Bruno appears at my side, his shotgun still smoking. "Orders, Boss?"
I look out across the harbor, where the flames from our burning truck continue to dance against the night sky. Three of my men are dead, their bodies lying still among the containers. Two more are wounded, being tended to by the others. The cost of this war keeps rising, but backing down now would cost us everything.
"Track everything moving north," I tell him. "No cargo, no passengers, no one travels between here and Rome without an escort. Triple the guards on all shipments."
Bruno nods, already reaching for his phone to make the calls. This is how we respond to violence—with more violence, withoverwhelming force that makes the enemy think twice before trying again.
I walk back to the car, leaving Paolo's broken body on the concrete. The sirens are getting closer now, but we'll be gone before they arrive. The harbor will be cleaned up, the bodies removed, the evidence scattered to the wind. By morning, this place will look peaceful again.
But the message has been sent and received. Emilio Costa thinks he can hit my operations and walk away. He's wrong. What happened here tonight is nothing compared to what's coming.
I dial Gianni's number as Bruno starts the engine. My consigliere answers immediately, his voice alert despite the early hour.
"The docks?" he asks.
"Costa men. Twelve of them, maybe more. They came by water, hit us from three sides."
"Casualties?"
"Three dead, two wounded. We took them all down except for one, and he won't be walking normally anytime soon."
Gianni is quiet for a moment, processing the information. "This changes things. Emilio's not playing games anymore."
"Neither am I," I reply, watching the harbor disappear behind us as Bruno navigates the empty streets. "Set up a meeting with the captains. We're going to war."
The sun is beginning to rise over Naples as we drive back through the city. The streets are still mostly empty, but soon they'll fill with people going about their normal lives, unaware of what transpired at the harbor. They'll read about it in the papers, if they read about it at all. Another gang shooting, another reminder that the old ways still hold power in this city.
But for me, this is personal now. Emilio Costa has drawn blood, and blood demands blood in return. The game has changed, and so have the rules.
24
ROSARIA
The stage lights burn against my skin as I reach the climax of my aria. The Teatro dell'Opera di Roma holds its breath around me, two thousand souls suspended in the darkness beyond the footlights. This is a secondary role—Micaela inCarmen, not the lead I should be singing—but I pour everything into it anyway. My voice rises and falls with the melody, carrying the character's desperate hope into the vast auditorium.
I am halfway through the final phrase when the scream tears through the silence.
A woman's voice, raw and furious, cuts across the orchestra like a blade. The musicians falter, their instruments wavering as confusion ripples through the theater. I continue singing, trying to hold the performance together, but my eyes search the darkness for the source of the disturbance.
Then I see her.
Alba Sorrenti charges toward the stage from the orchestra pit, her face twisted with rage. Security moves to intercept her, but she's already too close. Her arm comes up, and I see the container in her hand—red and viscous, aimed directly at me.
The paint hits my chest and spreads across the ivory silk of my gown. Thick crimson streams down the bodice, pooling at my feet on the pristine stage floor. For a moment, I think it's blood. My mind reels, expecting pain, expecting the warm rush of life leaving my body. But there's only the cold shock of humiliation as the red substance continues to drip from my costume.
"Whore!" Alba screams, her voice carrying across the stunned theater. "Traitor! You think you can steal what belongs to me?"
The security guards reach her now, their hands closing around her arms as she struggles against them. But her voice continues to ring out, each word a dagger thrown at my reputation.
"She's a Mafia princess! A Costa! She doesn't belong on this stage!"
The audience erupts. Two thousand people surge to their feet, some fleeing toward the exits, others pressing forward to get a better look at the chaos. Camera flashes explode from the boxes where critics and photographers sit, capturing every moment of my degradation. The orchestra has stopped playing entirely now, the musicians staring up at me with mixtures of horror and fascination.
I stand frozen in the center of the stage, paint dripping from my gown, my voice silenced by shock. The theater around me has become a circus, a spectacle of scandal and shame. Years of training, of discipline, of carefully crafted perfection—all of it crumbling in real time before an audience of strangers.
The curtain begins to descend, mercifully cutting off the view from the auditorium. But I can still hear them out there—the shouts, the murmur of excited conversation, the sound of my career disintegrating note by note.
"Rosaria!" Eva appears at my side, her makeup kit forgotten as she reaches for me. "Oh, God, are you hurt?"
