behind me makes the tiny hairs on the back of my neck rise.

I don’t need to turn around. I know his presence. His quiet energy. His absolute stillness.

“Luca,” I say, without opening my eyes.

“Sienna.”

His voice is wrong.

Luca’s voice is usually steady, even when I’m not. Tonight, for the ten years he’s been by my side, through teenage tantrums and society scandals, it has been the one constant line of calm through every storm.

Now it’s frayed. Thin.

I open my eyes and turn.

The look on his face steals the air from my lungs. His expression is never anything but a carefully constructed mask of neutrality. That mask is gone. His face is pale, his eyes wide with something I have never seen in them before.

Horror.

“What is it?” My heart starts a frantic, heavy rhythm against my ribs. “What’s happened?”

He takes a step closer. Behind him, through the glass, I see the ballroom: glitter, light, laughter. No one out there knows that anything is wrong yet.

Luca’s jaw works. His mouth opens and closes once, twice. Luca is never at a loss for words. He doesn’t use many, but when he does, they are always precise. Chosen.

“Tell me,” I say, my voice low and sharp. The hostess persona evaporates under the sheer terror rolling off him. “Now.”

“There was an incident,” he says finally, the words scraped out of his throat. He glances back toward the ballroom, as if worried we can be overheard despite the glass and the music.

“An incident?” Cold dread coils in my stomach. “Is it Papa? Matteo? Gianni? They’re late. Did something happen with the meeting?”

“Your father,” Luca says. His voice cracks on the word. “He left the meeting downtown twenty minutes ago. On the way here.”

My mind races. Routes. Convoys. Security protocols.

“What about him?” I demand. “Did someone hit the convoy? Is he at a hospital? Which one?”

Luca shakes his head slowly.

“It wasn’t an accident,” he says.

The air seems to thicken around us. The city noise fades to a dull, distant roar.

“And your brothers,” he continues, voice barely a whisper. “They were already on the move from the house. Separate route. Separate detail.”

“No.” The word is a puff of air, too small to hold the scale of my denial. “No. They have security. They have armored cars. They are never without their men.”

I am reciting facts, building a wall of logic between myself and what I see in his eyes.

“It was coordinated,” Luca says, his tone flattening out, like he’s forcing it into something he can control. “Professional. Both convoys were hit within the same minute. Blocking vehicles, explosives. Security was neutralized at both locations.”

I stare at him. At his shattered expression. At the cracks in the world I thought I understood.

To hit the Don and both his heirs nearly simultaneously…it would have to be an inside job. Someone who knew their schedules. Their routes. Their security protocols.

My analytical mind keeps working, even as everything else inside me begins to tilt.

“Where are they?” I ask. My voice sounds strange to my own ears, like it’s coming from down a hallway. “Are they at the hospital? Tell me which one, we’ll go—”

Luca finally meets my gaze fully. And in his eyes, I see the answer.

There is no hope there.

Only devastation.

He doesn’t need to say the words.

But he does.

“They’re gone, Sienna.”

Something inside my chest lurches, then clamps down so hard I can’t breathe.

He reaches out as if to steady me, but I am frozen, locking my knees, fingers digging into the stone rail.

“All three convoys are confirmed,” Luca says hoarsely. “Your father. Matteo. Gianni. No survivors.”

I drag in a breath that feels like glass.

The Don. The heirs.

“The police will be on it soon,” he continues quietly. “The other Families will move even sooner. This gala…” His gaze flicks toward the shining room beyond the glass. “This is a target now. We have to get you out before anyone here realizes what’s happened.”

The words swim around me. The city lights blur, smeared streaks of color.

My home. My life. Everything I have ever known.

Gone.

I force my lips to move. “Does anyone else know?”

“Lorenzo.” Luca swallows. “Some of the inner circle. They’re already securing the estate. We go there. Now.”

The urge to crumble, to scream, to fall to my knees and sob until my throat is raw, crashes into me like a wave.

I don’t move.

The fortress holds.

“Then let’s go,” I say. My voice is low, scraped smaller than it was an hour ago, but it doesn’t shake. “Get me out of here, Luca.”

He nods once, relief and grief warring in his eyes.

“Yes, signorina.”

He steps in close, his arm a solid line of strength at my back as he guides me away from the rail and toward the doors.

Behind the glass, the gala continues, crystal and laughter, music and money, blissfully unaware that the world on which it rests has just been blown to pieces.

As we disappear into the shadows at the edge of the ballroom, I hear my father’s voice again in my head, warm and proud.

“Your mother would have been so proud.”

My perfect gilded cage is gone.

All that’s left is the fall.

