At 7:55 p.m., L’OraLòia did the thing it always did before the rich arrived: it held its breath.

The restaurant sat on a polished corner of Manhattan where the sidewalks looked scrubbed and the air smelled faintly of money. Inside, everything gleamed, from the chandelier’s crystals to the knife edges lined up like obedient soldiers. But the kitchen, behind the double doors, smelled like white truffles and seared wagyu and pure panic.

“Move, move, move!” Gerard, the floor manager, snapped, weaving through the staff like a man trying to outrun his own heartbeat. Sweat shined on his forehead even though the room was cool. “If that silverware isn’t mirror-finish, I swear I will personally make sure you never work in this city again.”

Sienna adjusted her apron and kept her head down.

At twenty-three, she had perfected invisibility. Not the dramatic kind. Not the cinematic kind. The practical kind: shoulders slightly rounded, steps small, voice smaller. Chestnut hair pulled into a severe bun. Glasses she didn’t need, worn like a shield. A uniform that turned her into furniture.

“Si,” Gerard barked, snapping his fingers close enough that she flinched. “Water duty. Sparkling, still, ice. Nothing else. Do not speak unless spoken to. Do not look them in the eye. Do not breathe too loudly. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Sienna whispered.

She wanted to add one question, the one that hovered behind everyone’s fear: Who is coming?

But in L’OraLòia, curiosity was a form of unemployment.

Still, the question escaped her, soft as a napkin falling. “Who is coming?”

Gerard stared at her like she had asked what color the sky was.

“The Morettis,” he said, voice dropping into something close to prayer. “Don Salvatore Moretti. And his son, Lorenzo. They rented the VIP mezzanine. Two hundred thousand dollars is the expected bill. If you spill a single drop of San Pellegrino, I will feed you to sharks.”

Sienna felt a chill skate down her spine.

The name Moretti carried weight in New York the way thunder carried weather. Construction firms, shipping docks, “philanthropy,” politicians. That was the respectable skin. Underneath, the iron bones.

Sienna didn’t tremble because of the mafia.

She trembled because Moretti clawed open a door inside her mind she had welded shut for ten years.

A sun-drenched terrace in Sicily. Lemon trees. A lullaby in a dialect that tasted like smoke and salt.

And a night of fire.

She turned back to the polishing station and rubbed a goblet that was already spotless until the crystal squeaked. Ricky, the sous chef, sidled up beside her with a careful look.

“You okay?” he murmured. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

“I’m fine,” she lied, producing a thin smile. “Gerard’s just intense.”

Ricky’s gaze flicked toward the dining room doors. “Rumor is Don Salvatore’s in a foul mood. Deal went south. Lost twenty million. He’s looking for someone to bleed on.”

Sienna said nothing. She didn’t have the luxury of opinions. She had rent. Queens. A life built out of careful erasures.

Then the heavy oak doors opened.

Silence fell so hard it felt physical. Even the pans seemed to quiet. Gerard burst back into the kitchen, face pale.

“They’re here. Line up. Everyone.”

The entourage didn’t walk. They prowled.

Four bodyguards moved first, suits tight around muscle, eyes scanning like sharks. But the two men in the center swallowed all attention.

Lorenzo Moretti was tall and devastating in that clean, predatory way, as if he’d been designed by a sculptor who hated mercy. Navy suit. Jet-black hair slicked back. Ice-blue eyes that didn’t land on people so much as evaluate exits and angles.

And beside him, Don Salvatore, late sixties, leaning on an ebony cane topped with a silver lion. Charcoal three-piece suit. Cashmere coat draped like a cape. His face was a map of wars he had won and wars he had survived. His mouth looked like it had forgotten smiling was possible.

Gerard bowed so low he nearly collided with the hostess stand.

“Don Salvatore, Mr. Lorenzo, it is the honor of a lifetime to welcome you to L’OraLòia. Your table is prepared.”

Don Salvatore didn’t look at him. He tapped his cane once on the marble.

“Wine,” he rasped. “Did you get the ’82 Sassicaia?”

