Siena POV
I walked out of the boardroom, my focus narrowed to the sound of my own footsteps on the marble floor, and headed to the lower levels where my crew of soldiers waited.
They looked at me with hopeful eyes, knowing the blood and sweat we had invested in this route.
"We are done for the day," I told them, my voice devoid of emotion. "Take the night off. All of you."
They exchanged worried glances, sensing the unnatural calm in my demeanor, but they did not push. They nodded and dispersed.
I needed to escape the suffocating walls of the headquarters and the toxic shadow of my husband.
I drove out to the heavily guarded safehouse where my mother, Rosa, lived.
The moment I stepped into her warm, garlic-scented kitchen, I felt the tension in my shoulders begin to uncoil.
But then I saw them.
Stacked neatly on the butcher-block island were ten crates of imported Italian delicacies.
The same brand Lisa had ordered. The same brand Dante gifted.
A cold sickness coiled in my gut as a dark, repressed memory surfaced.
Two years ago, Dante had arrogantly sent a massive shipment of these exact imports to my mother as a gesture of his power. The batch had been tainted—having bypassed standard health inspections due to Dante's notorious impatience—and it had put my mother in the ICU for three terrifying weeks.
I had begged him, tears streaming down my face, never to send them again.
"He sent his men over this afternoon," Rosa said, noticing my rigid posture as she wiped her hands on her apron. "It is a sign of respect from the Underboss, Siena. We cannot refuse his goodwill."
"It is not goodwill," I snapped, the anger finally breaking through my numb exterior. "It is control. He does not care if it hurts you, as long as he appears generous to the world."
Rosa sighed, her worn face reflecting the traditional, enduring submission of a woman raised in the shadows of the mafia.
"He is your husband," she murmured, avoiding my gaze. "He provides. You must overlook his flaws."
I knew I could not argue with such conditioning, so I kissed her cheek and left, the anger inside me solidifying into something cold and sharp.
But as I walked to my car, I looked back at the safehouse, and a single, terrifying question pierced through the numbness: if Dante could weaponize even my mother against me, what else was he capable of taking?