Chapter 2

Sienna Romano

The world is a muffled roar. A series of moments that don’t connect. The scent of lilies, cloying and sweet, the smell of death trying to masquerade as beauty. The black fabric of a hundred different suits. The low murmur of voices offering condolences that sound like threats, like vultures circling.

My home is not my home anymore. It is a stage for a wake, filled with men who ate at my father’s table and are now measuring the drapes for his coffin.

Luca has not left my side. He is a silent, solid wall between me and the crushing weight of it all. He moves when I move. He stops when I stop. He has brought me three glasses of water and I have drunk none of them.

Grief is supposed to be a wave that pulls you under. I am not drowning. I am standing on the shore, the water up to my ankles, and everything is chillingly clear. My shock has sharpened into a lens. I see everything.

I see Antonio Falcone, my ‘uncle’, clasping the shoulder of a city councilman, his face a perfect mask of sorrow, but his eyes are calculating. They are scanning the room, taking inventory.

I see Silvio Rossi, one of my father’s oldest capos, whispering to his son, his hand covering his mouth. They are not sharing memories. They are plotting strategies.

And I see the women. The wives. Dressed in Chanel and Dior mourning wear. They look at me with pity. Real pity. It’s the most insulting thing I have felt all day. They see a poor, orphaned girl, left all alone. A tragic story to be whispered over brunch.

I have not cried. The tears are frozen somewhere deep inside me, a glacier of loss I don’t have time to explore.

“Sienna.”

The voice belongs to Lorenzo. The family consigliere. He has been at my father’s side since before I was born. His face is a roadmap of worry, each line etched deeper than it was two days ago.

“They are waiting for you,” he says. His voice is quiet, for my ears only. “In the study.”

I nod once. I hand my untouched water glass to Luca without looking at him.

“Stay at the door,” I tell him.

“Always,” he murmurs.

Lorenzo leads the way. The crowd parts for us. The whispers die as I pass, then flare up again in my wake. I keep my head high, my spine straight. My mother taught me how to walk into a room. She never taught me how to walk through the ruins of my own life.

The study door is closed. It has always been the heart of our empire. The one room I was never welcome in. My father’s sanctuary. Lorenzo opens it for me and I step inside.

The smell of old leather, books, and my father’s cigar smoke hits me. It is the ghost of him. For a second, my composure cracks. A tremor runs through me, so violent and fast I’m sure they can all see it.

They are all there. The five capos that made up my father’s inner circle. Silvio Rossi, with his cruel little mouth. Paolo Conti, old and wheezing. The two Genna brothers, thick as bricks and just as smart. And Antonio Falcone, who stands and pulls me into an embrace that makes my skin crawl.

“My dear girl,” he says, his voice thick with false emotion. “Such a tragedy. A terrible, terrible loss.”

I do not hug him back. I stand rigid in his arms until he is forced to release me. I do not offer them a seat. They are already seated in my father’s chairs, around my father’s table. In my father’s house.

I remain standing at the head of the table. Lorenzo takes his place at my side, a step behind me.

“Thank you for coming,” I say. My voice is steady. Colder than I expected.

Silvio Rossi leans forward, steepling his fingers. “We are here for you, Sienna. To ensure the family is secure in this difficult time. We must show a united front. Stability is everything.”

“My father and brothers have been dead for forty eight hours,” I reply, my eyes locking with his. “Is that enough time for stability to be a concern?”

The question hangs in the air. It’s a challenge. A small one, but a challenge nonetheless. He was expecting tears, not questions.

Lorenzo clears his throat. “What Silvio means to say is that our enemies will see this as a moment of weakness. We must present a clear line of succession.”

“The line of succession is dead,” I state, the words like shards of glass in my mouth.

“Which brings us to the matter at hand,” Antonio Falcone says, taking control. He always takes control. “The other families are watching. Our own men need leadership. The council of capos has discussed this at length.”

He pauses. For dramatic effect. He thinks he is a king on a stage. He is just a man in a suit.

“We have made a decision,” he continues. “It is the only logical course of action until things are settled.”

I wait. The silence in the room is a living thing. I can hear Paolo Conti’s labored breathing. I can hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner, counting down the seconds of my old life.

“Your cousin, Marco, has been recalled from Europe,” Silvio says. “He will be here within the week.”

Marco. My arrogant, swaggering pig of a cousin. A man whose greatest skill is ordering the most expensive champagne in a nightclub. The thought of him sitting in my father’s chair makes me feel physically ill.

“And until he arrives?” I ask, my voice dangerously soft.

Lorenzo is the one to deliver the final blow. He looks at the floor as he says it, and for that, I am almost grateful.