“Y-yes, of course,” Gerard squeaked. “Flown in from Tuscany this morning. Decanting two hours.”

A grunt of minimal approval.

They moved toward the stairs to the VIP mezzanine. Lorenzo walked half a step behind his father, then stopped. His gaze slid over the line of staff and snagged on Paulo, the head waiter, who carried himself like he’d been born in Rome instead of New Jersey.

“You,” Lorenzo said, voice smooth, sharp. “You’re serving us tonight.”

Paulo puffed up. “Yes, sir. I’m the head waiter.”

“You smell like fear,” Lorenzo said calmly, “and cheap cologne. My father has a migraine. If you hover over him smelling like whatever that is, he’ll lose his appetite. If he loses his appetite, I get upset.”

Paulo’s face drained.

“I apologize, sir,” he stammered. “It’s Acqua di Parma—”

“Get out of my sight.”

Paulo vanished into the kitchen like a man fleeing a dream.

Gerard’s panic snapped into a new shape. He needed a server immediately. Quiet. Invisible. Unscented. His eyes landed on Sienna at the end of the line.

“Sienna,” he hissed.

Her head jerked up. “No. Please—”

“Step forward,” Gerard commanded, gripping her arm and pulling her in front of the Morettis. “This is Sienna. Very quiet. She will serve you tonight.”

Sienna’s stomach dropped as if the floor had opened.

Lorenzo looked down at her. Not cruelly, not kindly. Like someone turning an object in his hand to find a flaw.

“She’s shaking,” he observed.

“I’m sorry,” Sienna whispered.

Don Salvatore turned, bored eyes sweeping her like a ledger.

“Does she have hands?” he said. “Can she pour wine without dropping the bottle?”

“Yes,” Sienna forced out. “I can.”

Don Salvatore leaned in and sniffed near her shoulder.

“Soap,” he muttered. “Unscented. Good. Let’s eat.”

As they climbed the stairs, Lorenzo lingered just long enough to bend closer, voice dropping so only she could hear.

“Don’t make a mistake,” he said. “My father isn’t known for forgiveness.”

Then he followed his father, leaving Sienna rooted in the foyer with jelly legs and a tray shoved into her hands.

“Antipasto,” Gerard snapped. “Go!”

The VIP mezzanine overlooked the main dining floor like a private balcony above a kingdom. Dim lighting. Heavy linen. Silver cutlery that felt too expensive to breathe near. A bottle of 1982 Sassicaia sat like a monument.

Sienna moved like a ghost. Bread basket down. Sparkling water poured with perfect wrist control. No drips. No sound. Four bodyguards stood at the corners, facing outward.

At first it was only Don Salvatore and Lorenzo, the tension between them tight enough to cut.

“The Jersey waterfront project stalled,” Lorenzo said, crumbling bread without eating it. “Unions want another five percent.”

“Give them two,” Don Salvatore grunted. “And break the knees of the representative who asked for five.”

“It’s risky,” Lorenzo replied, jaw tightening. “Feds are watching union leadership.”

“I don’t pay you to tell me risks,” Don Salvatore snapped. “I pay you to handle them. You’ve been soft lately. Ever since London.”

“I’m not soft,” Lorenzo said. “I’m cautious. There’s a difference.”

Sienna approached with the appetizer: Sicilian red prawns, blood orange reduction, fennel pollen. The chef’s masterpiece. She placed the plates down gently.

“Carpaccio di gamberi rossi, sir,” she murmured.

Don Salvatore poked at the raw prawn with his fork, took a bite, chewed slowly.

Then spat it into his napkin.

He threw the napkin onto the table. “Garbage.”

Sienna flinched so hard her shoulders hurt.

“Papa,” Lorenzo sighed, tired already. “It’s the best seafood restaurant in the city.”

“It’s fake,” Don Salvatore snapped, voice rising. “They call this Sicilian? Bah! The prawns are cold dead things. And the orange? Sweet like candy. Not blood orange from Etna. Florida fruit pretending to be volcanic.”

He slammed his hand on the table, rattling the silver. “I am tired of this city. Fake people. Fake food. Bring me the chef.”

