NICCOLÒ

The air in the Fiero dining room was thick with unspoken fear, a palpable weight pressing down on Cee and her family. Two armed men stood sentinel, one by the bulletproof window, the other at the elevator door, their vigilance a stark reminder of the danger that had summoned them.

"Do you think something's gone wrong?" Cee's younger sister, Caterina, whispered, her voice barely audible above the relentless ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece—an antique anomaly in a room of cold glass and metal.

Cee, or Camilla as her family still called her, forced a reassuring smile. "Of course not, bambina, Papa is coming." She hid her worried face in Cat's chocolate curls, catching her mother, Marie Fiero's, anxious gaze across the room.

Then, a tiny, almost imperceptible beep. All eyes snapped to the elevator panel: 6, then 7, then 8. Rising. A collective sigh of relief, unspoken but deeply felt, rippled through the room as the elevator doors slid open silently on the twelfth floor.

Leonardo Fiero, Cee's father, entered—a broad, fierce, aging lion with a silver mane. Caterina, a blur of pastel blue, launched herself into his arms. "Papa!" He held her tight, a second longer than usual.

But Cee knew. Something was very wrong. She could see it in the way her father swallowed, in the way his eyes flickered, in the too-loud prayer her mother began to mutter. The family was finished, he told them. Finished, until an hour ago, when the Romanos offered a deal.

And that deal involved Caterina.