“The council has agreed that you will be the interim boss, Sienna.”

Interim. The word is a slap. A public declaration of my inadequacy.

Boss. A title they use as an insult, a placeholder name for a position they believe I could never truly hold.

“You will be the face of the family,” Antonio clarifies, his tone patronizing, as if explaining something to a child. “It shows continuity. The Romano name remains in place. Lorenzo will guide you on any necessary papers that need a signature.”

“And the actual decisions?” I ask.

“The council will handle all operational matters,” Silvio says smoothly. “You need not worry your pretty head about any of it. We will carry the burden until Marco is ready to take his rightful place.”

My pretty head.

A fire ignites in my chest. It is a clean, white hot rage. It burns away the fog of grief, the numbness, the shock. It burns away the porcelain doll they all see. It leaves behind something hard and sharp. Something they will not recognize until it is too late.

They see a figurehead. A puppet. A grieving little girl to be managed and placated until the real man arrives to take over.

They have just signed their own death warrants.

I look at each of them. One by one. I let them see the ice in my eyes. I want them to remember this moment later. I want them to look back and realize this is where they made their fatal mistake.

I give them a small, slow smile. It feels alien on my face.

“I understand,” I say.

Their relief is palpable. They shift in their chairs. They think they have handled me. They think the problem is solved. Antonio even smiles back, a benevolent uncle pleased with his compSiennant niece.

“Good,” he says. “We knew you would be sensible. You are your father’s daughter, after all.”

This is the second time someone has told me that today. They have no idea how right they are.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” I say, my voice still even, still calm. “I have arrangements to make for my family’s funeral. Lorenzo, you will handle our guests.”

I turn and walk to the door without waiting for a reply. I do not look back. I can feel their eyes on me, their condescension following me out of the room. Luca is there, his hand on the doorknob, opening it for me as I approach.

He follows me down the silent hallway, away from the study, away from the noise of the wake. We walk to the conservatory at the back of the house, a glass room filled with my mother’s orchids. No one ever comes in here.

The silence is a relief. I walk to the center of the room and stop, staring at a white orchid in full, perfect bloom.

“They think I’m a child,” I say to the glass walls.

“Yes,” Luca says from behind me.

“A placeholder.”

“Yes.”

“They are putting my cousin in charge. Marco.” I say his name and the rage flares again, hot and bright.

I turn to face Luca. His expression is unreadable, but his eyes are fixed on mine. He is waiting.

“They made me the interim boss,” I say.

A muscle in his jaw twitches. That is his only reaction.

“Interim means temporary,” I continue, thinking aloud. “They are giving me a title with no power. A crown with no kingdom. They expect me to sit in a chair and look sad until Marco gets off a plane.”

“That is their expectation,” he agrees.

I walk closer to him, until we are only a foot apart. “They are going to be very disappointed.”

For the first time, something flickers in his eyes. Respect.

“What are your orders?” he asks.

The question is simple. The implications are enormous. He is not asking Lorenzo. He is not waiting for the council or for Marco. He is asking me.

He sees me. He has always seen me.

“First,” I say, the plan already forming, a cold, clear structure in my mind. “We find out who did this. Not who pulled the triggers. Who gave the order. Who knew the routes. Who paid for the intel.”

“It was an inside job,” he states. It’s not a question.

“Nothing else is possible,” I confirm. “And that means one of the men in that room is a traitor. Maybe more than one.”

I look back at the perfect, white orchid. So beautiful. So delicate. So easily crushed.

“My father and my brothers are gone,” I whisper, the words a vow in the silent, glass room. “But the Romano family is not finished.”

I turn back to Luca, my bodyguard, my ghost, my only true ally.

“They wanted an interim boss. They’re about to get a queen.”

Chapter 3

Sienna Romano.

The first meeting is a performance. I am the lead actress in a play I never auditioned for.

I sit at the head of my father’s mahogany table. The chair feels too big, the leather cold against my back. It still smells faintly of him, a ghost of smoke and power that I am trying to inhabit.

Silvio Rossi clears his throat, the sound a wet rasp in the quiet study. “So, the first order of business. The port shipments. The Gallos are demanding a larger percentage for the next quarter.”

“Demanding,” I repeat. The word tastes like poison. “We don’t respond to demands, Silvio.”

He gives me a patient, condescending smile. The kind of smile one gives a child who has said something foolish but charming. “Sienna, with respect, these are delicate times. Your father had an understanding with the Gallos. A certain… flexibility.”

“My father is dead,” I say, my voice flat. “His understandings died with him. What is our current contract with them?”