Lorenzo’s warning tone cut in. “Don’t cause a scene tonight.”

“I will cause a scene if I want to.”

Don Salvatore turned his fury on Sienna, as if she had baked the universe wrong.

“You. Girl.”

Sienna stepped forward, throat tight. “Yes, Don Salvatore.”

“Take this away,” he snarled. “Tell the chef he doesn’t know the difference between a blood orange and a tangerine. Go.”

Sienna reached for the plate.

And hesitated.

Because she knew that smell. That color. That faint bitter finish that arrived like a signature.

It wasn’t Florida. It wasn’t fake.

It was Tarocco, the queen of oranges, born in volcanic soil near Catania, harvested late January, sweet with an edge of amaro.

The chef hadn’t made a mistake.

Don Salvatore was wrong.

And telling a mafia boss he was wrong was a suicide note written in your own blood.

“I said take it,” Don Salvatore barked.

Sienna inhaled once.

Something inside her settled into a strange calm, the kind that comes when fear realizes it has no further job to do.

“With respect, signore,” she said softly.

Lorenzo looked up, surprised she spoke.

“The prawns are from Mazara del Vallo,” Sienna continued, voice steady now. “And the orange… it is sweet because it was harvested late January. The soil on Etna’s eastern slope gives it that bitterness at the end.”

The silence that followed was absolute.

Don Salvatore turned his head slowly. His eyes widened, not with anger, but with shock.

Sienna realized she wasn’t speaking English anymore.

She had slipped into a thick Sicilian dialect, old and inland, words cut short, Rs rolled deep. Not the Italian you learn in textbooks. The kind old families kept like heirlooms. The kind the underworld hadn’t heard in fifty years.

“What did you say?” Don Salvatore whispered, voice trembling.

Sienna’s hand flew to her mouth. Too late. The room had already frozen.

Lorenzo’s gaze sharpened. He recognized the sound even if he didn’t command it.

Sienna forced herself back into English. “I apologize. I only meant the chef used good ingredients. I’ll take it away.”

“No,” Don Salvatore commanded, raising a hand. “Say it again. The dialect.”

Sienna swallowed hard. If she told the truth, she was dead before dessert. If she lied, she might still die, just slower.

“My grandmother,” she said quickly. “She was from a village near… Prizzi. She raised me.”

Don Salvatore studied her like a man weighing a knife. “Prizzi,” he muttered. “Bad blood there.”

Then, surprisingly, he picked up his fork again, took another bite, dragged the prawn through the sauce. He closed his eyes.

“You are right,” he said softly. “It is mora. I’ve lost my taste with age.”

He looked at Lorenzo with something like satisfaction. “This girl has the old tongue. She speaks better than you.”

Lorenzo didn’t smile. He stared at Sienna like she was a locked door and he’d just found the keyhole.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Sienna,” she whispered.

“You should be careful, Sienna,” Lorenzo said, voice low. “People who know too much tend to have short lives.”

“I know nothing,” she replied. “Just… oranges.”

“We’ll see.”

He peeled cash from a gold clip and placed it on the table. “For the lesson on citrus. Now leave us.”

Sienna backed away, tray trembling in her hands, heart banging like it wanted out of her ribs.

She survived the appetizer.

But she had a terrible feeling she was on the menu.

Downstairs, Gerard shoved her toward the cellar.

“VIP wants a ’96 Contenna,” he snapped. “Go now.”

The wine cellar was cool and smelled of damp earth and aged oak. The air down there felt like a sanctuary. Sienna found the bottle, heavy in her hands, and let herself breathe.

“One more hour,” she whispered. “Clock out. Go home. Disappear.”

“You ran away quickly.”

The voice came from the shadows near the stairs.

Sienna spun.

Lorenzo stepped into the light, jacket removed, dress shirt open at the collar. A gun holster hugged his ribs like a second skeleton. He looked unreal down here, beautiful and lethal.

“Mr. Moretti,” she gasped.

“The wine can wait,” he said, walking closer. “My father thinks you’re a charming peasant girl with a picky grandmother.”

