The scent of burning cedar lingered in the air as Valentina stood before the fireplace in her father's study. Bellamy's ring—still warm from the flames—rested in her palm. It had once symbolized loyalty. Now it was a relic of treachery.
She didn't flinch when Niko stepped inside.
"Did you know?" she asked without turning around.
"I knew Bellamy was restless," he replied carefully. "But I didn't know he would go so far."
She turned to him, studying the boy she had once pulled from a gutter in Palermo. He'd been ten, wild-eyed and barefoot, but sharp. Always sharp.
"I need more than guesses now, Niko," she said. "I need certainty."
He swallowed. "Then let me find it for you. Let me hunt the rest of the rot.''
Valentina moved toward him, her eyes dark as obsidian.
"You swore fealty to my father," she whispered. "What do you swear to me?"
He dropped to one knee without hesitation. "To you, DonValentina, I swear my life, my silence, and my steel."
She placed the ring in his hand.
"Then wear this," she said. "Let the others see you rise—and fear it."
⸻
Across the city, in a dim-lit jazz club veiled as a neutral zone, Bryan nursed a glass of whiskey. The music, all low brass and slow ache, blurred into background noise.
A figure approached—lean, unshaven, with eyes like broken glass.
"Rafael Moretti sends his regards," the man said.
Bryan didn't look up. "And?"
"He wants to know why the Scarlatti girl is still breathing."
Bryan downed the whiskey, set the glass down hard.
"Because you all underestimated her."
The man scoffed. "She's a woman in a man's world."
Bryan stood. "No. She's a woman who learned how to play men like pieces on a board."
He walked past him, but paused.
"Tell Rafael this: If he comes for Valentina, he better send a priest, not a cleaner."
⸻
That night, Valentina dreamt of ash.
She stood in her old nursery, watching flames devour the wallpaper, the dolls, the piano in the corner. A man stood in the firelight, faceless but familiar.
"Run," he whispered.
She tried. But her legs wouldn't move.
⸻
She woke with sweat clinging to her skin and an ache behind her ribs.
Bryan was seated at the foot of her bed, backlit by moonlight, cigarette between his fingers.
"How did you get in?" she asked.
"You should fire whoever's guarding your south wing," he murmured.
She reached for the glass of water beside her. Her hand trembled slightly. He noticed.
"You had the fire dream again."
She froze. "How do you know that?"
He tapped the ash from his cigarette.
"I saw it once, years ago. Your father had you locked in that wing for a week. Said it was to teach you control."
She didn't speak.
"You screamed every night," he said. "But the next week, you smiled like nothing happened. Even when your palms bled from trying to claw out."
Valentina looked at him with something between fury and vulnerability.
"Why are you really here,Bryan?"
He didn't move. "Because I know what it means to grow up in a house where love and power are the same thing. And I want to see what happens when someone burns the house down."
⸻
The next morning, Nina found a severed ear on the front gates.
A message.
Valentina stared at it without blinking.
"Moretti," she said.
Nina nodded. "The guards intercepted a courier. One of ours. They found this on him before he bled out."
Valentina turned the ear over. A small sigil was burned into the lobe.
The Raven Mark.
It wasn't just Moretti. It was the underground syndicate he'd resurrected—The Black Feather.
She whispered the name like a prayer laced with venom.
"We kill the courier publicly," she said. "Let them know I don't do silent retaliation. We'll bleed on marble if we must."
Nina hesitated. "That could start a war."
Valentina lifted her chin.
"Good."
⸻
In the hidden wine cellar beneath the estate, Niko found the old vault her father once used to store secrets more valuable than gold—photographs, bribe records, coded ledgers.
He brought the box to Valentina and laid it at her feet.
"This," he said, "is your father's darkness."
She opened it. Inside were files. Names. A blood price on every page.
Some were Moretti. Others… were hers.
Her mother's name was there. Circled.
She hadn't been killed in a car crash, as she'd been told.
Valentina's breath caught in her throat. Her vision blurred.
Niko stepped back. "I thought you should know before the war begins."
She stood slowly, eyes on the file.
"No," she whispered.
"It already has."