Antonio Falcone shifts in his seat, drawing my attention. He steeples his fingers, looking every bit the wise elder statesman. “It’s more of a gentlemen’s agreement, my dear. Not everything is written on paper.”

“Then perhaps it should be,” I counter. “Lorenzo, pull the shipping manifests for the last six months. I want to see a full breakdown of the Gallo partnership.”

Lorenzo, standing by the fireplace, gives a stiff nod. He doesn’t look at me. He looks at Antonio, then at Silvio. A silent question passes between them. A transfer of power I am not included in.

“Of course,” Lorenzo says, but his tone is hesitant. He is placating me.

Paolo Conti, who has been silent so far, lets out a wheezing cough. “Your father, God rest his soul, he knew how to handle these men. It’s an art. A dance. It takes years of experience.”

“And I’ve only had two days,” I say, meeting his watery gaze. “Is that your point, Paolo?”

“The boy has a point,” says one of the Genna brothers. I can never tell them apart. They are interchangeable blocks of muscle and menace. “Marco understands these things. He’s been in Europe dealing with our overseas partners.”

“Our overseas partners that have been bleeding us dry for a year,” I say, the information slipping out before I can stop it. A detail I gleaned from a stray report I wasn’t supposed to see.

Silence. A thick, heavy blanket of it smothers the room.

Silvio narrows his eyes. “How would you know about that?”

“I read,” I say simply. “It’s a hobby of mine.”

Antonio Falcone laughs, a deep sound meant to break the tension. It only makes it worse. “Sharp as a tack, this one. Just like her mother. But this is not a society fundraiser, Sienna. There are lives at stake. Our lives. We cannot afford a mistake.”

“Then I suggest you stop treating me like I’m the mistake you’re all waiting for me to make,” I say. My voice doesn’t rise. It drops, becoming quieter, deadlier. “I am the head of this family. Until Marco arrives, my signature is the only one that matters. My decisions are the only ones that are final. Is that understood?”

They stare at me. For a moment, I think I see a flicker of something in their eyes. Surprise, maybe. But then it’s gone, replaced by that famiSiennar, infuriating indulgence.

“Of course, my dear,” Antonio says, his voice smooth as oil. “Whatever you say. We are all here to support you.”

They are Siennars. Every single one of them.

The rest of the meeting is a blur of platitudes. They talk in circles, using jargon and referencing old deals I have no context for. They drown me in information while telling me nothing. It’s a masterclass in stonewalling, and I am the sole, frustrated audience member.

They are dismissing me. Politely. Respectfully. But it is a dismissal all the same.

When it’s finally over, they stand and offer their condolences again, their hands briefly touching my shoulder in gestures of false comfort. I feel like a porcelain doll being passed around.

“We’ll handle the Gallo situation,” Silvio says as he leaves. “Don’t you worry your pretty head.”

I just nod. The fire in my chest is banked low, a dangerous ember they are all too foolish to see.

Lorenzo is the last to leave. He pauses at the door. “They are old fashioned men, Sienna. They are just trying to protect you.”

“Is that what they’re doing, Lorenzo?” I ask, not turning around. “Or are they protecting themselves?”

He doesn’t answer. He just closes the door, leaving me alone in the suffocating silence of my father’s study.

I sit there for a long time, listening to the house settle around me. This room was a fortress. Now it feels like a cage. Or a tomb.

I get up and walk to the door, locking it. Then I walk back to the desk, running my fingers over the worn leather of my father’s chair. I need to know. I can’t fight an enemy I can’t see.

I press the intercom button on the desk. “Luca. Bring Lorenzo back. Use the private entrance. Make sure no one sees him.”

“Yes, Sienna,” his voice crackles back instantly.

Five minutes later, a quiet knock comes from a paneled door hidden behind a bookshelf. I open it. Lorenzo stands there, his face etched with confusion. Luca stands just behind him in the narrow corridor, a silent shadow.

“What is this?” Lorenzo asks.

“Come in,” I say, closing the door behind him. “And please, for the next ten minutes, stop seeing me as your boss’s daughter. See me as your boss.”

He looks uncomfortable. “I don’t understand.”

“It was very clear in that meeting that the council intends to keep me in the dark,” I say, walking to the large, ornate safe that is built into the wall behind my father’s desk. “They will feed me what they want me to know, and I will be a figurehead until Marco comes to claim his throne.”

I turn to face him. “I will not be a blind queen, Lorenzo. I want to see the books. All of them. The real ones.”

Lorenzo pales. “Sienna. That is not… it is not your concern. Your father, he kept these things separate for a reason. To protect you.”