“I am just a waitress,” Sienna said, lowering her eyes.

“Look at me.”

She forced her chin up.

He studied her with the precision of a man used to finding lies under skin.

“I know Prizzi,” Lorenzo murmured. “Peasant grandmothers don’t speak like that. You spoke like a poet.”

His hand hovered near her face. She flinched back until her spine hit the wine rack.

“And your hands,” he continued, eyes dropping to her fingers. “No burns. No calluses. Manicured cuticles. Who are you working for? Are you a plant? Romanos? Russos?”

“I work for L’OraLòia,” she insisted, voice shaking but stubborn.

His face hardened. “If you lie to me, I’ll find out.”

“I’m nobody,” Sienna burst. “Just a girl trying to pay rent.”

His gaze flicked to her neck.

A thin silver chain glinted above her collar.

“What is that?”

He reached.

Sienna slapped his hand away.

The sound echoed in the cellar like a gunshot.

She froze, realizing what she’d done: struck the prince of the Moretti empire.

Lorenzo stared at his hand, then at her, expression unreadable.

For a second she expected death.

Instead, a dark smirk tugged at his mouth. “Feisty,” he whispered. “I like that.”

Above them, Gerard’s voice called down the stairs. “Mr. Moretti? The Don is asking for the wine!”

Lorenzo didn’t break eye contact. “We’re coming.”

Then he stepped back, giving her space like a predator choosing not to bite yet.

“This isn’t over, Sienna,” he said quietly. “Pour the wine. But don’t think I’m not watching.”

He disappeared upstairs.

Sienna pressed a hand to her chest and dragged the chain fully into her palm. Attached was a ring: a crest, a lion holding a rose.

Vitali.

She shoved it back under her uniform, grabbed the bottle, and forced her legs to move.

Back on the mezzanine, the table had filled. Captains had joined them. Laughter rasped from Don Salvatore’s throat, rare and ugly, as Vinnie “the Butcher” told a joke that sounded like cruelty dressed as humor.

Sienna poured a taste for Lorenzo.

He didn’t look at the wine.

He looked at her.

She moved to Don Salvatore. As the deep red liquid filled the glass, her eyes swept the dining room below, a habit she couldn’t kill.

That’s when she saw him.

A man alone at a corner table. Eating osso buco without tasting it. Checking his watch too often. Wearing a gray suit that fit wrong in the chest, too bulky.

Not a bodybuilder.

A vest.

Kevlar.

Sienna’s pulse jumped.

Not your problem, her mind whispered. Let them die. They killed your family.

The man stood.

He didn’t head for the exit.

He headed for the stairs to the mezzanine.

His hand slid into his jacket.

At the same time, Sienna caught a glint of light from the window across the street.

A flicker.

A scope.

Time slowed, as if the world had inhaled and refused to exhale.

The man on the stairs was a distraction.

The threat was outside.

Don Salvatore raised his wine to his lips, sitting directly in front of the window.

Sienna didn’t think.

Her body reacted the way it had been trained long ago, by a father who believed survival was an art you practiced before you needed it.

“GET DOWN!” she screamed.

The tray dropped. Crystal shattered. In the same motion, she grabbed the edge of the heavy table and heaved it up with shocking strength, flipping it on its side as the window exploded.

A bullet slammed into the mahogany where Don Salvatore’s chest had been a heartbeat before. Splinters and glass erupted like hail.

“SNIPER!” Lorenzo roared, tackling his father behind the table.

Bodyguards drew weapons instantly. The man on the stairs yanked out a submachine gun, but Vinnie the Butcher shot him twice in the chest. The assassin tumbled backward down the stairs, screaming.

The restaurant below dissolved into chaos. Guests screamed and stampeded. Wine and fear slicked the air.

Sienna curled on the floor, arms over her head, ears ringing. Her forearm burned. Blood trickled down her sleeve.

When the shooting stopped, Lorenzo stood, hauling his father upright. Don Salvatore was pale, clutching his chest, but alive.

He stared at the bullet hole in the table.

Then at Sienna.

“You,” he rasped, pointing. “How did you know?”

Sienna’s mouth opened, but air wouldn’t cooperate.

Lorenzo grabbed her uninjured arm and yanked her to her feet.

“You flipped a solid oak table,” he said, voice tight. “And you called the shot before the glass broke.”

“I was lucky,” Sienna lied.

“Luck doesn’t move like that.”

Don Salvatore’s eyes narrowed. “Bring her.”

Sienna’s heart dropped into her shoes. “No. Let me go. I saved you.”

“Exactly,” Lorenzo said, grip tightening. “Which means you’re either a guardian angel or you knew the hit was coming.”

“I didn’t!”

“We’ll discuss it at the estate,” Don Salvatore decided, granite returning to his voice. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”

And just like that, her life as a ghost ended in an alley behind a restaurant that smelled like truffles and gunpowder.

The armored SUV was a sealed capsule of silence. Outside, Manhattan blurred into neon streaks. Inside, Sienna pressed herself against the door, as far from Lorenzo as space allowed. Her cut throbbed. She welcomed it. Pain was honest.

Lorenzo typed on a secure phone, issuing commands in a voice that didn’t waste syllables on comfort.

Then he turned, eyes finding her in the dim.

“You’re bleeding on the leather,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” Sienna whispered. “I’ll pay for cleaning.”

A dry laugh escaped him. “You saved the Capo dei Capi from a sniper and you’re worried about a seat.”

The car turned onto a private road lined with ancient oaks, passed through iron gates topped with spikes. Guards. Floodlights. A mansion of stone and imported arrogance.

A fortress.

The Moretti estate.

Sienna’s stomach churned. Ten years ago, she’d sworn she would never be near this power again.

Now she was being delivered to its heart like an offering.

Inside, Lorenzo dragged her through marble halls and oil paintings that could buy entire neighborhoods. Servants in black uniforms scurried out of the way with heads down. Silence lived here, obedient and trained.

He led her upstairs, into an office that smelled of tobacco, old paper, and gun oil. A fire snapped in the hearth, throwing shadows like restless ghosts.

“Sit,” Lorenzo ordered, pointing to a leather armchair.

Sienna sat, feeling swallowed by the chair’s size.

He poured brandy into two glasses and handed her one. “Drink. Shock doesn’t negotiate.”

She sipped. Heat bloomed in her chest. Her hands steadied.

Lorenzo leaned against his desk, towering. His gentleness was more terrifying than anger.

“I have a very good tech team,” he began. “While we were in the car, I ran your face through bases. NYPD, FBI, DMV.”

Sienna’s pulse hiccupped.

He picked up a tablet and angled it toward her. “Sienna Miller. Born Dayton, Ohio. Social security issued in 1998. Parents deceased. Moved to New York three years ago.”

He swiped. A red box flashed: ERROR.

“It’s a good fake,” Lorenzo admitted. “Physical ID is art. But the digital footprint is a ghost. Your social belongs to a woman who died in infancy.”

He set the tablet down with a clatter and leaned forward, hands on the chair arms, trapping her.

“So,” he whispered. “You are not Sienna Miller. You speak a high Sicilian dialect. You recognized a scope glint. You have reflexes like a soldier. Who sent you?”

“I’m not an assassin,” she said, voice trembling but clear. “And I don’t work for the Romanos.”

“Then who are you?”

Sienna’s throat tightened. She reached under her collar and pulled the silver chain out. The ring dangled, heavy.

Lorenzo’s face drained as his eyes landed on the crest.

A lion holding a rose.

His fingers brushed her neck as he took the ring. He stared like it was a poisonous memory.

“That ring,” he breathed.

“It was my father’s,” Sienna said softly.

The name arrived between them like smoke.

“Vitali,” Lorenzo whispered.

Sienna’s voice came out small, but it didn’t break. “My name is Sienna Vitali. Daughter of Roberto Vitali.”

Lorenzo recoiled as if struck.

“We burned the compound,” he muttered, pacing. “Ten years ago. The Night of Ash. Everyone died.”