“The time for my protection is over,” I snap, my patience gone. “My father is dead. My brothers are dead. I am all that is left. Do you think our enemies are going to leave me alone out of respect for my delicate sensibilities?”

“The council will handle our enemies.”

“The council may be our enemy!” I say, my voice rising for the first time. I take a breath, forcing it back down. “Someone gave the order. Someone who knew their schedules. Someone who knew how to bypass their security. That someone could have been in this very room an hour ago. And I will not sit here waiting for them to come for me next.”

I stand in front of him, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. “You served my father for forty years. Your loyalty was to the Don. I am the Don now. So I ask you, Lorenzo. Who do you serve?”

He looks at me, really looks at me. The worry on his face is still there, but it’s warring with something else. A flicker of his old loyalty. A sense of duty that runs deeper than his chauvinism.

He lets out a long, defeated sigh. “Your father would have my head for this.”

“My father is gone,” I say softly. “Help me make sure he didn’t die for nothing.”

Slowly, he walks to the desk. He moves a heavy paperweight, a marble globe of the world, and presses down on the spot where it sat. A faint click echoes in the room. He then pulls a book from the shelf, a worn copy of The Prince. He opens it to a specific page and runs his finger along a line of text.

With a low groan, a section of the wall beside the safe swings inward, revealing a keypad.

“He changed the codes every month,” Lorenzo says, his fingers hovering over the numbers. “Only he and I knew them.” He punches in a long sequence. A green light flashes.

He then turns to the safe itself, his hands spinning the large brass wheel. He works from memory, his movements sure and practiced. The final, heavy clunk of the tumblers falling into place is the loudest sound I have ever heard.

He pulls the heavy door open. Inside are not stacks of cash, but rows upon rows of dark, leather bound ledgers.

“He never trusted computers with the real accounts,” Lorenzo says, his voice a whisper.

He pulls one out. Then another. He places them on the vast expanse of the desk. He opens the first one.

The numbers are a language I understand better than ItaSiennan. For the next hour, we don’t speak. The only sounds are the turning of pages and Lorenzo’s occasional sharp intake of breath as I point to a line and raise a questioning eyebrow.

It is worse than I could have imagined.

It is a bloodbath written in black and red ink.

“This payment to the Falcone family,” I say, my finger tracing a number with far too many zeroes. “For ‘consulting fees’. What does that mean?”

“It means your Uncle Tony was blackmailing your father,” Lorenzo says, his voice grim. “He had information about the Atlantic City casino expansion. Your father paid for his silence.”

My stomach twists. Uncle Tony. The man who hugged me at the wake.

I turn another page. “And this debt? To the Irish? We don’t do business with the Irish.”

“Your brother Matteo did,” Lorenzo says quietly. “A shipment of guns that was seized by the feds. He borrowed from them to cover the loss. He never told your father.”

My brilSiennant, foolish brother. Always trying to prove himself.

It goes on and on. Crumbling alSiennances held together with desperate payments. Legitimate businesses leveraged to the hilt, propping up failing criminal enterprises. Debts to families we once considered our inferiors. My father wasn’t ruling an empire. He was desperately trying to patch the holes in a sinking ship.

The Romano family is not just vulnerable. We are broke. We are a house of cards, and someone has just blown on it with all their might.

“This is why they were killed,” I breathe, leaning back in the chair. “We showed weakness. Someone saw an opportunity to kick the chair out from under us.”

“It would seem so,” Lorenzo says, his face ashen. He looks like he has aged ten years in the last hour.

But something still doesn’t fit. My mind is racing, connecting the dots. The weakness explains the motive for an outside attack. But the execution…

“The security protocols,” I say, looking up at Lorenzo. “Papa’s car. The route randomization system. I designed it myself after that attempt on Gianni two years ago. The routes were changed daily, randomly, by a computer. There was no predictable pattern.”

Lorenzo nods. “It was a brilSiennant system. Your father was very proud.”

“The preliminary police report Luca acquired said the attack happened on the Triborough Bridge,” I continue, the pieces clicking into place with horrifying speed. “That route should only have been in the system once a month, at most.”

“What are you saying, Sienna?”

“I’m saying it wasn’t an outside job,” I say, my voice trembling with a cold, terrifying certainty. “Or not entirely. To know he would be on that bridge at that exact time… it wasn’t a lucky guess. Someone had to override the system. Someone had to manually input that route. Someone on the inside.”

I look around the study. At the pictures on the wall of my family, smiling and whole. At the books filled with secrets and lies. At the heavy oak door that separates me from the rest of the house.

The feeling is immediate. Primal. The hair on my arms stands up.

I am not safe here.

This house, my home, is not a fortress. It is a hunting ground. And I am the last prey.