“I was thirteen,” Sienna said, tears finally spilling. “My mother hid me in an empty barrel in the wine cellar. I heard the gunfire. I heard screams. I heard… your voice.”

Lorenzo stopped.

Horror unfolded on his face with slow inevitability.

“You were the girl,” he said, hollow. “Roberto had a daughter. Hazel eyes. We never found the body.”

“I crawled out when the smoke cleared,” Sienna whispered. “I cut my hair. Changed my name. I didn’t want revenge. I wanted to live.”

Lorenzo stared at her, really stared, as if the waitress mask finally fell away and left only survivor beneath.

Guilt hit him like a blunt object.

“If you’re Vitali,” he asked, voice cracking, “if you know I destroyed your family… why did you save my father tonight?”

Sienna stood, moving toward the fire like she needed warmth to keep from shattering.

“Because when I saw the red dot on his chest,” she said, voice tightening, “I didn’t see the monster of New York. I saw an old man about to be murdered in cold blood.”

She turned, eyes blazing. “My father taught me there is no honor in a coward’s kill. I am not you, Lorenzo. I don’t kill for power.”

The room held silence like a held knife.

Lorenzo crossed to her in three strides. He stopped so close she could feel his breath.

“You realize admitting this signs your death warrant,” he said. “If my father finds out, he will finish the job.”

“I know,” Sienna whispered. “Are you going to tell him?”

Lorenzo’s gaze flicked to her bleeding sleeve, then to the ring, then back to her face.

“I should,” he murmured. “Duty.”

His hand rose, trembling slightly as he cupped her cheek. His thumb traced her jaw, and the touch was wrong in a thousand ways but still felt like gravity.

“But you saved him,” he said, voice lower now. “A life for a life. You saved the king, so the prince will save you.”

He leaned closer, forehead resting against hers.

“For tonight,” he whispered, “you are Sienna the waitress. Under my protection.”

A fist slammed against the door.

“Lorenzo!” Don Salvatore’s voice thundered from the hallway. “Open this door. I want to thank the girl myself. Why is it locked?”

The spell snapped.

Lorenzo’s eyes widened. He gripped Sienna’s shoulders, urgent. “Not a word,” he hissed. “If you speak that dialect again, if you show Vitali pride, we are both dead. Understand?”

Sienna nodded, throat tight.

Lorenzo smoothed his suit jacket and opened the door.

Don Salvatore filled the frame, cane discarded, adrenaline making him look carved from old violence.

“So,” he rumbled, eyes flicking between them. “The girl who throws tables.”

He stepped closer, analyzing every inch of Sienna. “Too good for water duty. And you speak the high dialect. Now I find you drinking brandy in my son’s office.”

He turned to Lorenzo. “Who is she?”

“She is the woman who saved your life,” Lorenzo said, voice firm.

Don Salvatore narrowed his eyes. “That is what she did. Not what she is.”

Sienna’s voice cut through, calm and cold. “If I wanted you dead, I would have let the bullet hit you.”

Don Salvatore stared.

Then a dry chuckle. “She has teeth. Good.”

The door burst open again. Rocco, head of security, pale, panting with a tablet in hand.

“Boss,” he said. “We traced the shooter’s phone. The texts came from inside the network. Authorized by a verified ID.”

Silence turned the air to stone.

An inside job.

Don Salvatore’s voice dropped into a lethal hiss. “Who?”

Rocco swallowed. “Capo Vinnie.”

Lorenzo swore. “Vinnie was with us. He shot the man on the stairs.”

“He shot him to silence him,” Sienna said quietly.

All eyes snapped to her.

Sienna took a breath and kept her mind sharp because panic was useless. “The man on the stairs was a distraction. He didn’t fire. He drew attention while the sniper took the shot. When it failed, Vinnie killed the distraction before he could talk.”

Don Salvatore’s face darkened, rage blooming.

“Bring him,” he whispered. “Alive.”

“We can’t,” Rocco said. “He left ten minutes ago. Took server codes.”

“He’s emptying accounts,” Lorenzo realized, hand drifting toward his gun. “Lock down banks. Master key.”

“The master key is in the safe,” Don Salvatore growled. “But Vinnie changed the sequence this morning. We’re locked out.”

The room edged toward panic. Money wasn’t just money. Money was protection. Without it, the empire became meat.

“Show me,” Sienna said.

Lorenzo blinked. “What?”

“The lock,” she demanded. “Is it a cipher?”

Don Salvatore hesitated, then nodded. “A kinetic code based on Sicilian history. Vinnie mocked me with it.”

They pulled up the vault interface. A riddle in Italian glowed on the screen.

Lorenzo read aloud, frustration sharp: “What runs beneath the lemons?”

“Water,” he muttered. “Blood. Roots.”

“Three attempts left,” Rocco said. “Before the accounts wipe.”

Sienna stared at the phrase, and the answer rose up from memory like a ghost.

Not history.

A specific saying used by old Sicilian families. A reference to tunnels beneath lemon groves used during uprisings. A test only old blood would know.

Vinnie had been arrogant. He assumed the Morettis forgot their roots.

Sienna stepped forward. “Move.”

Lorenzo’s hand hovered near her shoulder. “If you get this wrong…”

“Trust me,” she whispered.

Her fingers typed one word.

Not water.

Not blood.

L’ombra. The shadow.

She hit enter.

The screen flashed red, then green.

ACCESS GRANTED.

The room exhaled like it had been underwater.

Sienna’s hands flew. “Freeze transfers. Lock him out. Done.”

She stepped back, trembling.

Don Salvatore stared at her like she had just performed magic with no wand.

He gripped her face in rough hands, eyes piercing. “Only old blood knows that. Who are you?”

Sienna’s mouth opened to lie.

Lorenzo stepped between them, voice final.

“She is mine.”

He wrapped an arm around Sienna’s waist, pulling her against him like he was declaring ownership and protection in the same breath.

“She stays,” Lorenzo said, eyes locked with his father’s. “No one touches her. Not Vinnie. Not you. Not the past.”

Don Salvatore studied his son, seeing something rising behind Lorenzo’s eyes: not the boy he’d raised, but a king sharpening himself.

Then, surprisingly, Don Salvatore smiled. A genuine curve, rare as mercy.

“Good,” he said. “A king needs a queen. And this one… this one has claws.”

He turned, voice snapping back into command. “Mobilize. Find Vinnie. Burn everything he owns. Tonight we go to war.”

When he left, the room felt colder and safer all at once.

Sienna’s legs finally betrayed her. She sagged, and Lorenzo caught her, lifting her onto the desk like she weighed nothing.

“You knew the riddle,” he murmured, stepping between her knees. Hands on her thighs, warm and steady. “How?”

“My father taught me,” she admitted, voice small. “He said never forget where you come from. The shadow is always there.”

Lorenzo brushed hair from her forehead. “You don’t have to hide anymore.”

“And your father?” Sienna whispered. “If he finds out…”

“Let him,” Lorenzo said fiercely. “I don’t care if your name is Vitali. You are the only real thing in this city.”

His words weren’t soft. They were dangerous. A promise that could be a cage or a crown.

He leaned in, lips hovering. The air between them crackled with history and hunger and a kind of hope that had no right to exist.

“You saved the king,” he murmured against her mouth. “Now let me save you.”

Sienna closed her eyes.

For ten years she had been running, staying small, staying silent, staying alive.

And now, in the heart of enemy stone, she realized something terrifying and human.

She didn’t want to disappear anymore.

Not if living meant she could choose what kind of bloodline she belonged to: the one that burned houses, or the one that refused cowardice even when hatred would have been easier.

Outside, the Moretti empire prepared for war.

Inside, a waitress who had been a ghost sat on a desk and let herself be seen, not as prey, not as furniture, but as a woman with a voice old enough to stop a room cold.

And if the underworld insisted on crowns, then perhaps the most human victory was this:

Not ruling through fear.

But breaking a cycle so the next generation didn’t have to learn survival in a wine barrel.

Sienna’s fingers curled around the ring at her throat.

The lion and the rose.

An old crest, an old war, and maybe, if they were brave enough, a new ending.

THE END